After watching how people in the street would immediately tense up, after being asked a simple question of 'what is a woman?' and tried to give a 'politically correct' answer, you are getting a feeling that they very well know the answer, yet are scared sh*tless of saying it or, probably, even thinking it.

In my opinion such internal blocking of engaging with certain thoughts is a very bad idea, as it noticeably hinders one's ability to think clearly.

What do you think? — M777

Well, then, what is a woman according to you?

Pointless to you perhaps but that in no way makes my point pointless, just inconvenient for your point. — universeness

Right on Janus. We are not dealing here with certitudes. We are dealing with numerous instances of carelas speach and badass, ambigous words and expressions. — Ken Edwards

Universeness, if your point is that same as Ken's, quoted here, which I agree with, then it is not "inconvenient for my point" at all. I'm still not seeing the relevance, so if you really have a point and want me to get it, you will need to explain.

It's good exercise but not a lot of meat on those bones.

Others find it filling. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes, good exercise, but hardly a satisfying meal. Might as well live on pills and supplements...

Ah. So all this is just to day that sometimes folk say "I feel certain..." as equivalent to "I believe...", and this is distinct from "I am certain...".

Why didn't you say? — Banno

All this? Why didn't you read? Anyway, not exactly. It seems to me likely that if someone says 'I feel certain', unless they are critically minded, they will mean 'I am certain'. If they are critically minded, they probably won't say 'I feel certain' at all, but rather, 'it seems to me', unless we are talking about what is "common knowledge". I don't buy the equation of belief with 'acting as if', because I lean more towards thinking there are many things people believe, or at least entertain (which you, at least; seem to count as being the same as believing) which have no bearing on action.

If you could be wrong, then you are not certain. — Banno


This definition or rule is fine - it's the beginning and end of your argument. — ZzzoneiroCosm

This is also in accordance with my view. Of course, if you could be wrong then you can't be certain, but you could feel certain (but only if you didn't think you could be wrong).

I can be certain 2+2=4.
I can feel certain the sun will rise in the morning. — ZzzoneiroCosm


I admit to not having been able to make sense of it. He hasn't made a case for what the difference consists in. Hence my counterexample:

I can feel certain 2+2=4.
I can be certain the sun will rise in the morning — Banno


Seems to make no difference. — Banno

The difference is obvious: by your own argument at the top of this post you cannot be certain the sun will rise in the morning, because you could be wrong. But you can be certain that 2+2=4, because you cannot be wrong about that. Of course you can also feel certain about either example.

I'll leave that to Janus. I can see an a-priori-a-posteriori-esque tact surfacing. Or a (likely idiosyncratic) codification of degrees of certainty. All of it seems fine to me, but not my cup of tea. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I agree there can be more or less certainty, and I would say that to the degree you feel certain of something, to that degree you more or less believe it.

This analytic stuff is not really my cup of philosophy either, it's mostly pedantry and trivia; I just comment when I think there is some degree of confusion, and I don't like to be misrepresented. But I should learn not to waste time and energy where it will be ill-spent. Casting pearls before swine and all that...

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Yes, you're wrong. Here's how:

I am certain the sun will rise in the morning. But I could be wrong. — ZzzoneiroCosm

This does show Banno's lack of distinction between being certain and feeling certain; so yes, he is wrong on those terms. I would say, however, that we cannot be certain that the sun will rise in the morning, but that of course we can feel certain of it; which presents no contradiction or inconsistency with the possibility of being wrong.

Similarly, from Janus' contention that we must be certain of our beliefs and yet we can acknowledge that our beliefs might be wrong, we can conclude that Janus has gone astray somewhere. — Banno

No, you've gone astray again because you conflate being certain with feeling certain. We can only (excluding the absurd kind of radical, artificial doubt) be certain of what we know. But we can feel certain of our beliefs; and in fact if to believe is to be convinced, then that is what it means to believe something; to feel certain of it. Are you eventually going to present any counter-argument or are you just going to go on trying to make it seem like you have one up your sleeve? :roll:

So we agree that (1) is consistent, (2) is contradictory. — Banno

No, (1) as you framed it is the same as (2).

It is not possible to believe something without feeling certain about it. — Janus

This has been shown to be wrong. With it your position collapses. — Banno

I've said plenty to clear up any ambiguity in what you quote there. It should be obvious in light of what I've said that I meant rationally believe. It seems it suits you to ignore that and go for the low-hanging fruit.

