How would one demonstrate that consciousness resides in or arises from an information processor? Consciousness is proven within the subject. For example, I know that I am conscious as a matter of direct experience and presumably, you do too. However, how would I be able to prove that you are conscious or vis-versa?

Scour them for weaknesses, and then wonder whether your respect of the argument increases or decreases. — Philosophim

Yes, I will do. Now that we have reached this point it is a good time to get a handle on your arguments. However, I won't be able to do so tonight and so before I turn in for this evening, let me share some thoughts about this last post...

I think you're right about the "hole" and perhaps we should have addressed it sooner (although, now may even be the perfect time) - it appears that you and I have both discovered something similar about epistemology which we are wrestling with. Epistemology has been attempted for (at least) thousands of years and it is true that none of the approaches are "airtight"; even if we just examine their foundations. In fact, this common error in philosophy ripples out to all philosophical systems and, as I'm sure that you've found... there's always a hole.

[note: the closest I've ever come to something "airtight" is an appeal to logic/consistency, but even this is not beyond question]

It's in light of this that I would like to present a couple of considerations...
First; we seem to agree that knowledge is a tool. Perhaps we agree that theories of knowledge are tools too. Perhaps, is there a distinction between a "perfect" tool that is never prone to failure and a tool that is as good as it can be but that we must accept will eventually break down?

Secondly; if epistemology has had an open wound after thousands of years after some of the greatest minds in history, is it worth attempting to tackle it in the same way or to achieve the same results, or to try a different approach?

Thirdly; can the very fact that attempts at foundational epistemology continues to fail, and perhaps will always fail, tell us something about the character or makeup of epistemology? Another way of framing this question is that: if we consider the problems of doing epistemology, and blast away a number of our options, are there some parts that we are left with that something can be built out of?

I have my own answers to these questions but it would be good to get yours too and then perhaps we can compare notes. As mentioned, I will try to give your pieces to but can't promise that I will have the time or attention give them a proper reading for a day or two - just so that you're aware of any apparent delay.

As a final question - how far are you happy to carry this conversation on for? I understand that we appear to have been orbiting the centre for some time and haven't done as much "travelling" as we might have liked yet, but there appears to be a LOT more to say. Personally, I'm having a blast with this discussion but it may be a slow burn and so do let me know your thoughts.

See, it's so tricky because on the one hand we can recognise how important your questions are and on the other, despair of answering them. I'm sceptical of whether your approach to epistemology should be taken. Allow me to explain why...

You advise that all parts of the foundational argument be 'pristine'; incontrovertible and that we get our definitions nice and secure before we proceed, but we might wonder whether this can be done...

If the definition of any word is given, that definition can be challenged. Even if the definition appeals to its component parts, those parts can be challenged too. For example, we might try to clarify that truth is "accordance with reality" But! what do "accordance" and "reality" mean? (and, indeed how do we know?). If the game of definitions is a game of words supporting other words we hit a meandering regress. As some point, when you or I or any combination of people are in discussion, we simply have to trust or assume that we know what we are talking about, aware that misunderstanding, as much as doubt, is potentially constant.

What's more, the questions raised present a particularly interesting challenge in the definition game because when we ask:

"If truth is that which is that case, what is the case?" the question that follows is: "Isn't that what we are trying to discover?"

Maybe we can still work with this...
"Truth is that which is the case..."

"Is that which is the case my view of reality?"

"It might be the case that you have your view of reality, but is this the same as saying that the contents of your view of reality reflects that which is the case?; it might be the case that you have your view, but it might not be the case that the contents of that view are indicative of that which is the case."

"What is the case?"

"Good question."

And so, that might be a way to do it, Other alternatives for the definition of truth are "accordance with reality" or "that which is not false." Maybe a better one is "The reality that is the case independently of belief, which a belief may or may not align with" naturally, these aren't perfect.

What are your thoughts? and
Do you have any suggestions for a definition of truth?

Yeah, it's interesting, right? The two do seem to interact and so there is some connection there. That's why the hard question appears to be so weird... on the one hand we experience effects on consciousness due to to changes in biology yet, on the other hand, the "Hard Question" leads to the conclusion that even if you mapped an organism down to the atom, it may well be that one could not say why it is conscious, or even prove that it is, in fact, conscious.

Consider this extract taken from the extended version of the OP:
"First of all, we could posit that just as we don't understand how consciousness is tied to physical reality, we don't understand all of the ways in which the contents of consciousness are tied to physical reality, such as our memory. It might be that our memory is stored in the brain, or it might be that there are aspects to memory that are as ethereal as consciousness that are not tied down to the brain. However, even if we could also consider that this possibility may be very slight given the apparent evidence, and it appears more likely that the memories and other aspects of our physical being that make up our identity will not carry over after death, we could still posit that life possibly carries on after death, but with a different identity. In this manner, you or I would have all but our consciousnesses swapped out for new identities at the point of death.

In this sense, you or I in the sense of who we are now will die. But our lives as-such might carry on. Consider by analogy how it may be as if consciousnesses is like a series of films being played. Once one film ends, the protagonist, characters and world within that film end, and when the next film begins, its cast and universe come into being. Likewise, it may be as if the film of our life ends and an entirely new story beings, but consciousness carries over and there is still life for "us" in the sense that a film is always playing, whether we remember the one before it or not. In any case, this possibility gives an adventurous spin on the cycle of life and death. If we consider a second analogy, it might be as if the cycle is akin to a series of video games in which the characters from one game do not exist to the characters in the next and as for you and I, instead of having our characters, their memory and the progress of the game carried over from one game to the next, it would be like starting with a new character in a new game each time life renews. Again, I am not advocating that this will actually happen, but positing it as another possibility as evidence that mere nothingness after death is far from guaranteed."

What do you reckon?

You have yet to make an argument or to offer anything constructive

That's a fair contention.

Of course, the wedge that we could drive here is to appeal to the "hard question of consciousness". If consciousness was proven to be tethered to biology, there would be a way to prove that consciousness comes to an end at the point of biological death. However, we seem unable to demonstrate the exact connection between biology and consciousness and where, exactly, one is tethered to the other.

What are your thoughts on this?

Unless a thing is established as impossible...IT IS POSSIBLE. — Frank Apisa

I'm not contending this. I am contending the relevance to this post and it is irrelevant. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that an afterlife is possible by definition. Some do regard an afterlife as impossible.

Even if an afterlife were defined as something which is possible or has not been established as impossible, your observation would be tautological: "an afterlife must be possible because it is not impossible" the question would remain: "how do you know?"

That is a redundant observation. What was addressed from the first paragraph of the OP is that the argument is addressed to those who currently regard an afterlife as impossible or, at least, do not recognise the possibility.

These are all important questions to consider and so, please, don't take my not answering them as a dismissal. Instead, please, understand that I would like to take a moment to reign things right back and "catch my breath" so to speak... I've probably over-reached myself with the implications.

Firstly, let me just take a detour to mention some of the other conclusions that I'm working with. One thing worth mentioning is that I don't actually think that epistemology can be a matter of certainties or sureness. I agree that we should take great care, but that even with the greatest care knowledge or "truth" is [almost] never a question of sureness and certainties but a question of likelihoods and best guesses; I regard faith as a philosophical constant (as is doubt). Another thing worth mentioning is that I'm a Witggenstinian when it comes to definitions and regard them as Pragmatic and so I'm cautious about the idea of nailing them down. The relevance of that isn't entirely clear yet but it seems worth mentioning.

Anyway, let's table that just for a moment... What I would like to do just for now is is ask for your patience and re-state the progression above in order to get yours exact views on it:

Working definition: Truth = "That which is the case"

1. If one seeks to find truth must use their reason and their goals as the basic measure for this knowledge (if it is to be a search and is to be comprehensible, this must be so. This is what the foundation of the heuristic demonstrates).

