And you also seem to 'misunderstand' me to such a degree, that I wonder if you are able to see me as someone who actually does something very similar to you, in a very rigorous manner, but through a process I might call Indiscrete experience/Inferring. — Caerulea-Lawrence
One interesting thing about Jesus and Platon's cave is 'why would they try to change people's minds?' However, when we look at the interactions, at least between Jesus and the Pharisees, it doesn't look like he understood that they didn't 'get it'. If one person went out of the cave, and had their life changed, why 'wouldn't' the second one do it once told about it? But it seems neither of them were aware of the Typical Mind Fallacy
To me, this is more of a question of inferring, than deduction or induction. It is of course possible to induct in these instances, but you need some kind of 'weighing' process. — Caerulea-Lawrence
These can be boiled down to stillness and motion. The stillness of objects is sustained against the motion of relationships. Motion is as ubiquitous as the stillness it moves against and neither objects nor stillness nor relationships nor motion is first, or last, or the essence, or the true being. Because they are all at once in the paradox, which is the being, the substance, the related ones. — Fire Ologist
So it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about seeing object and their relations or just relations of relations, the epistemic meaning of the sense data we perceive is dependent on the nature of our conceptual schemes. Do you agree with this? — Joshs
My point is that we can invent an infinite number of distinctive ways of viewing and analyzing the world. The proof comes in its application. I hope this lengthy reply answered your questions and added a little more clarity to my points. Let me know what you think! — Philosophim
This illusion is only here in distinction from some other that (which other can be an illusion as well, or anything, as in comparison to “this” particular illusion, the other need only be a “that”.) — Fire Ologist
And you also seem to 'misunderstand' me to such a degree, that I wonder if you are able to see me as someone who actually does something very similar to you, in a very rigorous manner, but through a process I might call Indiscrete experience/Inferring. — Caerulea-Lawrence
We are two people with different outlooks in the world. Hopefully through discussion we'll reach a common understanding. Please don't take my disagreement or my viewpoint as looking down or disrespecting yours. You are obviously an intelligent person trying to communicate a world view you see very clearly. Most people think it is simple to convey this experience to others until you have to write it down in a cohesive way. Its much more difficult then we expect! — Philosophim
The human brain is amazing not just for its intelligence, but its efficiency. A computer can do more processing for example, but its energy cost shoots through the roof. The fact we can think at the level we do without overheating ourselves or using more energy than we do, cannot be beat. Its easy to forget, but we thinking things that had to evolve in a world where danger and scarcity once existed at much greater levels.
This means we are not innately beings who are situated to think deeply about new experiences, or reorganize thought patterns. Doing so is inefficient. Thinking heavily about something takes concentration, energy, and time. Reprocessing your entire structure of thinking is even more difficult. So when we think about human intelligence, we shouldn't that its a font of reason, but a font of efficient processing.
So then, what does an efficient thinker focus on? Getting a result with as little thought as possible. Too little thought, and you fail to understand the situation and make a potentially lethal or tragic mistake. Too much thought, and you spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on a situation and are isolated from social groups, starve, or miss the window to act.
As such, humans are not wired for excellence, or the ideal. We are wires for, "Just enough". As a quick aside, doing more than "Just enough" is an expression of status. To do more than "Just enough" you must have excessive resources, be remarkably more efficient than others, or in a place of immense privilege. To spend time on inefficient matters and demonstrate mastery over them is an expression of one's status in society. — Philosophim
So then back to your point. One person has a paradigm, or set of distinctive and applicable knowledge that works for their life. They come across another person or group of people that a set of distinctive and applicable knowledge that works for their context. Why should one bother with the other paradigm?
My hypothesis is its about cost vs benefit. Maybe paradigm A is more accurate, but less efficient.[...] — Philosophim
If they decided to take the atheistic standpoint, sure, it might be more accurate. But at what cost? A loss of community and purpose? A loss of motivation to care about others? People do not fight for the truth. They fight for the good that a certain viewpoint provides for their lives. If reality lets them have this viewpoint and benefits with few contradictions, why change?