To believe something is to feel certain about it, to be convinced of it. The psychological fact that people are able to (irrationally) believe (feel certain about) contradictory things is irrelevant to my argument that it is not possible to rationally be convinced of two contradictories or inconsistencies.

You haven't even attempted, let alone succeeded, in addressing anything I've said.

Here:

I believe the keys are in the car, but I might be wrong
I am certain that the keys are in the car, but I might be wrong.


Do we agree that there is a problem with the second sentence, but not with the first? — Banno

'I believe the keys are likely to be in the car' is more consistent. That is keys being in the car seems to be the most plausible option, but of course they may not be. I cannot, without contradiction, simultaneously believe the keys are without doubt in the car, and believe that that they may not be. If I acknowledge that they may not be in the car, then it would be absurd to firmly believe they are in the car.

I'm not going to explain this again; if you can't see it then that is your loss. No one has offered an actual argument for why my more subtle distinctions re believing are not preferable to the common parlance; riddled with ambiguity as it is. If someone does come up with such an argument then I'll listen, and respond; or concede the point.

Since these are stochastic and unstable, it's perfectly possible to hold contradictory beliefs (propensities to act as if two contradictory states of affairs were the case). In fact, it's quite a normal state. — Isaac

This, and the rest of what you say is not relevant to my argument since I am addressing what can be consistently, i.e.' rationally, believed; that is, what can be believed without contradiction.

Here it is again: There is a common distinction made between being certain of something and believing it. Your account denies this distinction.

You are not very good at this stuff. — Banno

You are not very good at reading or at presenting arguments without resorting to trying to belittle your opponents. I have already made it clear that I draw a distinction between feeling certain and being certain. We can only be certain of what we know, but we can feel certain of what we believe, even though there can be no certainty that it is correct. To be certain of what we know means that there can be no doubt, not merely that I have no doubt. So there can never be no possibility of doubt about anything believed, even though there may be no possibility of your doubting it. (And if you do have doubts about something then to that extent you don't believe it).

Are there degrees of certainty? Cuz it seems that would solve the problem. Colloquially: mostly sure, 90-99% sure, 100% sure....

Or is certainty always 100%? — ZzzoneiroCosm

I'd say there is certainty and then there are degrees of uncertainty; which just means that you are not certain, but that whatever it is that is at issue seems to be more or less likely.

If you were a competent user of English you might believe the keys to be in the car while not being certain of it. Your terminology leads to the confusion in the OP. — Banno

On the back foot, with no argument, yet still asserting? I've shown the ambiguity in your terminology; can you show the purported confusion in mine; can you spell it out clearly? Your terminology may be closer to common usage, but in my view that says nothing to recommend it, since we all know there are many ambiguities in common usage.

Simply that things, like the location of keys, can be accepted and entertained without feeling sure about them. We can also feel certain about the location of keys. Further, we can have irrational beliefs about the location of keys. — praxis

Exactly. Of course one may believe they are in the car, and one may be wrong; but unless one feels certain they are in the car (which in most cases would be unwise) then it is confusing to talk in terms of believing they are there, as opposed to merely thinking it most likely.

If you are intellectually honest you don't believe the keys are in the car, but you think they are most likely to be there. My terminology is less ambiguous, less confusing, than yours.

Rubbish. It's common to treat things as true, even though we might be wrong. — Banno

You're conflating the possibility of being wrong with the acknowledgement of the possibility of being wrong; that's the ambiguity of your position right there.

Seen again here:

You seem to think that what one believe is true, one believes is necessarily true. That's wrong. — Banno

What one believes is not necessarily true, of course, but one believes that it is necessarily true, which means that one cannot acknowledge that it might be false without ceasing to believe it. Take as an example, say someone believes there are living beings on Mars; not merely that there are likely to be, but that there are; then one cannot acknowledge that there might not be, although of course one could acknowledge that there might not have been, but that is not the same.

To believe something is to hold that it is true.
To be certain of something is to hold that it could not be false — Banno

Holding something to be true just is holding that it could not be false. You are contradicting yourself.

One may believe and yet still think one might be wrong. — Banno

No, one may advocate a view which one acknowledges may be wrong because it seems the most likely to be right; that does not constitute believing it is right, but thinking that it seems more likely to be right.

Your "grammar" is too ambiguous for my taste

You're failing to see the distinction between believing something and merely accepting it for practical purposes because it seems to be the best explanation available. Your loss, shown by your confusion here:

Hey, folks, it is possible for one to believe something and yet not be certain of it. — Banno


There is a difference between being certain and simply believing. — Banno

It is not possible to believe something without feeling certain about it. If you don't feel certain about it, then you doubt it and you're not really believing it, but vacillating.