2. If another seeks to find truth it follows that the same must, by necessity, apply to them.

3. Therefore, if two come to seek truth and hold this basic goal in common, their methodology must overlap.

What do you think?

& @schopenhauer1

I fear that we will start irritating each other by moving in circles and so I will attempt to be concise in re-stating my case for why these positions are unconvincing.

The crux of the issue, as you state, is that:

The argument is it is better to avoid creating harm by not giving birth to anyone. Since birth results in unconsented harm. — khaled

And so, allow me to speak to the case for freedom/consent and then to harm.

Regarding freedom:
If we accept that respect for one's freedom is a moral good, we recognise that we are not respecting one's freedom by inflicting a decision upon them which was outside of their consent. The unborn child does not consent to life and thus the giving of life is force against the child's will and therefore a moral infraction.

However, again, a being that does not exist at all has no freedoms whatsoever. Moreover, the argument would lead to no newborns being birthed at all and - eventually - no life or beings who could exist to have any freedoms. Therefore, it appears that the logical conclusion of the argument is to respect the freedom of humans by ensuring that humans are eventually phased out of existence, in which case they will loose all of their other freedoms at the cost of the first freedom being respected. If this is a bit extreme, the same logic applies to the individual alone in which case we conclude that we must respect the freedom of the individual child and, in so doing, remove all other freedoms that the child will ever have. This is different from the case for allowing birth which would require that the initial decision is made without consent in order to allow all other freedoms. Therefore, of the two alternatives, withholding birth seems to ensure the least amount of freedoms to the child.

Regarding harm:
The argument here appears to be that when we have children we actively choose that the child will be in a state of increased suffering relative to the alternative of doing nothing, much like the example of splicing to create suffering. In the case of splicing doing nothing is not splicing and with the case of birth, doing nothing is not giving birth or conceiving. Both of these options produce the more ethical outcome of less harm done to the child.

However, the disagreement here probably stems from axioms shared about harm, life and what it entails. The giving of life is not - in total - simply an act of doing harm to those given life. Instead, the giving of life is the giving of a state in which there is both the potential for the child to be harmed, but also the potential for the child to experience all of the things that might justify the experience of that harm to them including joy and meaning (this distinguished it from the splicing example which was solely to ensure more harm). There may also be a contention about whether the giving of life is the same as inflicting the harm that life entails, but even if we were to take these as morally equal it would still be the case that the deprivation of harm would also be the deprivation of those things that might justify it. Now, of course, it might be the case that the child comes to regard the harm as not ultimately justified, in which case there is the freedom to cancel life in the form of suicide. However, completely depriving the child of life does not allow for this option to exist at all, nor for there to be things in that child's life that ultimately made the suffering worthwhile. If those who give children life are responsible for inflicting the harm done to them, they must also be responsible for the things that justify that harm. The axiom that we may be disagreeing on here is the status of harm or pain or suffering - being such that it is so grievous that it should never be "inflicted" under any circumstances or that it must entail a moral wrong by necessity.

It is for these reasons that I remain unconvinced.

But these are not the same issue. We are comparing existence to non-existence.

However you might frame it, it is still the same that no wrong is done to the child prior to its existence. If malicious genetic splicing is carried out the wrong is not done until it is actualised in a being that exists.

Indeed, we could conclude that genetic splicing is wrong because we can argue that once the child exists it would be better for them to have sight than to be blind.

However, this is not the same as arguing that even if the child is to be born blind it is better that the child never had existed, because the question remains: in what sense is it better for the child to never have existed?

“Non existent beings” is a contradiction in terms. — khaled

Agreed.
Then, again, we circle back to the same point; it does not make sense to posit a state which is better or worse for a being that does not exist. Therefore, there is no wrong done to the child before it is born. What one may be able to argue following from the Antinatalist argument presented above is that a wrong is done to the child at the moment of birth (having its rights then infringed and harm done to it) but at this point we can invoke the other Antinatal argument that once one exists, one may as well carry on. Therefore, no wrong is done to the child prior to existence and at the point of birth, existence is justified such that the child may as well continue it (until such a point that the child may choose to forfeit their own existence).

"We MUST birth others (and thus force others) for them to have other freedoms". This is putting the cart before the horse. — schopenhauer1

But this is precisely why the argument is so strange. Prior to existence, the person does not have any freedoms anyway. Therefore, if the argument is turned back around the position is that we must respect people's freedoms and by doing so, we put them in a situation in which they are never people (for they do not exist) and can never have any freedoms.

Actually it’s not even that existence is worse than non existence but that in order to put someone into existence you will be harming them. And whenever you are about to harm someone explicit consent is required to make that harm ethical. Since that isn’t available here (no one to get it from because they don’t exist) it is effectively not given (since that’s how consent works). — khaled

But what if it was - in fact - better for non-existent being(s) to have a chance to exist? All of the metrics that we use are for being that are already in existence. For example, it doesn't seem plausible to posit a being that can or cannot consent without existence, for it would need existence in the first instance to either give or withhold consent (or indeed, to "have" consent at all). This is why, respectfully, the point appears to stand; there is not a comparison that we can use to judge the two states besides one-another.

We're in agreement here.

That might explain why a belief gains higher traction but that's judging all answers to "how do you know" as being equally valid or convincing. The question demands standards but it does not - by itself - dictate what those standards must be. However, if the question is never asked or is trivialised there are no standards at all.

As a parallel question then, do you differentiate the whimsical god theory from actual physics or do would you regard them ask being equally indicative or truth/knowledge?

Is there a "sweet spot" between the question being asked too much and not being asked enough? On the one hand, if no justification for one's claims are given, any old thing can fly. Then again, as you say, asked insistently it starts to roll-over on itself... what are your thoughts?

Yes. fair enough then - we're in agreement here. This is something that I was also trying to pry into with my question.

Your assumption is that people should be brought into existence at all. — schopenhauer1

This is true and so, fair enough. Allow me to raise a couple of points in response...

Firstly, comparing being to non-being appears to be a difficult comparison to make because if one were to posit "it would have been better for me to not have existed" we could ask: in what sense would it be better for "me" if no "me" existed for it to apply to? We can translate the same reasoning to the question of whether it would have been better for "that person" to have existed or not...

Secondly, there is an assumption about force. True enough, the unborn do not consent to be born, but is there an assumption that freedom is so paramount that it trumps birth? Even if freedom is held to this standard, in what sense would one be free to "do" anything if they were not first born? Therefore, we might be "forced" to be alive at birth, but this would be the necessary precondition to all other freedoms.

Finally, there is an assumption that suffering is simply bad. For example:

David Benatar makes an argument, for example, that preventing birth prevents any harm (which is good), and also prevents benefits (which is neither good nor bad). — schopenhauer1

May I ask you to justify this? Why is not suffering good, yet being in a state which one enjoys merely neutral?

Do I have the read of this correct if I conclude that you're not trying to pose the question as-such for now, but are trying to present it as the question that tethers and judges philosophical discussion as-such?

That nullifies the purpose of any human life at all. All who do and have ever lived were children born capable of suffering. By what standard does this fact alone make it better that they were never born to begin with?

Thanks again for your consistent feedback too - it's highly appreciated.

Okay, so it might be a good idea to answer your questions and then pull back a bit; I've over-reached and so it's a good point to receded.

