There's a difference between saying that biases are bad for rational and critical thinking, and saying there are "good and bad biases". — Christoffer
You need to demonstrate examples of good biases and how you deductively arrive at valuing them as good. — Christoffer
I pointed out that your argument requires you to unbiasedly show what is a good bias and what is a bad bias in order to conclude that nothing can be argued without bias. — Christoffer
I pointed out that you break your own logic by saying that nothing can be argued without bias and then explains how we need an unbiased system to know what is good or bad. It is a never ending circular argument. — Christoffer
Bias is neutral because it is a natural phenomena — Christoffer
If I describe how bias is bad for critical thinking then you need to understand what that means. The neutral phenomena of bias makes it hard for our mind to process complex concepts without conforming to presupposed groupings of information. This is the psychology of bias. The bias itself is neutral, the effect it has on critical thinking is bad. — Christoffer
Only if you adhere to false dichotomy about this. You are proposing a black & white error in reasoning by saying this is clearly wrong because you don't seem to understand the concept of unbiased reasoning and summarize it as trying to remove bias completely rather than it being a tool to spot and suppress bias. That you interpret me saying "reduce bias" with "remove bias" shows this false dichotomy in play here. — Christoffer
You are basically describing my own theory of duality in mind for critical thinking, just in other form. — Christoffer
So you are basically saying that we need critical thinking, which is unbiased in form, in order to evaluate what is a good or a bad bias? You describe a separation in which one part is evaluating the other through logic, which is the same as what I describe when talking about mentally stepping back and observing the automatic self at a distance, spotting its behavior of biases and categorizing them as blockages of the concept being formed. — Christoffer
Gravity is neutral, how do you interpret gravity as "an inclination to act"? I mean gravitation in its literal sense. — Christoffer
Again,
Bias is a neutral process.
The negative effect that bias has on critical thinking makes bias bad for reaching valid conclusions. — Christoffer
No, it's a failure of understanding my writing on your part. To once again explain my own writing in detail: — Christoffer
You are talking about a universalized good and bad since you position them as foundational, so of course you have to define it. — Christoffer
Demonstrate it, quote something or whatever, I want to see an example of this since it is over and over the core of what you write. — Christoffer
The wave function collapse occurs due to the photon being affected by itself producing a collapse in different realities down to a single outcome, depending on schools of interpretation in quantum physics. — Christoffer
I’m also slightly vexed by Wayfarer’s use of secular humanist Horkheimer as a weapon in his battle against secular humanism, although it’s fair to do so. — Jamal
if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it. — Leon Wieseltier, The God Genome
Today there is a general tendency to revive past theories of objective reason in order to give some philosophical foundation to the rapidly disintegrating hierarchy of generally accepted values. Along with pseudo-religious or half-scientific mind cures, spiritualism, astrology, cheap brands of past philosophies such as Yoga, Buddhism, or mysticism, and popular adaptations of classical objectivistic philosophies, medieval ontologies are recommended for modern use.
But the transition from objective to subjective reason was not an accident, and the process of development of ideas cannot arbitrarily at any given moment be reversed. If subjective reason in the form of enlightenment has dissolved the philosophical basis of beliefs that have been an essential part of Western culture, it has been able to do so because this basis proved to be too weak. Their revival, therefore, is completely artificial: it serves the purpose of filling a gap. — Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason
If subjective reason in the form of enlightenment has dissolved the philosophical basis of beliefs that have been an essential part of Western culture, it has been able to do so because this basis proved to be too weak. — Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason
I actually do have an e-copy, I've read sections of it, but must find the time to give it a more thorough reading. I had encountered his criticism of the malign effects of Darwinism on philosophy on another site, that is what caught my eye (but only as a critic of scientific materialism, *not* as an ID sympathizer.) — Wayfarer
When I was studying comparative religion, I had a theory that the kind of enlightenment prized in yoga and Buddhism - not Enlightenment in the European sense! - was similar to what the early gnostic schools had been based around. And that the victory of what came to be Catholic orthodoxy was because it was much more politically expedient to organise belief, than the esoteric knowledge represented by gnosticism. I found a scholar by the name of Elaine Pagels, whose book Beyond Belief affirmed a similar thesis. It concerns exegesis of the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic text that was found in Egypt in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi Library discovery. Through analysis of the sayings found in the Gospel of Thomas, Pagels demonstrates its themes of self-discovery, spiritual enlightenment, and the pursuit of a direct connection with the divine. She reveals the influence of Gnosticism on the Gospel of Thomas and examines its contrasts with orthodox Christianity and the political and theological tensions that led to the suppression and exclusion of Gnostic texts from the canon of the New Testament. She explores the power struggles within early Christianity and how the emerging orthodoxy based on the Gospel of John sought (successfully) to define and control the faith. And as always, history is written by the victors.