I have thousands of beliefs. Most of them are intuitional but unfortunately
I can not express any of them to you because this correspondence is purely verbal.

I am interested in your knowing or perhaps feeling that I can't change certain beliefs. Perhaps I can. Try me out. Could you please phrase one or two of them for me to tackle?

Thank you in advance. — Ken Edwards

I'm not sure what you are asking, Ken. I don't know what you count as your "intuitional beleifs" so I can't test you on any of them. I don't think I have said that beliefs cannot be changed; I think they can. One might be a believer in Christianity, for example, and then later become an atheist.

What I have said cannot be changed is what we know, for examples that humans usually have two legs and two arms, are roughly bilaterally symmetrical, that Paris is presently the capital of France, that there are oceans on Earth, and mountains, and deserts, and many kinds of animals and plants.I am saying it is better not to speak of 'believing' in such cases, but of knowing, and reserve 'believing' for religions and ideologies, for things which can reasonably be doubted and about which, in consequence, there may be much disagreement in the community.

As I pointed out in my previous post, there are instances in our actual lives where we have discovered that what we thought we knew was wrong. So it seems to me that there is no knowledge involved, only beliefs. — Harry Hindu

The kinds of things I have listed as knowledge cannot be seriously doubted, let alone discovered to have been wrong.

We fail when we believe too much, for then we believe things that are not true. We fail when we believe too little, for then we may miss what may be important.

There is a place of balance between credulity and skepticism. — Banno

We fail when we believe too much, for then we believe things that are not true. We fail when we believe too little, for then we may miss what may be important.

There is a place of balance between credulity and skepticism. — Banno

For me the proper attitude is to be mindful of as much as possible so as not to miss anything important, and to provisionally accept, not to believe, anything which is could be subject to reasonable doubt, but which is commonly held to be the case. The latter includes much of science obviously. So, for example I provisionally accept tectonic plate theory, which means that I acknowledge that it might turn out to be false, but I certainly don't believe it is true.

There is the more nuanced observation that the capital of France is 'F,' personal interpretation can always offer a different perspective. — universeness

A pointless comment eliciting this otherwise pointless response.

Too vague. What do you mean, "actual lives"? There are many that seem to spend much of their "actual lives" on these forums expressing doubt in "radical" ways. — Harry Hindu

They don't live their radical doubt and that is what I mean by "actual lives".

— Janus

I don't see how this is any different than the way I explained the differences between belief and knowledge. When others disagree with your view does that not instill doubt in your views? — Harry Hindu

In that case you'll agree with me that it is better not to speak of believing things about which there can be no serious doubt, but of knowing them, and you'll also agree with me that when it comes to things we don't know, there is a distinction between adopting and holding one of the alternatives and declaring it to be the truth, and remaining undecided or provisionally adopting what seems most plausible, and seeing how it pans out.

Best explanation for what if not for what is real or else what is really the case? — javra

The best explanation is what makes a situation seem most intelligible. You say "what is real or else what is really the case"; why not just 'what seems most likely to be the case'?

We know countless things like "Paris is the capital of France", "The Earth is roughly spherical", "There is a greater surface area of water than of land on our planet", "Humans are usually bilaterally more or less symmetrical", "There are many muscles in the human face" and so on and so on. It makes no sense to doubt such things, so they count as knowledge, and I find it muddies the waters to speak about believing such things; we can be said to not merely believe, but to know them on account of there actually being no reasonable doubt.

Now, think of a criminal trial. The purported criminal is found guilty or innocent depending on which is considered to be beyond reasonable doubt. But we maybe in many cases can't count this conviction as knowledge because the purported "beyond reasonable doubt" may be more or less based on wishful thinking or prejudice.

What is the difference between you knowing something and the way something seems to you?

What is the difference between the way things seem to you and you having a delusion or hallucination?

What terms can we use to refer to the way things seem to you and the way things are? Belief and Reality.

What is the difference between belief and knowledge? Belief is when you only have an observation OR reason to support a particular view. Knowledge is when you have both observation AND reason to support a particular view. — Harry Hindu

There are two kinds of doubt: ordinary doubt and radical doubt. When it comes to taking the perspective of radical doubt, pretty much anything can be doubted, which means we don't know anything, or at least we don't know that we know anything. But that kind of artificial doubt is abstract and has nothing to do with our actual lives.