Let's begin with the questions:

I think a little clarification is needed here. If reason is not a necessary factor in knowledge, how do we separate knowledge from mere belief? We are crafting the definition of knowledge as we go, do you think there is a way to know without reason? — Philosophim

It appears that we have demonstrated that reason is a common factor in all knowledge that is sought, but I'm not sure if the application of reason is required for all knowledge. The main thing that I have in mind is experience. You may refer to my discussion with "Chattering Monkey" above but the idea is that we can know the direct contents of experience merely by experiencing it (if there is an experience of pain I know that there is an experience of pain). What we can then doubt and require our reason to discern (actively) is whether that pain is connected to anything beyond the experience itself and is "real" or not, etc. It might be that reason is required for us to have experience as-such (with a Kantian epistemology for example) but that isn't demonstrated at this juncture. And so, it seems plausible that we can have some passive knowledge without the use of reason.

Can you also clarify what you mean by "maximal set of goals"? What if I have a very simple goal in science, but a very complex set of goals in my religion? Further, what about the importance of goals to myself? "What could be a more important goal than serving God?" for example? Finally, what about a person who has many complex goals versus thousands of people who have simple goals, but gain complexity in how they work among themselves? — Philosophim

There is a difference between one's belief about what is true/ their knowledge allowing a set of goals and demanding it. Perhaps the answer would be that whether a Muslim farmer and a Christian farmer were both living their simple lives with few questions, it would be the one who's beliefs that allows the more complex life to be lived that would be the most indicative of the truth. This is so because this would be the belief system which is more applicable to reality and allows the most goals to be realised (as opposed to merely posited or pursued). We might contend that if both Christians and Muslims are having their goals served by their beliefs, this demonstrates that they both possess knowledge of the truth - and this is the case, to a point. However, if the question that you, and I and the farmers could pose is: which one is actually/ultimately true? We might reflect that the farmers do not have knowledge of the answer to this question, but simply have faith in it.

In addition, consider how complex an apparently "simple" goal might be...
"to serve God" seems simple. Yet, if we consider all that this entails, this might require nothing less than trying to understand Him to the best of our ability (the most complex thing of all) and live in accordance with His will as well as His world.

What do you mean by relativism in this case? Do you mean the ability to relatively define one's context, or relatively apply this context to reality? — Philosophim

No, I think definitions can be "relative" (although, recall how they are bounded). It's the relativism that holds that truth is non-absolute; being merely relative to the subjective perspective or even relative to culture. Now, of course we can account for the differences in conclusions that appear to be indicative of this non-absolute truth, especially when we judge our knowledge against our goals but, of course, the "bounding" effect that we have been discussing makes all of the difference. In this sense, our individual enquiries appear to reveal different and unique areas on the same absolute map (although, being unique we might take this different areas to prove relativism). Whereas, relativism would posit that there is a truly unique map for each person - this does not appear to be so.

This is a nice thought, but people do not work this way. If both people have different definitions and goals in the beginning, not to mention different sensing capabilities (blind versus sight) they can both use reason within these definitions and goals, and obtain different conclusions... — Philosophim

I'm going to hold-off on my claims about this for a bit.

---

Now for the pull-back...

You appear convinced of my case for the search of knowledge from a "self-subjective" viewpoint which is a good start, but I must contend with it because it appears that we can demonstrate that if the foundation is correct, there must be a bridge beyond this.

Therefore, consider this progression:
1. If one seeks knowledge they must use their reason and their goals as the basic measure for this knowledge (if it is to be a search and is to be comprehensible, this must be so. This is what the foundation of the heuristic demonstrates).

2. If another seeks knowledge the same must, by necessity, apply to them.

3. Therefore, if two come to seek knowledge and hold this basic goal in common, their methodology must overlap.

My aim at this point is to double-check whether you think that all stages of this argument are necessary and if not, why not... from there, perhaps we can attempt to build up.

Also, I'm re-considering the idea of making the argument about a search for "Truth" as opposed to "Knowledge". I'm beginning to find "Knowledge" just as confusing as "Truth" because the latter appears to entail the former. For example, "Knowledge" may be defined as "Understanding what is True" - we imply it with that quality of being "right" which entails truthfulness. And "Truth" may be defined as "That which is the case"; "That which is so" or, at least, "That which is not-false"...

The earlier confusion might have come from the notion that my argument or the tools of reason and goals dictate what the truth is, instead of simply being those tools that allow us to discover what we can of it if we search for it - with the idea of the search being vital to the role of the defition of Truth within the overall argument.

What are your thoughts?

Where is the line drawn?

I believe that the potential for an afterlife can be demonstrated logically and have attempted to do so if you are interested:
(Not too long)

In writing:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/a-reflection-on-death

Audio:
https://youtu.be/r4er2P0B05g

Right - Good - and so,

It appears that using logic and use as the measures of knowledge achieve a number of things:

1. It directly tethers the use of reason (which is adherence to logic) to our attempts to seek knowledge. Of course, this alone does not demonstrate that reason is a necessary factor in all possible knowledge, but it does necessitate that reason be adhered to in the search for any knowledge that is comprehensible because this is what ensures that we disavow contradictions.

2. It creates the question: "can we live as if X is true?" (especially in relation to Y and Z). this is to say, treating the heuristic as the foundation forces us to regard our potential beliefs about what we know by the extent to which they can be lived by - which is a simple way of testing our claims or even systems of knowledge.
For example:
"Can we live as if science provides us with knowledge?" if not, what aims does this limit, and if so, what does this allow?
"Can we live as if science and this particular religion are true?" if not, why not? Moreover, if treating science as the provider of knowledge allows us to pursue Y set of goals, and if treating religion as a provider of knowledge allows us to pursue Z set of goals, which one takes priority and why? OR is there a way of conceptualising both science and religion and their relation to each other that allows for the pursuit of both Z and Y goals?
Using the heuristic, we can determine that of the three options (science, religion or both) the one that allows for the maximal set of goals is the most likely to provide us with knowledge of reality because the one that can allow for the maximal set of goals to be pursued is the most applicable to reality.

Another way to phrase this is that the conception of our knowledge which is the most accurate is that which is the most applicable; being that which allows for the largest network of aims to be pursued at once.

2 [extra]. The network of goals that relativism allows to be pursued appears to be extremely small which we can use as a contrast. The network of goals that genuine relativism allows one to pursue is relegated to the ability to define or re-frame things in any way. However, the practising relativist will find that these goals are constrained solipsistically to their own psyche and reasoning abilities alone, and that this "network" does not extend beyond this, instead being contained by external factors - known or unknown. (one may redefine "water" however they like, but this will not allow sand to satiate their thirst).

3. The heuristic might serve to create a direct unity between our search for knowledge and the living of life itself (I'd be tempted to say that it unites epistemology with ethics). Philosophy is often disregarded as ethereal , merely academic and not practical. Yet, once we recognise the necessity of the heuristic as the starting point we have a direct way of relating what we know to how we live. Therefore, not only does philosophy become practical, but the practical becomes philosophical. Nor would this be a mere fancy. The fact of this is necessary if we understand the necessary relationship between these two things - which is a relationship demonstrated in the rationale for the heuristic itself because it unites reason (being philosophical) to decisions (being practical).

It also creates the possibility for us to demonstrate that, if two people are seeking the truth and therefore adhere to reason as their initial goal, it must follow that they will necessarily reach the same conclusions, provided that they are exposed to the same information. I believe that this relates to point 2. However, I need a bit more time to think through this intuition before presenting a case for it.

And so, I know that I'm making a reach with some pretty grand claims here which makes this a good point to stop if you have any questions to ask about any of this. In fact, it may be a good place to call on @tim wood again to get a few hammer blows in. There are surely some large leaks in this hull, so let's get them boarded up.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

All the best.

