Like you, I'm happy to live with uncertainty, with not-knowing. And I agree with you about the existence of a mind-independent actuality. I have no need of a definition of truth either, I feel as though I know what it is wordlessly, so to speak, and no need to attempt any more fine-grained analysis — Janus
I believe that it is an altered state of consciousness that seems generally to carries with it a sense of elevated experience and understanding
— Janus
That's intriguing. Especially the 'elevated experince and understanding' part of it. What would be an example of this? Are you thinking enlightenment... gurus and such? — Tom Storm
Elevation is an emotion elicited by witnessing actual or imagined virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness.[1][2] It is experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual whose exceptional conduct is being observed.[2] Elevation motivates those who experience it to open up to, affiliate with, and assist others. Elevation makes an individual feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity.[3]
Elevation can also be a deliberate act, characteristic habit, or virtue that is characterized by disdaining the trivial or undignified in favor of more exalted or noble themes. Thoreau recommended, for example that a person "read not the Times [but rather] read the Eternities" so that he "elevates his aim."[4]
That's intriguing. Especially the 'elevated experince and understanding' part of it. What would be an example of this? Are you thinking enlightenment... gurus and such? — Tom Storm
Perhaps the problem is not, not being able to find "absolute certainty", but the framing of these issues in terms of "absolute certainty". Garbage in, garbage out. — Banno
For me an empirical fact is something that can be directly observed. That said, I think we may be talking at cross-purposes. I agree that, in the sense that everyone is aware of things, believes things and knows things that awareness, believing and knowing cannot be completely independent. — Janus
My point is that we can be aware of a particular thing without believing or knowing anything about that thing, we can believe a particular thing without being aware of or knowing anything about that thing, and we can know how to do something without believing anything or being aware of doing the thing.
Of course, we do have to be aware of what we are doing when we are learning to do something. I think it really comes down to how you want to think about it. There is not just one correct way.
I agree—absolute certainty is not possible except relative to some context or other. — Janus
My point is that we can be aware of a particular thing without believing or knowing anything about that thing, we can believe a particular thing without being aware of or knowing anything about that thing, and we can know how to do something without believing anything or being aware of doing the thing.
Examples may help me to grasp what you're saying here. The above, as written, seems plainly false to me. I would argue that all three candidates/examples/suggestions are false, as they are written. — creativesoul
Either all knowledge is existentially dependent upon belief or it is not. — creativesoul
But I would go further and suggest that "absolute certainty" is a nonsense formed by concatenating two otherwise innocent words. Trying to make use of such a term leads immediately to misunderstanding. — Banno
But I would go further and suggest that "absolute certainty" is a nonsense formed by concatenating two otherwise innocent words. — Banno
I don't count "elevated experience and understanding' as being demonstrably more than a feeling. In other words I don't think we can know what the implications of such experiences might be. The guru thing might be helpful for some people, personally I dislike the smell of it. — Janus
I see the psychologist Jon Haidt's notion of elevation as having a lot of support, and fitting well with my experience: — wonderer1
The advice is not to talk about such things, but to enact them - whereof one cannot speak, thereof one can do. — Banno
Why should we kowtow to evolutionary "progress"? — Banno
This infatuation with evolution is new, isn't it? — Banno
I think that you're getting at or pointing towards the kind of habitual muscle memory habits that develop given enough time and repetition. With that I'd wholly agree, but as "cross-purposes" implied, that's not what I was talking about. — creativesoul
Belief less creatures cannot know how to plane boards. — creativesoul
I can be aware of whatever it is that is present to me right now without believing or knowing anything about it in any propositional sense. — Janus
I'm not fond of the notion of "proposition" — creativesoul
. The notion that evolution 'progresses" is somewhat problematic. Take care. — Banno
What I meant about planing boards and riding bikes is that you can watch others doing them, and then have a go, trying different things and improving with practice. — Janus
I see no need for any particular beliefs in that...
Well, in my defense, those words left your keyboard, not mine. — creativesoul
I'm arguing from the standpoint of evolutionary progression. — creativesoul
"In that" is not how I would put it. It's that mimicry presupposes at the very least, that the mimicker believe they are mimicking. — creativesoul
My point is that we can be aware of a particular thing without believing or knowing anything about that thing, we can believe a particular thing without being aware of or knowing anything about that thing, and we can know how to do something without believing anything or being aware of doing the thing.