When it comes to our actual lives there are countless things which are beyond reasonable doubt, and we can think of these as knowledge. If something is open to reasonable doubt then it is not knowledge. In such cases there will be two or more alternative possibilities, and we can either adopt one and hold it as a belief, or suspend judgement and accept provisionally what seems most likely to be the case or what seems most workable. We don't have to believe such acceptations, we merely have to entertain them.

That's the way I see things, and it seems to be consistent and to work for me. I don't require or expect anyone to agree with my view.

“Most plausible” to me signifies “most likely to be real or conformant to reality”; to deem X most plausible is hence to provisionally accept X’s reality, thereby constituting a belief. — javra

As I said, it all depends on how you define belief. Deeming X to be most plausible is not the same as X seeming most plausible. My point is simply that I know X seems most plausible to me, but I don't deem it to be most plausible, per se, because there are no absolute criteria for "most plausible". There is thus, no need for believing anything.

To put it another way, I don't see it as having anything to do with "reality"; I think that term is altogether too overblown. "The most plausible" is just what seems to be the best explanation; the one that fits best within a general network of perspectives that I find explanatorily workable.

Our inaction speaks to our despair. We face an existential threat the likes of which humanity has never experienced, and we avert our gaze. What is this, if not despair? — hypericin

Complacency. A sense of powerlessness; an inability to unite with others in effective coordinated action.

The magical thinking we require is, "we can succeed, if only we give it absolutely everything". — hypericin

I don't see it that way. In my view, we should think that we may be able to make things better if we are willing to sacrifice a good deal of our comfort and accustomed lifestyles. The problem is that only a small proportion of the population cares enough to educate themselves about the issues. Most people are all about the sound bites and virtue signalling.

I think you are splitting hairs. Do you believe the words you typed above are correct? — universeness

I know that is the way things seem to me; there is no belief involved.

Do you disagree with these definitions, and, if you do disagree, what do you instead recommend? — javra

I don't disagree with the definitions. Believing something is "holding it to be true". That is not what I'm talking about; I'm talking about entertaining the idea that seem most plausible, not holding ideas to be true.

Indeed, but only after already having a belief system intact. Suspending one's judgment is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon pre-existing belief. — creativesoul

It seems to me most plausible to think that judgements are made on the basis of, abstracted from, embodied precognitive orientations to the world. I don't know if that is true, but I accept it as a working model until and unless something that seems better shows up.

"Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons;" is what it means to believe anything. All you've done is show that you can't escape believing anything. — Harry Hindu

No, believing something means holding it to be true. The only things I hold to be true are the things I know. There are things we know, which cannot honestly be doubted by anyone; and I don't count such things as being matters of belief. Matters of belief are things we hold to be true despite the fact that they can be doubted. If we don't hold any such thing to be true then we can't rightly be said to believe anything, as I see it. How can you be wrong about something which is merely a matter of definition?

Sure. Belief, in and of itself, would also apply to "justified true belief", which is the commonly accepted definition of descriptive knowledge. Which in turn would make belief and indispensable aspect of, at the very least, descriptive knowledge. — javra

I don't see why the formula could not be: knowledge consists in justified true ideas. If I have an idea that such and such seems to be the case, and I accept that idea as a provisional guide to action, why could that not be counted as knowledge if the idea is both true and justified? Does anything here depend on the psychological fact of my either believing or not?

If I concern myself with thinking in terms of believing, and thus let skepticism or doubt come in, and they always come in as the alter-ego of the spectre of belief, then I can never know, in any absolute sense, whether any idea I entertain about the world is true, and even worse, I can never know whether it is justified either. Yet my never being able to know such things is of no concern if I don't concern myself with believing. and remain satisfied with entertaining.

If it's not knowledge, such a frame of mind would result in at least two alternatives being tentatively entertained: at minimum, that of X being and that of X not being. How can acting out on any alternative not entail some type of belief that the alternative one acts out on is at least likely true? — javra

Given what is already pragmatically accepted and entertained as what seems most plausible, then one or other of the alternatives will in turn seem the more plausible. All this against the background of what we always already pre-reflectively know, our "know-how", as embodied beings in a world. This latter kind of knowledge, in distinction to "knowing-that", it makes no sense at all to be skeptical about; any such skepticism is a feigned intellectual posturing in a state of separation from life. This is how it seems to me, in any case, and I accept and entertain it provisionally, until and unless an understanding which seems more plausible comes along.

Janus you just said: "Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons; no believing needed."