Yes, you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them. But reality does not necessitate that I desire to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them. — Philosophim

Good. I agree with your arguments in this post and think that this is an ideal place to follow onto one of the implications that I wanted to talk about: namely, the way in which our aims do or do not overlap will shape what we can or cannot know. Moreover, that our goals form into "networks" and that these networks can exclude other networks. This may reveal even more of the "big picture".

Let's see if we can make this a progression of the heuristic...
[adherence to consistency as a measure of knowledge is constant]
We also measure our knowledge by use/relation to our goals. This is done in a number of ways:
a) Our goals set the criteria for our enquiry and therefore act as proto-epistemological standards,
b i) The goals available for us to pursue is limited which is another limiting factor on our potential knowledge
b ii) We may posit a goal, presuming that it can be pursued, but in the process of pursuing it, find that this cannot be so.

Simple example:
You posit the goal of flying; therefore, your enquiry is to learn how to fly and you will consider this knowledge to be acquired once you can - say - fly with a sheer force of will (after attempting for 10 days). Hence, positing a goal sets the bounds of the enquiry, but does not guarantee its results. In fact, if you keep your criteria constant, you find that you cannot fly with sheer will of the mind within 10 days.

Result: you know that the claim "I can fly by sheer will of mind" is false. This belief is a poor candidate for knowledge because it is not applicable to reality - the test of which is your implementation of the belief vis-a-vis your decisions.

Therefore, to learn what reality does allow you might change your criteria. For example, you might change the criteria from "with sheer will of mind" to "with the assistance of helicopters" and you find that you can in fact get on a helicopter and fly within 10 days. The claim "I can fly by use of helicopters within 10 days" is affirmed.

---

Now, let's extend this by bringing the goal out of isolation...
Goal A: "To fly by use of helicopter"
Goal B: "To regard helicopters as four-legged mammals"

Here we have exclusionary goals because you might be able to pursue either one of these goals, but you cannot pursue both goals at once. As such we find that we know that we can fly by use of helicopters (and use this as knowledge) or that we can regard helicopters as four-legged mammals (and use this as knowledge) but we cannot know both things at once.

Here's where I'm trying to go with this...
Consider how, if you were the only being in the world and you only had one goal and only ever one goal at a time, you could claim all kinds of things as knowledge because you would have relatively few constraints on what you set as your criteria. For example: cannot fly by force of will? Then why not re-define "flying" as walking on the ground? True enough, you would still find that reality does not allow your mind to put you in the air, but you could still come away from this thinking that "I know that I can fly" because of this criteria. Therefore, does this not allow for easy abuse of the heuristic and make it messy when it comes to epistemology?

I would posit that this is not so if we recognise that if goals were ever isolated they would be trivial and irrelevant, but they are never isolated. Moreover, once they network, notice how quickly that constrain what we can or cannot regard as knowledge. If you wanted to know whether helicopters were four-legged animals or not, what standard of knowledge would you use to correct this if this was truly your only goal? However, once you need to use a helicopter to fly, or need to form military strategy or need to talk to an average person about helicopters, these goals limit what we can know about helicopters.

Indeed, consider how the goal of "making things comprehensible" immediately brings in logic and rules out all contradictions and even all goals that require us to accept contradictions for these exact reasons.

And so, I think that this might be a way to demonstrate how the heuristic - this way or measuring knowledge by use and logic - can be a correction to nonsense and relativism when put to full application.

For example: a man says "I am a woman" and he may in fact "know" that he is a woman if making the claim was all that there was to it. Yet, we proceed to consider: how does this man actually know that he is a woman? He knows that he can make the claim, and perhaps even that he can believe it, but can he believe this and lactate at the same time? Or can he live by this and become pregnant at the same time? In the course of this, we might find that the man can label himself as one "type" of woman (in appearance perhaps) but find that he cannot be another type of woman - i.e. a biological one. Therefore, the man is left to consider exactly what he knows about what women can or cannot be. Indeed, all of us are left to consider what we can or cannot claim to know if some of our aims exclude others from being applicable and thereby, when we discover what we can or cannot claim to know as we trying to pursue multiple goals at once.

It appears that when we apply the heuristic and measure our knowledge by logic and use, we discover that "reality" which stands beyond the heuristic has a "stripping-down" effect, by means of which, as we continue to live life and think about it in more detail, we progressively discover what reality does or does not allow which reveals more and more of what we know about it; the network of peoples aims as it is limited by reality progressively sculpts their knowledge (IF they are actively seeking knowledge)

What are your thoughts on this?

While our process for obtaining knowledge can be defined by logic and avoiding contradictions, this does not necessitate that our knowledge is actual truth. — Philosophim

Yes, precisely so. Which now makes me wonder how we use our methodologies and to what end. Likewise, it makes me wonder exactly what the heuristic does...

There are at least two things that I would like to address in turn:

1. We have a set bound (we are certain of what we cannot know) and this tells us what must not be true or, at least, what we must be unable to know. Yet, once this bound is set, the question of absolute certainty/objectivity remains open.

2. The type of knowledge that we will find will depend on what we are trying to achieve. Therefore, we should be cognisant of our aims.

Let's start with the first point. What the heuristic does is it [hopefully] creates a bedrock that the search for knowledge must be based on. We cannot seek to know a contradiction, nor can we know beyond the parameters of our aims - both positions are senseless and so, in effect, they set the boundary of our pursuit. However, this boundary alone does not determine that what we will come to know within these bounds will ever be certain or "objective" knowledge that aligns fully with the truth. Now, as you say, our beliefs or proposed knowledge may or may not align with the truth once we work within these bounds, but the question of how we would know whether this is the case appears to be the question at hand... we have the bedrock. Now, how would we build up to alignment with "truth" from that bedrock? Which requires a methodology or technique of building. I'm wondering whether the heuristic can lay the foundation and build...

I think that's saying too much, strictly speaking. The heuristic contains a set of mutually-supporting axioms. The way that we would "build" knowledge with the heuristic alone would be by re-relating these axioms and drawing the relevant conclusions/deductions (which I may demonstrate with the "implications" of the heuristic). Otherwise, it does not so much "build" but sort and support our knowledge by showing us what the shape of our thinking is and what must be rejected. And so, let's consider your example:

Lets go back to the example of our person who traveled to the South pole while thinking that they were going to the North Pole. Recall the GPS knows they are actually at the South pole. Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole? — Philosophim

What's the relevance?

With nothing else to go on but the heuristic, all that we can know about the traveller's knowledge of his destination cannot be contradictory (he cannot know that he is at both poles at once) and that his criteria for knowing that it is true that he is at one pole or the other will determine his criteria for achieving that understanding. "Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole?" well, if he were the only man on earth, but what standard could he differentiate "North" from "South"? If his goal was simply "to take me where the GPS leads" the distinction would be arbitrary. Yet, if he had seen a globe, pointed to the top and thought "I wanted to go there" that changes things. And then the man needs to ask himself "how will I know that I will get there?" of course, he chooses to use the GPS. Therefore, his goal and criteria: "I will travel North and judge that I have done so with the GPS"
And then, the GPS takes him South, lying that it is taking him North. Once he reaches the South Pole his belief is "I have used the GPS and this has taken me to the North Pole" - does he know this? Well, technically, whilst awaiting confirmation he only knows that he has followed his GPS and if to follow his GPS were his only criteria he would know that he had followed it and that this were the end of the matter. However, once he employed a second source of information and found that the information of his GPS contradicted that of a map or a globe, he would conclude that he did not know "I have used the GPS and this has taken me to the North Pole" and that this belief was wrong: it did not fulfil his criteria; he could not put this belief into action for the end of achieving his goal. Now, if his goal was simply "To reach a place that I have decided is North..." that would be a different matter.