Perhaps this is part of the 'intuition' you speak about. It is a mistake to think that our thought processes are for logic and truth. They are for efficient benefits to ourselves and society. And sometimes we can't voice that, but its there, under the surface — Philosophim
I'm actually arguing against impossible assumptions. My perception is that there is one large multifaceted assumption that is impossible. — Treatid
Description has a mechanism. Some things can be described. Some things cannot be described. — Treatid
It is widely assumed that it is possible to describe an object.
This is wrong. It is a futile effort. — Treatid
If we were to remove each relationship to get to the essence of 1... we would eventually find we are left with nothing.
The integer 1 is the set of relationships it has with everything else. The integer 1 outside our universe with no relationships to anything is indistinguishable from nothingness. — Treatid
A description is a network of relationships.
The mechanism of language is to build a network of relationships. — Treatid
The typical process for finding the essence of meaning, significance, etc; is to strip away all the miscellaneous chaff until we are left with the essential core of the thing we are examining.
This is why this mistaken assumption is so devastating to the pursuit of knowledge.
Every philosophical, mathematical and physical discussion that tries to get to the core of a matter by stripping away all the extraneous concepts, assumptions and frippery is dooming itself to futility. — Treatid
The assumption that meaning, significance or what have you, is an essential quality of a thing is the single greatest mistake of modern thought.
The significance of a thing is the sum total of its relationships with everything else. Remove the relationships and you have nothing. — Treatid
I appreciate the extensive elaboration on the various philosophical problems I mentioned. I won’t delve into them too much, just want to give a thanks for the thought and effort, and say that it was a useful read. — Caerulea-Lawrence
Despite the apparent success of our intelligence, and the importance of efficiency, I believe focusing on that might conflate cause and effect. We don’t have intelligence because it is ‘necessary’, we have intelligence as it coincides with the survival and procreation in the specific niche we humans fill. I’m not saying that as an expert at evolutionary biology, it is just that if you look at your argument, viruses, bacteria, amoeba and parasites achieve the same goals; survival and procreation, as us humans, despite having far, far lower intelligence. In a way, for what they achieve, they are miles ahead of us in efficiency, but they do not beat us at complexity in organization. — Caerulea-Lawrence
The thing is, some people Do fight for the truth, despite the cost to their own lives. Humans as a species is very diverse, and I do not believe cost vs benefit alone fits the diversity we see in paradigms. What I believe fits better is that we are born with a predisposition to different paradigms, and are drawn to them like moths to the flame. — Caerulea-Lawrence
So why do we have different paradigms when you can be perfectly happy in a small hunter-gatherer ‘family’, or in a bigger tribe? And if the explanation is «We developed new paradigms to make sense of problems that no longer made sense with the explanations available», doesn’t the argument itself clash with reality. — Caerulea-Lawrence
Seems like we are diverging from the original point you have made about Knowledge and Induction. — Caerulea-Lawrence
If I understand what you're saying, I agree. I once sat down and asked myself, "If this is correct, what would knowing the truth be?" I realized the only way to know truth, which is what is real, would be to have observed and experienced something from all possible perspectives and viewpoints, and an understanding of all conclusions which did not contradict themselves (as well possibly the ones that do!).
It is an absolutely impossible endeavor. — Philosophim
For example, the emotion of 'dread'. While we might be able to objectively ascertain that people experiencing dread have some common physical tells, that doesn't mean it describes the individual feeling the person is experiencing. While an individual can know if they're experiencing dread by the emotions they are currently having, being able to know if another person is experiencing that same emotion, despite physical tells, is only available to that specific person. We cannot experience what another experiences. — Philosophim
It depends on your definition of 'describe'. If I describe a lemon as a yellowish sour fruit, its a description is it not?" When we say that things are impossible, we have to be very specific as you also realize that language and meaning can be very indefinite unless we make it so. — Philosophim
That is one way to describe it, but I can describe a scenario that counters that. The integer "1" is really a representation of our ability to discretely experience. "One field of grass. One blade of grass. One piece of grass." We can discretely experience anything. Not just parts but everything. The discrete experience of "Existence". A sensation in which there is nothing else but the experience itself. No breakdowns, no parts, no relation. It is within this that relation forms when we create parts. But the experience of the whole, of being itself, is one without relation. — Philosophim
You obviously understand that full knowledge (truth) requires all the contexts.