Examples may help me to grasp what you're saying here. The above, as written, seems plainly false to me. I would argue that all three candidates/examples/suggestions are false, as they are written.
Aristotle, in Metaphysics, IX 10, distinguishes between two kinds of truth: truth as the correctness of speech and thought, and truth as the grasping of indivisibles (asyntheta, adiaireta).2
The first kind of truth involves complex articulation: it requires that the things in question be “combined and divided.” If in our thinking and speaking we combine and divide things as they are themselves combined and divided, our thinking and speaking will be true; if we combine and separate things in ways different from the ways they themselves are com-posed and divided, our thinking and speaking will be false (Metaphysics, IX
10, 1051b2–9). It is important to note that this form of truth has falsity as its opposite. If I say, “Snow is white,” I have composed a statement. I have put thoughts together. If snow indeed is white, my statement and my opinion will be true; if snow is brown, my statement and my opinion will be false. It is the statement and the opinion that are true or false. In De Anima, III 8 (432a11), Aristotle says that being true or false belongs to an "intertwining of things thought, a symploke¯ noe¯mato¯n.” In this passage, the term we have translated as “things thought,” noe¯mata, needs to be clarified, and we will have more to say about it later. The intertwining of things thought is a syntactic achievement.
The second kind of truth involves not complexity but a simple grasp of simple things (Metaphysics, IX 10, 1051b17–33). This kind of truth has ignorance, not falsity, as its opposite. Suppose I am engaged inconversation and someone begins using the word eisteddfods. If I have never heard that word before, I do not take in anything when I hear it now; and since I do not take anything in, I cannot be mistaken. I do not get anything wrong; I simply do not know. My deficiency consists not in falsity but in ignorance. Or suppose something is happening before me and I am completely bewildered by it. Again, I fail to take anything in, and my thinking is not false; it is simply uninformed, which is different from being misinformed. To be exact, I should say not that my thinking is uninformed, but that I simply am not thinking. I have not gotten there yet. I may be trying to think, but I have not succeeded in having a thought, either simple or complex. In the first kind of truth, by contrast, I do have a thought (that snow is white), but it might be false. In the second kind, my mind does not rise to the level at which falsity is even possible.
I just think we will disagree as to just where it has its roles, or to put it another way, about where it is appropriate to speak about belief being a factor... — Janus
Either all knowledge is existentially dependent upon belief or it is not.
— creativesoul
I don't think there is an empirical matter of fact about that (certainly not a determinable one, in any case), — Janus
Knowing and believing are language games, ↪creativesoul. — Banno
I'm not so sure that we are in agreement. Take:That is exactly the issue, and what I was trying to convey to Janus. — Bob Ross
Follow your own argument and apply this to itself. Are you going to say that we only know that, say, P(A) = n(A)/n(S) is probably true? How could one find the probability of such a thing? But there is a step further here: the whole framework of a probabilistic theory of truth must be taken as true in order to function as an account of truth... that is, the sentence "n(S) is the total number of events in the sample space" must also be assigned a probability, but this cannot be done without our having already assigning a probability to that very statement.It is not that we have no knowledge, it is that we only have probabilistic reasons to support the truth of things. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this: the alternative is absolute truth....
The only way this negates my position, is if you could validly claim to it is absolutely true; and you can’t. The things you know, are based off of probability: all you are noting is a high probability. — Bob Ross
You continue to think of belief as a discreet "thing in the head", as mental furniture. — Banno
We each have innumerable beliefs that we have never articulated, indeed which we never will articulate, but which nevertheless we do hold to be true. There are unstated beliefs. Each and every one of these can be set out as a proposition that is held to be the case.
Perhaps you believe that you have more than 28 eyelashes, but until now that belief has never been articulated. The belief is not a thing in your head.
It would be absurd to suppose that each of one's innumerable beliefs exists somewhere in your mind.
That a belief can be put into a proposition is a grammatical point about the way the word "belief" is used. If you can't put it into a statement, then you can't be said to believe it.
"The cat believes the mouse ran behind the tree" shows exactly that - "the mouse ran behind the tree" being the content of the cat's belief. What is not claimed is that there a thing in the head of the cat that somehow is named by "the mouse ran behind the tree". Rather there is the cat's capacity to recognise, chase, anticipate, and so on. It is humans, you and I, who benefit from setting this game out in terms of belief and intent.
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