I'm not sure if this is making sense - I'm thinking through this as I go. Yet, I suppose the point is that, the heuristic is effective but its application pushes us to fully examine exactly what goals we have and what they entail:
"Is my destination defined externally or individually?" etc. Or, if we were to unpack the traveller's goals, there might be two potential variations:
a) "To travel North, being a location seen on a map and agreed upon by my peers (that a GPS may or may not lead me to, but I will use as my indicator)", OR

b) "To travel North, being the location defined by my GPS"

Therefore, two goals that seem the same have different criteria and different standards by which one would know that they have fulfilled it.

Therefore, in answer to your question: "Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole?" The answer is: yes if the goal is

"To travel North, being the location defined by my GPS"

but if the goal is "To travel North, being a location seen on a map and agreed upon by my peers (that a GPS may or may not lead me to, but I will use as my indicator)" - the man does not know using his GPS alone.

Great example to use - really interesting. I may return to this later.

---

Anyway, let's get on to the second point; which is an extension of the first...

2. The type of knowledge that we will find will depend on what we are trying to achieve. Therefore, we should be cognisant of our aims...

Hopefully I've demonstrated how this applies in a practical case, but I wanted to loop it back on our general enquiry into epistemology. After all, we're asking questions such as "what is truth?" and "how do we know?" and it is worth considering: "by what point is our enquiry satisfied?"

I raise this point because I often see it as a mistake in philosophy to presume that the quest for "truth" is for "absolute certainty" or knowledge that cannot be doubted and this often seems to be an axiom that is tucked-into discussions of epistemology.

Consider this:
The heuristic holds that we measure knowledge in relation to our aims. But also note that it holds that we cannot simply have any aim. As such, our limited aims appear to reveal what reality does or does not allow in the way of what our aims can be or what can or cannot be pursued.

Now, consider this...
What makes us presume that "absolute certainty" is something that can be pursued? That is, to nail-down what knowledge must be beyond doubt or to get our beliefs in perfect alignment with reality? @Tim Wood and I touched on this topic above in relation to Godel et al. There is reason to believe that truth is like a bar of soap that, when we grip our hardest, slips right through our fingers. What I'm trying to get at is that it might be the case that reality as-such does not allow the goal of being "absolutely certain" to be fulfilled. Or, perhaps we could re-frame the issue... we need to define truth, but we can ask whether this definition is the "true" definition... how certain does reality allow us to be about our definitions? Indeed, how certain does it allow us to be about our knowledge and that it mirrors "the Truth"? If we presume that reality allows us to be completely certain, we might be functioning under a false-goal in the pursuit of truth and, therefore, would be no more be able to find the truth than we would be able to travel North and not-North at the same time.

And so, to tie the two points together, the question for you to consider would be:
You are trying to find knowledge, but what exactly are your parameters for this?
What model or approach to epistemology can we actually pursue and actually live by?
I think we've already found some agreement here.

---

Finally, sorry to give a short response to your extended discussion on definitions, but simply put: I agree.

To your point, we cannot have a relative methodology of applying our distinctions to reality, but we can have relative distinctions, or definitions. — Philosophim

Exactly. My only contention would be when you say:

I can define, and accept as a definition from others in my mind by my choice. There is nothing in reality that necessitates I do otherwise. — Philosophim

This is contingent. Reality appears to determine that you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialogue with them.

---

There's a lot more to say, but let's touch-base first. I'll jump into more of the implications once there's a bit more room to. It was a bit of a ramble tonight but hopefully there's a decent thread running through which is of some interest or value. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sorry for the slow reply, it's been a busy couple of days.

Excellent. You've made the case for replacing "knowledge" with "truth" very well. Indeed, it has been demonstrated on this discussion and elsewhere that framing the heuristic as a tool for finding "truth" has been the greatest mistake for many of the reasons that you've outlined; "truth" has that static, objective, definitive connotation to it which I'm not trying to determine. Instead, the goal is to draw a line around our understanding or what we can "know" - as you say. Therefore, I agree with your argument and will proceed to replace "truth" with "knowledge" as I revise my work.

The first point that I might contend is that the approach that I've suggested only regards the self-subjective viewpoint. The reason for this is that, if the approach was merely subjective, it would follow that the subject can determine their knowledge, but this appears to not be the case because what the subject can or cannot know is bounded and those bounds do not appear to be set by the subject, but by something beyond them (otherwise, another subject might be able to exceed them). These bounds are of course what we have been discussing: that the subject cannot know anything (sensibly) that is contradictory, nor can they know anything that is not in some way parameterised by their goals. Therefore, we might conclude that the individual knowledge is unique to the subject, but that these parameters apply across subjects, such that they are objective.This is why we might wonder whether, although the actual set of knowledge would be unique to each person, the limits or bounds on what these possible sets can be tells us something about the objective nature of things or reveal something about "truth" as such... what are your thoughts on this?

Also, I will extend from this a note of scepticism about whether one's "truth" can truly come into conflict with another's if they are bounded by the same criteria. It might be that combinations of "truth"/knowledge are compatible, but if they are in fact at odds, being bounded by the same criteria, one's knowledge must be more indicative of the truth than the other's.

Another question about your definition of knowledge... why is it the methodology that you define as knowledge? I'm not sure that I disagree yet, but would like to clarify.

---

Also, can you clarify what you mean by:

"A deduction as defined here will be "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce.""?

My go-to rebuttal was to point out that new information can change the outcome such as
"all swans are black" therefore,
"the next swan that I will see will be black"

[contradicted by the sight of a white swan],

but if the fact that the deduction is "open" to new information what renders it an induction? I.e. the deduction must lead to the conclusion if the premises are fixed?

---

Your point about the communal nature of definitions is very interesting (and useful) - I think that I am inclined to agree. Moreover, it may allow us to extend the heuristic to social contexts and see if it applies...

What we could posit is that the same principles of the heuristic apply directly over to a social context. The question is the extent to which there is common enterprise. To being with, if a group of 3 are trying to learn anything new, they must adhere to logic (exclude contradiction) for reasons that we have established. If the 3rd member of the group does not adhere to logic, they can only offer nonsense and no new knowledge and therefore must be excluded from the enterprise if members 1 and 2 are seeking knowledge. Hopefully, you can see why this exclusion must happen, practically by default; the goal to pursue logic (and sense) of the first two and the rejection of it by the 3rd makes the two sets of goals mutually exclusive and they cannot possibly be pursued at once. Hence, just as one man cannot pursue contradictory goals, neither can they exist within a group without a break. In so far as goals that are apparently contradictory can be pursued at once this demonstrates that they are not, in fact, contradictory.

Now, once adherence to logic is in place, when we ask what the members of the group will know or understand, the question is of what they are trying to achieve - this will dictate what models of knowledge they can or cannot employ. We can use your argument about definitions here:

Since its you and I at this point, a [[b]definition of[/b]] deduction for both of us will be a conclusion that neither of us can contradict with the information at hand. In including more people, we make it more difficult to deduce, but can be more hopeful that it is exposed to more "potential contradictions" then you or I alone could throw at it. — Philosophim

...

Deduction can mean "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce." if you and I agree that it is a useful definition for our current purpose of allowing us to do philosophy. Now, this definition is currently under discussion because there is a question as to whether it will serve this purpose. Moreover, there is a further question as to whether we do share exactly the same goal and this will change our approach to it too, but assuming that our aims are the same, this will move us to agree on a definition that helps us serve our mutual purpose. Now, suppose a third person came in and had a completely different goal; say, the two of us were doing philosophy and this man is doing accounting. Now, he may contend that "deduction" has nothing to do with conclusions, but to do with how some figures on the accounts are taken away from others. In so far as his goal is separate from ours, the knowledge of what the word "deduction" means does not overlap. However, once the man shares our enterprise, the definition can be mutually understood by all three of us.