At the time I was doing this reading, I had the view that this was a watershed in the history of Western culture, and that had more of the gnostic elements been admitted, it would have resulted in a much more practice-oriented and 'eastern' form of spirituality. The fact that these exotic forms of religion have had such a huge impact in Western culture the last few centuries is because that approach was suppressed in, and absent from, its own indigenous religious culture. That's what made it 'weak'. — Wayfarer
I believe in the reality of the soul, but language is misleading. To claim that the soul is a real thing, is already to misunderstand the subject of the discussion, because there is no such thing in the empirical sense. But then, neither does the mind exist objectively. (One of the unfortunate implications of Descartes' dualism is mind as 'res cogitans', 'thinking thing', which is an oxymoron.)
We can infer that others have minds, but the mind is never an objective reality for us. We only ever know the mind in the first person, in its role as the capacity for experience, thought and reason; even then, it is not known, but what knows (ref.) But what it is that thinks, experiences and reasons is not an empirical question (and indeed that is 'the hard problem' from the perspective of the objective sciences).
The Greek term for soul was 'psyche' which is, of course, preserved in modern English, in the term 'psychology' as well as in general use as another name for mind. There is an unresolvable debate over whether psychology really is a scientific discipline due to the intractable nature of mind from an objective point of view.
So for mine, 'soul' refers to 'the totality of the being' - synonymous to 'mind' in the larger sense that includes the unconscious and subconscious domains. It is more than simply the body although we're clearly embodied minds (and whether there is or can be a disembodied mind is perhaps nearer to the actual question.) But it's also far more than the conscious mind, the aspect of our own mind that we are able to articulate. So by the 'totality of the being', I mean, taking into account all of our history, our talents, inclinations, proclivities, and destiny. That is what I take 'soul' to denote, and I do believe that it is real. — Wayfarer
Of course. I understand that this is part of what is required by the art of philosophical hermeneutic, re-interpreting an ancient text in light of subsequent advances in scientific understanding. — Wayfarer
I have agreed with the vast majority of what you have typed on this thread, but I think you are harsh on 'positivism.' Without it, Einstein's theory of relativity would be declared fact. Big bang theory would be declared fact, and this would perhaps mean science would not continuously challenge and scrutinise both. No theory in science is ever declared fact, because of stances such as positivism.
You yourself keep suggesting that empirical testing/evidence, is the final arbiter.
To me that's what positivism asserts as well, it stands as a good, much needed guardian against accepting anything on faith alone. Sometimes there is little choice but to accept something on faith, but positivism dictates that you should remain reluctant to do so, and I think that's a wise stance to take.
Even the fundamentalist Arab muslims like the advice of"trust in god but tie up your camel" — universeness
Perhaps an aside but, IME as a born, raised and educated ex-Catholic, the distinction between orthodoxy and Ms. Armstrong's emphasis on orthopraxy lacks much of a difference in so far as in the main, ceteris paribus, religious practices and religious beliefs are strongly correlated. — 180 Proof
If you say that biases are bad for rational thinking, you are saying that biases are bad in that respect. — Metaphysician Undercover
No I don't need to give any examples of good biases. I explained why already. I made the demonstration using the premise you provided, that there are bad biases. From that premise I was able to demonstrate that there must also be good biases. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are still not recognizing that the problem is with your premise, that biases are bad. — Metaphysician Undercover
I went through this already, biases are a natural and essential part of the human being. Therefore it is impossible for a human being to be unbiased. And, a person's biases are evident in the premises of one's arguments. — Metaphysician Undercover
You keep making this assertion without demonstrating anything, where's the circular argument you keep mentioning. — Metaphysician Undercover
See, you want to adopt the proper premise, that biases are natural, and fundamentally neutral. You keep saying this about biases, as if you understand the reality about them, but then you contradict yourself by insisting that biases are bad. — Metaphysician Undercover
OK, if "bias is neutral", as you say here, then will you rescind your claim stated above, that "biases are bad for rational and critical thinking". You cannot have it both ways. If they are bad for rational and critical thinking, then it is impossible that they are neutral. — Metaphysician Undercover
I really can't believe that you cannot grasp the incoherency in this statement. — Metaphysician Undercover
If the "phenomena of bias" affects critical thinking in the negative way which you describe — Metaphysician Undercover
This is all nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, because I am demonstrating the defects of your theory. I describe your theory in my own words, then show the faults. — Metaphysician Undercover
And if you would continue with your "stepping back and observing the automatic self ", you would see that "the automatic self" is the problem, not the biases. — Metaphysician Undercover
In no way can gravity be represented as "neutral". Neutral would be like something balanced, an equilibrium, but gravity is a force which pulls in one direction. A force is not "neutral". — Metaphysician Undercover
Obviously I cannot understand your writing. It's blatantly contradictory and incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover
You my friend, are the one who has positioned good and bad as foundational, by assigning "bad" to bias in relation to critical reasoning, when biases are foundational to reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover
OED, good:"1. having the right or desired qualities; satisfactory, adequate. " See, a definition of good is highly possible. — Metaphysician Undercover
The important point here, is that it is possible to define "good", therefore it is possible to judge biases on the basis of this definition. — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, the photon causes itself to have a wavefunction breakdown. Tell me another, buddy. — Metaphysician Undercover
Interesting. I'm happy enough to agree that "the victory of what came to be Catholic orthodoxy was because it was much more politically expedient to organise belief, than the esoteric knowledge represented by gnosticism," but since my conception of history is much more materialist (in the Marxian sense) than yours, I don't accept your emphasis on the primacy of ideas. That's not to say, by the way, that I believe in a crude economic determinism or the one-way causal power of the mode of production, but it was no accident that the gnostic element wasn't admitted, and therefore I think that such a counterfactual history doesn't tell us much. — Jamal
In the sense of ‘known first person’ not ‘particular to the individual’ or ‘private’. — Wayfarer
There is no way of distentangling religiousthoughtinstitutions and social reality
The criticism I have to positivism is that philosophy needs a level of exploration to function well and the rigid stance in positivism makes it better suited to just be science instead. — Christoffer
If we are talking about the energy of the body kickstarting at the formation in an egg and the energy flowing away after death as heat, then I would never call that by anything other than what it is, energy, and energy is not a soul. — Christoffer
It is like when evangelists move their goal posts of what the definition of God is every time a scientific discovery shows that their previous beliefs are clearly wrong — Christoffer
If so, what you’ve got here is a truism, since institutions are social reality. — Jamal
To say that biases are bad or negative for critical thinking is a fact about critical thinking. It does not mean that there are good and bad biases. You need to read up on the psychology behind this concept and how it relates to critical thinking. — Christoffer
Again, bias is a neutral phenomena that is bad for critical thinking. — Christoffer
If you cannot understand how these two (neutral and bad) can exist together in this context, then you are either not capable of understanding... — Christoffer
It's a neutral physical force in terms of your usage of "good" and "bad" as values. When you say a "good" and "bad" bias, you are not talking about a plus and minus, larger and lower, maximum and minimum, higher and lower effect, you are talking about human value systems applied to a neutral force. The force itself does not have good or bad values. "Good" and "bad" are human concepts of arbitrary values, they aren't applicable to gravity as a force. The force itself does not have such values, but the effect of falling from a skyscraper is bad for you. Which is what I'm saying when I say that biases are a neutral psychological phenomena and that how they affect your critical thinking is bad for reasoning. — Christoffer
No, you don't understand simple english and the semantics of my argument. — Christoffer
So, with the textbook definition of "good" that you provided, how do you arrive at a conclusion that a bias have "right", "desired", "satisfactory", "adequate" qualities and not the opposite to those definitions? — Christoffer
Since bias is an essential aspect of thinking, then to remove it from thinking would incapacitate and annihilate the thinking. T — Metaphysician Undercover
The main problem with our usual understanding of secularity is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Most of us assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed. — David Loy
I understand that marxism will generally depict religious ideas as being product of culture and society. But consider Buddhism, if you can call Buddhism a religion. It is certainly a social institution now, but it originated as a renunciate movement, deliberately outside social convention. — Wayfarer
I believe that you approach a very significant and important ontological subject here — Metaphysician Undercover
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