This is my proposal. This is where I think we can make progress as philosophers and as humans. This is where the pursuit of knowledge lies. This is the path to all possible understanding. True, we can't reach the limit - but we can approach that limit. — Treatid
Impossible to reach omniscience - yes. But partial understanding is better than no understanding.
We are agreeing with each other so hard here it makes me wonder how we can possibly diverge elsewhere. — Treatid
I want to take it further. Apply this to everything. Your perception of the world is rooted in your experience of the world.
I think your description of 'Dread' applies to every concept that we can feel, experience or think — Treatid
Rain is a common experience and by sharing our experiences we come to regard the experience of rain as being objective - something that everyone experiences in the same way. However your description of 'dread' applies to my experience of 'rain'. — Treatid
You've talked about taking shortcuts where we don't want to build everything from first principles just to say hello to the neighbour...
Shortcuts are fine, even necessary, but they are a convenient approximation.
When doing a deep dive into philosophical knowledge we are liable to find ourselves led astray if we rely on the shortcuts as being fundamental in, and of, themselves. — Treatid
Here we part ways.
You purport to demonstrate that we consider '1' discretely.
I'm looking at your description and seeing you describe '1' using a bunch of explicit and implicit relationships. — Treatid
You sit down to read a book. The first page contains the word 'one':
"one"
And that is it. That is the entire book.
You understand 'one'. The word has some meaning for you. But simple stating the word 'one' doesn't expand your knowledge. No new information has been conveyed.
To convey information you must put that 'one' into some context - some set of relationships with other words. — Treatid
As I read these two sections I see a disconnect. You are contradicting yourself. You are arguing two distinct contradictory positions. In the first paragraph you argue for the importance of context, in the latter paragraph you are arguing that we can consider things without context. — Treatid
And then we have everyone from philosophy through mathematics to physics arguing that there are inherent truths independent of context. — Treatid
You obviously understand that full knowledge (truth) requires all the contexts.
This is my proposal. This is where I think we can make progress as philosophers and as humans. This is where the pursuit of knowledge lies. This is the path to all possible understanding. True, we can't reach the limit - but we can approach that limit. — Treatid
Despite this clear understanding, Everybody and their dog suddenly starts insisting that knowledge, truth, meaning, ... are inherent properties independent of context.
This isn't a rational position. It is a direct contradiction of our direct experience of the importance of context.
Even after making the clearest statement of meaning/truth/significance I have ever seen; you flip around to arguing for inherent meaning just a few paragraphs later. — Treatid
Each piece of context you remove takes you further away from knowledge. Every extra piece of context takes you closer to knowledge. — Treatid
I’m wondering how far you’re willing to push the role of context in relation to the progress of knowledge. I’d like to we you push it to the limit. — Joshs
socorro’s g he idea that knowledge — Joshs
What appears consistent or inconsistent, true false , harmonious or contradictory, is not the result of a conversation between subjects and a recalcitrant, independent reality, but a reciprocation in which the subjective and the objective poles are inextricably responsive to, and mutually dependent on each other. — Joshs
If you doubt that there is an objective context, how is it that almost all human beings of a particular intelligence are able to learn that 1+1 = 2? — Philosophim
Likely its in our definition differences. — Philosophim
What I am doing is trying to break down complex concepts into more simple and easier to comprehend ideas. People think better when you can get down to fine grained foundations, and build on top of them. — Philosophim
Context is critical because both we and our world are in continual motion. We have a system of constructs that are organized hierarchically into subordinate and superordinate aspects such that most new events are easily subsumed by our system without causing any crisis of inconsistency. When we embrace new events by effectively anticipating them, our system doesn’t remain unchanged but is subtly changed as a whole by the novel aspects of what it encounters. — Joshs
So much agreement - but the devil is in the details — Treatid
1. The choice is not between objective and chaos. The choice is between objective and relative. — Treatid
General Relativity (GR) is wholly incompatible with Newtonian Mechanics (NM). — Treatid
1+1=2 is true within Euclidean Geometry. We know for a fact that our universe is non-Euclidean. — Treatid
Which is to say, there are infinitely many more systems in which 1+1 != 2 than in which 1+1=2. — Treatid
In a closed system (like the universe) all definitions are circular. That is A --> B --> A.
Which is to say that according to the common conception of 'definition' there are no definitions.
We can describe A in terms of B. We can describe B in terms of A. That's it. That is the complete list of things we can do with language. — Treatid
In the entire history of mankind there has never been a non-circular definition.
Or, more constructively, meaning is dependent on context. — Treatid
What I am doing is trying to break down complex concepts into more simple and easier to comprehend ideas. People think better when you can get down to fine grained foundations, and build on top of them.
— Philosophim
Do they? You have evidence of this? — Treatid
Joshs describes how experiences (such as new ideas) are more easily digested when they largely align with our expectations for those experiences.
In this conception (which I agree with), the ease of assimilation is how closely new ideas fit within our existing framework. — Treatid
Try to memorize this number by single digits: 24777977
Now try to remember it by grouping it: 24-777-977 The second is much easier. — Philosophim
The more I interact with your ideas, the more familiar and relatable they become. — Treatid
A hill climbing algorithm can get stuck at a local maxima and never find the global maxima. — Treatid
and pure logical and verified deductive thought takes the most time out of all approaches. — Philosophim
Could you go into more detail regarding the mechanisms of deduction? — Treatid
You're welcome! And I got the alert that you replied this time. :D — Philosophim
Despite the apparent success of our intelligence, and the importance of efficiency, I believe focusing on that might conflate cause and effect. We don’t have intelligence because it is ‘necessary’, we have intelligence as it coincides with the survival and procreation in the specific niche we humans fill. I’m not saying that as an expert at evolutionary biology, it is just that if you look at your argument, viruses, bacteria, amoeba and parasites achieve the same goals; survival and procreation, as us humans, despite having far, far lower intelligence. In a way, for what they achieve, they are miles ahead of us in efficiency, but they do not beat us at complexity in organization.
— Caerulea-Lawrence
Very true. It has been argued that our intelligence evolved out of our social nature. The understanding of complex and dynamic situations has spilled into other areas of our brains allowing us to analyze complex relationships outside of social situations. — Philosophim
The thing is, some people Do fight for the truth, despite the cost to their own lives. Humans as a species is very diverse, and I do not believe cost vs benefit alone fits the diversity we see in paradigms. What I believe fits better is that we are born with a predisposition to different paradigms, and are drawn to them like moths to the flame.
— Caerulea-Lawrence
I don't disagree with your assessment. I think its an equally valid viewpoint. I could sit here and say, "Yes, but fulfilling that predisposition is for their personal benefit," but that's unnecessary. There is a compulsion among individuals and groups that certain viewpoints of the world this fit our outlook better. And I do believe some outlooks are better by fact, only because they lead to less contradictions and overall benefits for the society. A society that relies on logic, science, and fairness is going to be better off than a society that relies more on wishful thinking, superstition, and abuse of others. — Philosophim
So why do we have different paradigms when you can be perfectly happy in a small hunter-gatherer ‘family’, or in a bigger tribe? And if the explanation is «We developed new paradigms to make sense of problems that no longer made sense with the explanations available», doesn’t the argument itself clash with reality.
— Caerulea-Lawrence
I believe that is one reason people change paradigms, but there can be others. I find religion to be an interesting paradigm that can persist in the modern day world. While religions often have logical holes or contradictions purely from a rational viewpoint, as I've mentioned earlier, they provide a sense of community, purpose, and guide that are often invaluable and not easily replaced by abandoning the precepts. Even though the modern day world can explain multiple things in ways that do no require divinity, a divine interpretation of the world can largely co-exist beside it in a truce of sorts if societal rules are established properly. Separation of church and state for example.
I believe the greatest motivator is, to your point, a paradigm that fits within what an individual or group is most inclined towards. As long as reality does not outright contradict the goals of the group, it is acceptable and often times protected from outside criticism. — Philosophim
Seems like we are diverging from the original point you have made about Knowledge and Induction.