The point is that our goals are still driving our knowledge and setting its parameters, but the overlap of our knowledge will depend on the degree to which our goals are shared and, therefore, the extent to which our parameters are shared. Yet, again, whatever we agree that a definition means it is not merely relative, because if it is the case that we cannot simply have any goal, we also cannot have any common enterprise. "Bridge" might mean any number of things, but if we are all coming together to build across water, it cannot mean "a bird with two wings". Likewise, even if we are all trying to get rich, we cannot simply define money into existence as "that which we have tons of" - if our shared goals is to "define gold into existence" - we find that the goals that we are able to pursue is bounded.

Perhaps we could build upon the heuristic and consider whether the ways in which sets of societal goals can or cannot overlap (setting the bounds to its knowledge) might give us an indication of what objective truth is?

---

At this juncture, there are a number of places we could move into. Of course, I would like to get your response and thoughts on what has been said but there are also a number of places that we can take the heuristic. As of now, I have laid the rationale for its foundation but there are further implications of the model that I would like to discuss, such as "how goals form networks and how goals exclude one another (what does this tell us?)". Let me know what you think.

P.S. if you are this investing into the discussion and my approach to this extent, may I point you to the rest of my work? I have written out the full rationale for my argument and have also recorded it to be listened to if that is a preferable medium. I neither demand nor expect you to look at it, but if it would be of interest it can be listened to here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjS6qZoTZY&list=PLbDtyFJTYCEQikJoTqYycbae8LfqY1Efp

and read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/blog/categories/the-philosophy-project
(posts progress from bottom to top)

Great stuff. This is clear an well-structured thinking. Admittedly - of course - I cannot comment on all of it and I'm unsure which parts to comment on.

And so, let's pause for a second... we both seem to be in agreement that the issue at hand is the question of understanding what may be true, which is the question of what we know. And then, it appears to be that we are both concerned with how we know what we know...

My basic argument has been that if we are actively pursuing knowledge we have two basic criteria for judging what we know that are necessary from the outset and that these criteria are:
1. Judging knowledge by its usefulness (as it relates to our goals) and
2. Judging knowledge by its consistency (as it adheres to logic/reason).

Now, in addition to this we seem to share a similar take on the negative approach to knowledge. We've only mentioned this in relation to logic (if something is inconsistent it is definitely not true), but this can be extended to usefulness (if something cannot be put to use it is also not true). Yet, this approach does not ensure what must be true, but at least determines what must not be true.

I posit that this is the best we can hope for as a starting point of epistemology, or it may even be considered a heuristic for proto-epistemology because I believe that this is the point that we must start from the moment the enquiry commences, prior even to any formal epistemology.

For this reason, I think I can now give some comments to your work as it branches off from this point. For example, I agree with everything that you say about beliefs but I wonder if "Any discussion of knowledge must begin with beliefs." and why this must be the case. Moreover, is it the discussion of knowledge that must begin like so, or our understanding of it?

And so, perhaps to start us off, I could begin by asking whether you would agree with my basic argument as it has been summarised here or whether you have any questions, and then ask if you may respond to the initial comments about your stance on the knowledge and the beginnings of discussing it?

If we are trying to establish what we can or cannot know, it would be good to determine whether we already agree on the groundwork to be built up from or whether the groundwork requires further discussion. Moreover, I believe that if my argument is correct, there are implications for our understanding of knowledge that one can build up to from it and it could be interesting to compare these implications with your own work, which may either be another potential groundwork or could contain arguments that can be built up from and/or compliment the heuristic.

I look forward to your response.

Fair enough. My intention was to reply to @Philosophim next, but just before I do so, allow me to make one more point. You say:

"

Another point! it all seems to point back the the trueness of the true, Which path, traveled enough, becomes dizzying. — tim wood

At risk of sounding like a broken record, I think that this problem can once again be addressed by an appeal to the constraints that goals put on our enquiry. Indeed, an enquiry can become dizzying without bounds, but what is to say that the enquiry is determined to be boundless? Allow me to copy in an example that I wrote in one of my essays which might speak to the issue and clarify exactly what I think goals do to our enquiry(s):

"Let’s say that a man is hungry. He is no philosopher, nor a scientist, nor does he have any explicit concern for finding the truth. Nonetheless, he wants to get some food: that is his goal. As a result, he goes on his way to find food.

He starts to put a meal together and checks the ingredients: do they smell unpleasant? Do they show any strange colouration? And the like. Upon finding no issue with the ingredients he cooks and enjoys his meal, marking the end of this enquiry.

Now, it may not even seem as if there was an enquiry but the man still had to discern whether it was true or not that he could cook his meal; even if they were implicit, he was judging ideas such as “this ingredient is edible and safe to eat” to be either true or false. Ultimately, the meal is cooked and the question that was framed by the goal: “is this meal edible?” was answered “yes” by the time that the man sat down to eat it.

There are at least two considerations to take from this example.

The first is that when the man regards the meal to be edible, he is regarding the claim that the idea is true enough to satisfy his goal. Why is this the case instead of the claim that the meal is edible in some absolute sense? The answer is that we can ask what would make something absolutely edible: is it a question of our being able to eat it? We can eat sand at a push and so why is that not on the radar? Is it a question of serving one’s good health? Then we could ask what exactly we mean by “health” and whether the ingredients are or are not healthy. Yet, these considerations were not in the man’s purview. Instead, his goal was to satisfy his hunger.

However, despite the fact that the enquiry did not include a concern for the true definition of “edible” or “health”, it did include some other enquiries: the food may not be absolutely “healthy” but it at least had to not be rotten, which is why the man checked for colour and smell. This brings us to the second consideration that we can take from this example which is that a given enquiry into the truth is not only parameterised by a main goal, but also by a number of sub-goals. If we break down the man’s enquiry, we find that yes, the goal was to “eat edible food to satisfy hunger” but this goal also included sub-goals such as:

· The ingredients cannot smell foul and

· The ingredients cannot show strange colouration

And there may be a number of other implicit goals which set the criteria for when the man will regard that it is “true enough” that his meal is good to eat and he can achieve his goal.

The key point is that what the example demonstrates is that a given goal sets and constrains our truth-seeking by determining what we will or will not be willing to accept as “true” and the lengths that we go to in this search will depend on what we are trying to achieve."

No problem if you have nothing left to add, and thanks for what you have added so far. Of course, if you have any more thoughts that occur to you, they will be good to here.

Finally, I don't expect this to be read, but if you do happen to want a fuller version of my argument you can read the progression of it here (the argument progresses from the bottom post to the top):

tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/blog/categories/the-philosophy-project

All of which can be listened to here:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCdea60D2yKm4FFAFr5IbpuA

Thank you

I like this take on what philosophy is and what it is aiming at. What I found of particular interest what your assertion that:

But here also many who are not willing, those who just want to rant and are oblivious or hostile to argument or even sense. Those agenda-driven whose methods are mainly Prucrustean; Trumpian who insist their nonsense is sense and have zero interest in real sense; — tim wood

...

Indeed. But I suppose that you find such people to be similarly closed to a clarification of philosophy or an appeal to common modes of conduct such as you've made? And so I was wondering, on the one hand, who this kind of clarification was aimed at and, on the other, how you tend to approach those who are such as you have described?

It's probably worth me noting from the outset that I am probably less well educated than you might presume, considering how your arguments are framed. I'm flattered for example that you assumed that I am readily familiar with Godel's discoveries (I know of his work in fairness) but this is not so. Nor am very familiar with talking philosopher in "numerical" terms such as

~T is defined as the compliment of T in E. Given any subset of false propositions in ~T, called F, he showed you can construct a proposition that is false but not in F, therefore in ~T. — tim wood

etc.