That statement is fundamental and sums up and modifies this entire conversation. — Ken Edwards

:cool: Cheers Ken.

:up:

Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons; no believing needed.

I nunc intellegite. — Bitter Crank

Quod bonum est, laetus sum. :grin:



:100:

The ones mentioned in the op are precisely the kind of changes we need to make things less bad. — hypericin

Only if it can be shown that they are really, when all things are taken into account, greener than fossil fuels. Otherwise they are projects doomed to failure, and perhaps destined to make things worse, not better than they otherwise would have been. The problem is there seems to be no impartial, that is free of politicization, investigation, research and discussion of options.

Also I don't agree that we are already "at the despair". You may be: I think promoting magical thinking might be a symptom.

The thing is, we are already at the despair. And so we don't try, out of fear of disappointment. Far far easier to simply suppress the awareness, after all, there is still time...

If magical thinking is ever needed, it is needed now. — hypericin

What if magical thinking leads us to waste time and resources on projects doomed to failure, whereas a realistic, pragmatic attitude might lead us to acknowledge it is now inevitable that it will be bad, but that it can be less bad if we make the right changes?

Whereas, the non-feasibility of renewable energy is a problem as real and objective as it gets. — hypericin

I don't think it is the non-feasibility of renewable energy per se, which is being challenged by Smil, but the impossibility of replacing the whole entrenched infrastructure based on fossil fuels rapidly enough to achieve the projected reductions of emissions.

It also seems that the only option we have is to try; which should at least have the effect of improving our situation, if not totally ameliorating it. The point is that the problem should be approached with an eye to realism, not to fantasy; as the latter mindset will probably lead to rapid disappointment and ensuing despair.

Perseuerando in sua stultitia, dum satis agnoscit eam esse stultitiam

Aristotle's understanding of tragedy is quite insightful. Nietzsche misread Aristotle's notion of pity as a Christian concept. — Jackson

OK, I haven't read much of Aristotle's work regarding tragedy, and I haven't read Birth of Tragedy for many years, so I'll have to take your word for that.

I think you are correct. Though, I do not think Nietzsche discusses Aristotle. — Jackson

You're probably right. I think he disagreed with Aristotle's reasons for considering Tragedy to be the highest from of drama, even though agreeing with the assessment.That may have been about the extent of his explicit discussion of Aristotle.

Yes, and he provided such a stellar example of that. — Wayfarer

I don't know what about Nietzsche you are referring to: can you explain?

But power exhausts itself in what it takes power over and is replaced by a new trajectory of will to power.A given Will to power cannot be separated from the value system that it posits, and that is serially overcome by a wholly different value system ad infinitum( eternal return of the same). This is different from a ‘growth’ oriented notion of empowerment and optimal potential. — Joshs

The way I read Nietzsche's idea of will to power is in terms of overcoming. I'm not sure what you mean by "growth", but for me growth in any spiritual sense logically consists in overcoming (weaknesses, fixations, prejudices, delusions, etc). I have the impression from previous reading that Nietzsche aligns himself with Aristotle's notion of eudamonia, "good spirit" or "flourishing", but I don't have time to search for a reference for that.

The underlying idea? That the bungled and the botched are to be the objects of derision? That's not a sentiment that deserves sympathy. — Banno

Now you've switched the conversation: we were referring to the 'ape' trope, not the 'bungled and botched' trope. In any case others have pointed out that the latter case is very much open to interpretation. But I doubt you have much will to overcome your prejudices when it comes to Nietzsche (or Heidegger).

Sola dosis facit venenum. — Agent Smith


Congratulations. You are the first person to post this Latin phrase. — Bitter Crank

Si persistere stultum in sua stultitia, sapiens fieret

Well, yes, indeed, that is what I have been arguing: we grew out of it. If it is the "iconic passage from Zarathustra", so much the worse for Nietzsche's fatuous fatidic alter-ego. — Banno

The trope represents the notion of reaching a greater potential than it is commonly believed we are capable of. The symbols Nietzsche used are not suited to our time, to be sure, but the underlying idea is relevant.

Your unthinking prejudice is so pungent I can smell it coming to me through the ether.

Apes are no longer merely objects for amusement, except amongst the ill-informed or childish. — Banno

The ape might well have been a common representative figure for what might have been considered to be stupid, low, a joke and so on in Nietzsche's day, but his use of the ape as a symbol for such is not at all relevant to how the apes are seen today, nor is how we see apes today at all relevant to Nietzsche's usage. Ever heard of anachronism?

:up: