I'm not saying anything particularly controversial. I'm saying that most people don't find a significant other or at least in some satisfactory manner. — schopenhauer1
Actually that seems like quite a controversial statement. Do you have a source for it or is it just your sense of things? — gurugeorge
All those forlorn love songs, stories and such, must have been from the "unusual" cases. — schopenhauer1
Divorce rates hover over 50% I believe. — schopenhauer1
Now you may scoff at the notion that basic forms of happiness should be so easy — schopenhauer1
When things go well for people, it’s even easier to scoff. — schopenhauer1
Hmmmm. In relation to a HUMAN EXISTENCE, wouldn't an experience of something 'unadulturated' by language and expression, which strips the individual authenticity of what is down into the simple and general, absolutely have an authority regarding how things are? If I say "My significant-other committed suicide and 'that' made me feel extraordinarily sad" wouldn't that communicate a universal authority about how 'that thing', namely the happening of a member of a relationship committing suicide resulting in the sadness of the other member of the relationship, is? — Blue Lux
But I haven't seen anyone else reporting on any universal particularism either. — gurugeorge
No one's saying what you should or shouldn't go with, given what you've seen or haven't seen.
I was just commenting about assertion. ...and a presumption that your own perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions, and your emotional conclusions from, and reaction to, them, have universal authority about how things are.
No one is questioning the validity, for you, of your perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions. — Michael Ossipoff
But if our emotions, feelings and experiences are authentic, then do they not have absolute authority over what reality is?
By 'reality' I mean... Anything that can be experienced. — Blue Lux
but an assertion based on these feelings or experiences ? — Blue Lux
Is that supposed to have something to do with what I said? — Michael Ossipoff
a presumption that your own perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions, and your emotional conclusions from, and reaction to, them, have universal authority about how things are — Michael Ossipoff
Clearly, if I'm ready and willing to take into account others' perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions, I don't think my own have universal authority — gurugeorge
.Uh yeah, it's a direct response to your:-
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a presumption that your own perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions, and your emotional conclusions from, and reaction to, them, have universal authority about how things are — Michael Ossipoff
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Clearly, if I'm ready and willing to take into account others' perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions, I don't think my own have universal authority
.It's really more that the universe is indifferent - you can go with the grain or against the grain, the universe doesn't care one way or the other.
.“I want it all! I want cushy paradise on Earth! I want and [believe that I] need constant entertainment!” — Michael Ossipoff
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You are being purposefully provocative now to the point of distorting my position. Entertainment is not used [by Schopenhauer1] in the sense that senses need tantalizing (i.e. games/electronics/etc).. it is ANYTHING not directly related to survival and maintaining comfort. ANY goal related to things other than the two aforesaid things can look like many things.. religious goals, meditation, charity work, reading, learning, taking a class, staring at a tv, playing a video game, etc. etc.
.If anything, a universe where everything is satisfied looks more like dreamless sleep.
.I don’t believe in ad-hominem critical attack-style, but what answer to you leave for me, other than to say that your non-acceptance of life as it is, is unreaslistic? — Michael Ossipoff
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I've never claimed that reality is other than the state it is.
.I merely made observations about how that state is. You have yet to address the issue that indeed, this is how the state is.
That’s an assertion. About the character or nature of the whole of Reality — Michael Ossipoff
This presupposes that others perceptions, experiences, feelings and impressions say something contradictory to what mine do — Blue Lux
But these other points of view will inevitably be your point of view. — Blue Lux
merely a faith. — Blue Lux
.”That’s an assertion. About the character or nature of the whole of Reality” — Michael Ossipoff
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I get to do that, everyone gets to do that, including the people who's assertions about reality I'm taking into account in formulating my own.
.And my statement, their statements, your statements, are either true or false.
.You're manufacturing a problem where there is none.
But isn’t that the nature of an assertion? …certainty or claimed certainty of truth and accuracy? — Michael Ossipoff
but if you think that logic applies to the whole of Reality, then we must agree to disagree. — Michael Ossipoff
"But isn’t that the nature of an assertion? …certainty or claimed certainty of truth and accuracy?"— Michael Ossipoff
No, an assertion just presents how one thinks things are — gurugeorge
"but if you think that logic applies to the whole of Reality, then we must agree to disagree". — Michael Ossipoff
By your own lights, how do you know that it doesn't, o "presumptuous" one?
you weren't just "present[ing] how [you] think things are." You were saying how things are. — Michael Ossipoff
.”you weren't just "present[ing] how [you] think things are." You were saying how things are.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I really fail to see the difference, one's opinion about how things are is one's opinion about how things are, and that is an assertion.