In light of which I apologise if I haven't understood your argument fully and I also humbly ask that you simplify some of you arguments as we proceed. In any case, I will try my best to offer a response...

To begin with, it's probably worth re-framing the heuristic as "A Heuristic for Seeking Knowledge" instead of "A Heuristic for Seeking The Truth"

And then, let's wind things back for a moment...

First of all, we can recognise that Godel et al or Emil Post, have to assume logic for their arguments to be sensible in the first instance. Now, the problem appears to be that if the logic is taken far enough down particular avenues, logic can cancel-out its own truth-value on its own terms.

Okay, so could we make a distinction between saying that adherence to logic [being adherence to the Laws of Thought] is necessary for seeking an understanding of knowledge that makes any sense, and saying that if such an understanding is to be sought, logic must be carried through to its final conclusion? This is a reason why goals could act as another "tether" for logic in the pursuit of knowledge because they determine the point at which the enquiry itself will or will not end and what methods of enquiry are compatible with one-another. Given this, I will still posit the the methods of enquiry: relevance to goals and adherence to logic remain constant.

Allow me to justify...

Let's suppose that Godel or Emil Post have the aim within mathematics:
"To use logic to demonstrate that a proposition can at once be true and not true"

Now, this requires adherence to logic because logic is required for this very demonstration. Moreover, this is relevant to their goals in so far as they find that "reality" is such that it allows us to posit propositions that are true and not true within mathematics - that is, this goal can be pursued; Godel/Emil Post can live as if this is so/true. Moreover, I might ask that once this is done, and logic demonstrates that these propositions that are at once true and not, can they be taken any further and be put to any potential use or is this simply a demonstration of the point at which logic implodes/hits its own limits?

In any case, adherence to logic and relevance to goals are part of this narrow branch of enquiry, but I might ask whether, when we zoom out, we can treat propositions as at once true or false when we pursue any of our others goals ("I need a cup of tea, but tea is at once tea and not tea" or "I need to head north, but north is not north in any sense at all..."). Again, we might not be able to pursue logic to its limits in pursuit of these aims, but we also cannot do away with logic (which would have the same effect). As such, it is interesting to note what this reveals about the world in which we live. I hope this demonstrates the point.

Finally, I liked your analogy... "Underwear at least" indeed. But let's be clear... I'm not saying that people must wear anything at all - they can choose to remain undressed and remain exposed to the weather - and that weather is that of raw nonsense/ignorance. I'm not going to - indeed, I'm not sure if one can - dictate or demonstrate that one must get dressed. Instead, the purpose of the argument is for those who say "I want to get dressed..." to which the reply appears to be "okay, if you want to get dressed you must wear underwear at least" and, as we try on our clothes, we find that if we want to keep out of the storm, we cannot simply wear anything

P.S. I respect the analogy of the bullet-hole now that you've explained it. Admittedly I initially took it as a slight as if you were accusing me of merely, lazily defining my own way into "Truth" but I see it differently now.

I think I'd like to respond by addressing experience as well as a semantic issue/mistake that I may have made with logic...

Let's start with experience.

I guess I'd just advise you then to be aware of the fact that you are attempting to (re)create a heuristic that is competing with an organ that has evolved for millions of years and serves a similar purpose (among other things). — ChatteringMonkey

I have to respectfully disagree because although our experience is an organ that does inform us, it is not the same as a tool that does the work of an explicit search for an understanding of the truth. The explicit search appears to require the heuristic in addition to experience, even if experience does provide us with direct truth. Allow me to explain...

If experience gave us a direct feed of truth, we would simply passively receive the truth through our experience. However, if we were to search for the truth, we could not and would not be in a state of passive reception, but in an active state of seeking. Once we are in this active state, the reference to our goals becomes a necessary element for the reasons stated above but, in brief, we can recognise that the search is a goal itself and that the activity of the search is carried out in relation to the goal's end. Now, one may point out that we can choose what we experience, yet we are still drawing on experience to inform us. This may be so, but if active choosing is entailed, experience alone cannot do the work of a truth-seeking heuristic because it is the choosing that makes it an active endeavour, whereas the experience alone will simply make it passive. Merely experiencing is passive, but once we seek the truth, the endeavour is rendered active. If the endeavour is active, it appears that concern for our goals and adherence to logic/consistency is necessary, whereas I am unsure whether experience is necessary in the same way.

Moreover, what has been said of experience and its relevance to the heuristic has been assuming that experience is a direct feed to truth, which we can contend with. Now, on the one hand, experience is a direct proof of the certainty of experience itself. For example, the experience of a blue ball is certain proof that there is an experience of a blue ball. In this sense, we cannot doubt that there is the experience as-such, but what we can doubt (and what we need to discern for its truth-value) is whether the experience is giving us information of any significance beyond this. For example, you see a pink elephant in a room...

If we translate this experience into words you have at least two ways that you can interpret it:
1. "There is a pink elephant in the room" and
2. "I am having an experience of a pink elephant in the room"

Now, experience alone can only affirm the second interpretation (and indeed, it cannot be doubted). However, experience alone cannot tell you whether there is, in fact, a pink elephant in the room. To figure this out, a number of other criteria would have to be invoked to determine whether this is so. Indeed, we may even need to figure out which criteria we could use. What I would posit is that, at the very least, we require logic to make sense of the question because without logic we could suppose that "There is a pink elephant in the room and also not a pink elephant in the room at the same time and in the same sense" which is nonsensical. And so, if the question is: "is there, or isn't there?" logic must be invoked. Secondly, relevance to our goals is necessary because the goals frame the enquiry and, aside from this I would also posit that we use our goals to test whether particular interpretations can be lived by... can you live as if there is a pink elephant in the room? This criteria may help you discern whether you are hallucinating or not (or, perhaps even to determine how "real" a hallucination is).

As for your points about logic directly, I agree and think that they show that I've made a semantic mistake. I have been using logic to refer to the faculty that adheres to the Laws of Thought which allows us to track things such as identity and consistency when, in fact, this faculty is reason; its just that reason is the faculty that does logic. However, this use of reason is distinct from formal "logic" which is more commonly understood as the system of testing claims for their validity. This form of logic, as you say, does apply to language, whereas as I am unsure whether the faculty of reason must solely apply to language and our claims. I would therefore consider replacing "logic" with "reason" or its use in my work. Does this seem fair?

Yes. Yes you have everything correct. I would not criticise your summary of my argument so much as clarify and build upon it...

To begin with (and as I mentioned in another response above) it is not so much that

truth is merely the outcome of whatever we place into our goal. — Philosophim

but instead it is that our understanding of the truth will be determined by whatever we place into our goals. You're right to say that I am not speaking about a universal truth (directly) but here is - I think - the interesting bit... if universal truth is such that it only allows for the existence of particular goals to be pursued, then we can backtrack from the selection of our available goals to decipher what universal "Truth" or "reality" might be, by recognising what this "Truth" does or does not allow. For example, if we cannot go north and south at once, our understanding of this truth is relative to our goals, but it may also reveal that "reality" is such that it does not allow one to go north and south at once.

Now, one may contend that our goals can be selected at the whim of our preference, but I believe that this is demonstrably false, especially if we consider how goals exclude one-another. Returning to the example, one might - by preference - aim to head north, but when they find that they cannot also go south, they find that the two goals are incompatible and that there is a "Truth" beyond their preference that constrains their goals (and therefore their criteria): "you can travel north, but you cannot travel north if you wish to travel south at the same time." What we could play with is the idea that this model of truth at once allows for objectivity but grounds a potential definition of truth directly in relation to life and how it can or cannot be lived (potentially).

And, as you've recognised, one such constraint that limits our goals is the necessity of logic because "reality" appears to be such that it limits the pursuit of contradictory goals.

The distinction that I am trying to clarify is between our understanding of what may or may not be "true" and what is, in fact, true. My argument is that our understanding or "personal truth" is necessarily built upon the criteria that I have outlined (at the least) but that universal truth may be nonetheless present at the periphery. Now, as I have discussed with @tim wood, it might be that the truth might ultimately be elusive, but it remains the case that the implementation of the criteria of the heuristic appear to reveal something beyond the criteria itself (whether we have the right to call that "Truth" or not - after all, how would we know?)

In any case, does that all make sense? Do you have questions about this at this juncture? And if not and you would like to continue, how would you like to proceed? Is there a particular direction that you would like the discussion to go in?

P.S. I like your recommendation of re-phrasing my approach to logic. I will consider this thread again when I come to re-write my work.

But that is just "that which is the case." And it may well be a duck. But here's a problem: how are you going to know it's a duck? (That not quite as simple as it sounds.) — tim wood

Something that I've swiftly learnt from this forum and others is that I've made the mistake of framing my argument as if the criteria that I outline determine the Truth whereas they simply determine our understanding of it or, you could say, determine how the search for the "truth" (whatever that turns out to be) must progress. Likewise, I am ready to accept that truth as-such may be elusive (however, it is yet to be demonstrated that it will be entirely elusive).

And so, when you claim that

you appear to be looking for something without a model for what it is. — tim wood

I may have made a mistake in framing the argument as such. Instead, the aim of the argument is akin to saying "we are not yet entirely sure what it is, but if we are to posit the search at all, there seem to be some necessary starting points - especially if we are to posit an explicit search...

This is also why, when you say:

You do have some criteria that seem relevant to you... — tim wood

I would contend by arguing that the criteria appear to be more than merely relevant to me alone. I contend this on the grounds that I cannot conceive of an explicit search for an understanding that makes any sense without a dual reference to the criteria of our goals and adherence to logic for the reasons stated above.

What are your thoughts on these remarks, or have I misunderstood your criticism? Your comments are highly critical but I read a tone of respect in them which I have respect for in return and for which you have my gratitude.

In all fairness, I never define truth and am not altogether sure whether I should at this point. I suppose that at this point I would define truth as "that which is the case" but I know that this leaves much to be desired. Indeed, the whole idea is to create an approach that would allow us to figure just what the truth is.

I must respectfully disagree that the approach is not comprehensive (although it is doubtless faulted) and ask you to justify this claim. The approach has been to begin from the axiom that we do not yet know what the truth is but to ask, if we are to actively search for an understanding of it, what we would use as a measure for our understanding and whether these measures would be necessary. The argument that I have proposed is that we must treat adherence to logic and relevance to our goals (or usefulness) of potential truths as the measures of our understanding of the truth from the outset, whatever the truth turns out to be. Moreover, this approach can (and it appears must) be applied to the very question "how do we define truth and how do we know?"

This was a very generous response - thank you.

Hopefully, I can do justice to your questions.

The summary of my approach to goals is not quite right (unless I am mis-reading it which I apologise for if so). The parameters are inseparable from our goals; they are one and the same in the sense that a parameter is what determines when a given goal is achieved. For example, the goal "to pursue the truth via science" will include parameters such as "this enquiry must involve empirical data" and "I will accept that an understanding of the truth has been reached once a reproducible test has verified a theory 1000+ times" or the like. Therefore, the understanding of the truth will be determined by the parameters of the approach, but unless that approach is taken, the parameters are never in place and that understanding is never reached. Therefore, our understanding of the truth is always "measured" in relation to our aims, without which no approach to truth is taken, nor are any parameters/criteria for our understanding set. As an aside, this could be either implicit or explicit but, of course, the point of the argument is to treat this as explicit.

I hope this helps. If you would like a fuller explanation of the role that goals play in the argument, may I point you towards my discussion on it?
This can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6AdOtKBUFk&t=200s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/use-goals-and-decisions

Also, I hope this clears up the approach to points 4, 5 and 6.

The issue about subjectivity... the idea is that, although our understanding of the truth might be relative to our goals, it cannot be merely relative to our goals because it cannot be that anything is a goal. We know this by grounding the approach in logic; logic determines that some goals simply cannot be pursued. For example: "to travel north yet not travel north at all at the same time" - this is a senseless goal and cannot be pursued. Therefore, if our goals are constrained and goals serve as a measure of the truth, truth cannot, in fact, be relative.

Hopefully this illuminates the approach to "making sense" - this is an invocation of logic (or adherence to logic). Namely, that if we actually break the laws of thought that logic is based upon, things become nonsense. For example: the law of non-contradiction which holds that a thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time and in the same respect. Trying to claim that this is so (such as claiming that "truth is not truth") becomes meaningless and nonsensical. Therefore, for something to "make sense" it has to be not nonsense (I apologise if this is clunky and perhaps this is an indication that I need to clean up my terminology). In any case, "making sense" isn't subjective - it requires adherence to the objective laws of logic. This is also why it makes no sense to rule out logic if it is "useless" - the idea is that we can't even posit an aim, let alone pursue it, without adherence to the laws of thought. Again, if we turn to the example of contradiction, the goal to "throw out logic" requires that you assume that logic is,in fact, logic and not something completely different in order to throw it out. I hope this helps - please let me know if not. And if you want a more fleshed-out explanation, may I point you to my full take on logic:

It can be heard here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2rWEkT3VQ&t=347s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/logic-and-its-limits

Again, very thankful for the approach you've taken with your question. I look forward to discussing this further with you.

Thank you for your criticisms. I don't take them as overly critical. Instead, it is an opportunity to clarify my aims and intentions with the project.

First, allow me to speak to your point about logic. I would agree with you that logic without content is meaningless and, as you say, merely analytic. However, I would contend that a source of information such as experience cannot provide us with an understanding of what is true directly and that we must use our logical faculty (paired with our concern for "use") to sort our experience into that which is indicative of the truth and that which is not; what experience tells us may or may not be true, but experience is that which is being judged for its truth-value. Before we continue with this point, may I point you towards my discussion on logic?

It can be heard here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2rWEkT3VQ&t=347s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/logic-and-its-limits

It feels a bit rude to not provide you with a summary but this is probably as clear and concise as I can make my approach to logic. Would you mind giving it a look before we continue because it would be good discuss with you how logic might/might not relate to experience?

As for the value of the project itself,
I agree that our understanding of the truth need not be determined actively and consciously. It's for this reason that the heuristic is not aimed at or designed as a necessary tool for finding the truth but it is designed as necessary for those who wish to actively seek the truth. The necessity of the active search will not be argued for and, as such, is the initial contingency for the entire argument. Instead, the argument is that if truth is actively sought, the rest of the argument must follow and we must measure truth in relation to what is logical and what we can regard as useful (at the very least). Which [hopefully] will allow all else to be built up to from. Therefore, my hope is that this argument/heuristic will eventually be relevant to all who actively seek but, of course, I must be a ways off for now and even if the work is of a level that it only offers something of interest to a handful of people it feels justified. Finally, the point about a lot of epistemology being useless is exactly right and that's why the relevance to our goals is so important - I'm attempting to ground what we know in how we live - in what is relevant to our life and aims without hitting all of the pitfalls of pragmatism. I genuinely believe that this can be done, but there are a lot of questions to overcome before that can be demonstrated.

Anyway, I look forward to your response.