.It's really more that the universe is indifferent - you can go with the grain or against the grain, the universe doesn't care one way or the other.
.Nobody expects (or would accept) that some one particular person has a backchannel to reality such that their utterances are guaranteed to be true, so the lack of such a thing is no problem.
.I think the nub of our disagreement is probably that you think that a statement about the Whole would have to have ascertainable logical/evidentiary links to the Whole (which would then justify or guarantee the truth of the statement), which would be impossible for a mere mortal.
.I don't think knowledge is like that, I don't think logical/evidentiary links guarantee the truth of anything. Something can be as justified, as supported by evidence, as topped and tailed as you like, but still be wrong, whether it's about the whole or a part.
(IOW knowledge is not JTB, it actually never leaves the fundamental logical status of conjecture, a la Popper. All we ever do is make informed guesses.)
No one’s utterances are all guaranteed to be true. — Michael Ossipoff
No, that isn’t necessarily an assertion. An assertion isn’t just an expression of opinion. To assert is “to declare or state positively” (as I already quoted two dictionaries). — Michael Ossipoff
Each of the above statements between the rows of asterisks expresses a claim, not just an opinion. I claim that they’re true (not just that they express my opinion). — Michael Ossipoff
Yes, theories, or supposed “laws” about the physical world, can be, and have been, later determined to be wrong. And so, statements about how the physical world works are conjectural, to varying degrees.
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But that isn’t true of all statements. — Michael Ossipoff
”No one’s utterances are all guaranteed to be true.” — Michael Ossipoff
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But then in that case, there's nothing special about a "claim" as opposed to an "opinion."
.The most you could say is that a claim is an opinion with some attempt at support
., or an opinion is a claim with less or no attempt at support.
.”No, that isn’t necessarily an assertion. An assertion isn’t just an expression of opinion. To assert is “to declare or state positively” (as I already quoted two dictionaries)”. — Michael Ossipoff
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But I can "declare or state positively," I can stamp my little feet as much as I like (so to speak), but for all that, I may yet be wrong.
.”Each of the above statements between the rows of asterisks expresses a claim, not just an opinion. I claim that they’re true (not just that they express my opinion).” — Michael Ossipoff
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But your opinion, if isn't just you letting off wind, is also a claim that something is true.
.A statement isn't made more certain by it being couched in terms of "No guys, I REALLY REALLY think this (which is my opinion) is true, and here are my reasons ..." :)
.”Yes, theories, or supposed “laws” about the physical world, can be, and have been, later determined to be wrong. And so, statements about how the physical world works are conjectural, to varying degrees.
.
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But that isn’t true of all statements.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Well, no, not in that sense; but you'll notice that most of the things you laid out as claims are in the area of "analytic" or "true by definition" or "a corollary of the definition of x is that ..."
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But that's not what we're interested in, surely? We're interested in objective truth, truth about the world.
.Following the line of thought that passes via Hume and many other philosophers through to the later Wittgenstein, I would say that an analytic/a-priori truth is a truth about the world only indirectly, only insofar as it's (truly or falsely) outlining our own linguistic and conceptual habits, our definitions, our criteria for calling things "A" or thinking of them as A.
.But you may define a thing as you like. Whether it exists or not (as so defined, or differently defined) is another question.
.Everything can in principle be challenged, everything is in principle open to doubt
.…, including your claim examples
., including even the deepest "synthetic a-priori" axioms we use
., including even the laws of logic.
.BUT, that permanent status of conjecture that all our statements have (including this one) means that the presumed authority of "claims" vs. "opinions," or the supposed importance of the distinction that goes back to Plato, between "Justified True Belief" as against "mere opinion" is - well, not exactly bogus, but doesn't bear the weight it's traditionally been thought to bear
.Justification is really more a part of rhetoric/persuasion than it is of the actual knowledge-discovery process,
.which proceeds by PUNTING possible-ways-things-could-be and then SIFTING them, rejecting those theories whose corollaries and implications predict results that turn out to be false in experience.
.Claims that fail modus tollens cannot possibly be true (although even then, one can attempt to "save appearances" to some extent, by re-jigging the underlying definitions), but claims that survive testing may yet be true - and that kind of corroboration is (I think) the best we can do.
.(All of this actually leaves me more open and willing to try on religious and mystical claims, btw. I'm much more open to the classical - Aristotelian, Thomist - arguments for God's existence than I used to be, for example.)
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