— Caerulea-Lawrence
No, I believe we are building upon it into the next steps. I wrote a follow up on the third post that includes societal context if you have not read it yet. The original post did not include societal context, as the initial post about the knowledge process of a singular individual is enough to wrap one's head around initially. If you haven't read that section yet, feel free as it might help with the current subject matter we're discussing at this moment. Fantastic points and thought Caerulea! — Philosophim
While optimally, we should use distinctive contexts that lead to clear deductive beliefs, deduction takes time and energy, and is not always practical. When a well-designed context runs into limits, there is no recourse but induction. Fortunately, we have the hierarchy of induction once again. As long as we agree on the definitions involved, we can practice contextual applicable knowledge. — Philosophim
I’m not dismissing the application on the social context, I am trying to point out that paradigms are, possibly, more fixed deductive filters that either sort and organize communication and knowledge, or distorts and disorganizes. An example would be to look at language itself. For some people, words can be ‘true’, whilst to others, words are always ‘relative’, in that you add in context, meaning etc. These two ‘groups’ will butt heads on many subjects, and will often feel they aren't 'speaking the same language'. A third would be the variant that not only sees the relative in written texts, but that also sees itself, the discrete experiencer, as part of various contexts, and therefore naturally adds in a self-understanding of itself in its understanding of others, a meta-self. To tie that together with the prior part about induction, each paradigm have certain parts of reality that, despite the continuous lack of applicable knowledge, continues to use the least probable way to gain more knowledge about that field, or when forced, reduces the findings to mesh with already known knowledge. Consistently. — Caerulea-Lawrence
Whereas you here (third post) argue that the premise for using induction is ‘hitting a roadblock’, my argument is that the use of induction is reasonably fixed according to the given context/paradigm (further differentiated by culture, personality upbringing, genes etc.) and as such in any given paradigm there will be no further self-directed inquires into the lack of clear deductive beliefs. Within any given distinctive context there will be those that question it, but those are also the ones possibly changing paradigm, and seeing many things in a new light and gaining traction on the fields where there were a lack. — Caerulea-Lawrence
However, the 'dominant' paradigm will have an influence on most things, and so 'science/technology, and some type of market-capitalism' is something most paradigms will have to deal with somehow. This isn't what I would consider 'being' on a paradigm, it is a more forced shift in behavior of outward appearance to avoid, or elicit, certain benefits/risks, not from an adherence and self-governed understanding of the underlying principles governing the structures, as well as general agreement with the underlying focus. — Caerulea-Lawrence
Again, thanks for your replies and sincerity so far. This conversation does not fit the stereotypical experience of being on the internet, and I mean that in a very good way. — Caerulea-Lawrence
I have a deck of cards containing one card - the jack of spades.
I draw one card. It is necessarily the jack of spades.
This is just induction. — Treatid
Well stated. While the theory above does give us a stable foundation to build off of, once we start looking beyond that base the amount that ca be built is stories high. The interesting thing, is we can build several types of buildings. Some may fit certain situations better than others. And in society that's what we find. Different cultures and subcultures with their own emphasis on truth vs relative, subjective vs objective. — Philosophim
They key for me is that it is fine that we have these multiple scaffolds. The part we should be doing is to define what it means to build something, and why we should build it based on the situation. Just like you want a bendable building in an earthquake, you might want a knowledge structure that is flexible when exploring new ideas and themes. — Philosophim
Knowledge does not capture the truth, but is a tool to arrive at the most reasonable assessment of reality for survival and desired goals. — Philosophim
There is no 'one right way', because we are not computers that have infinite time and energy to truly establish, "X is applicably known." What is right is knowing the guidelines themselves. Knowing what a floor, walls, and ceiling are. This will let us create or improve upon contexts of different peoples based on people's needs and desires with some type of foundational rules. — Philosophim
Correct. Your understanding of this and of people is impressive! Just like any person can fish, any person can think. But the person who understands the rules of fishing is going to do better overall in the long term than an amateur who fishes for fun. Of course, the amateur may not care to do more than fishing for fun, and there is nothing we can, or should do, to change this. It is up to the professionals to push the boundaries of and refine the established rules of the game. Some of that leaks down and is emulated by people who only dabble into it. So I think those who want to take knowledge seriously should have a solid foundation to work with. How they use it is up to them and the needs of the people involved. — Philosophim
if you argue that Knowledge is for the sake of survival and desired goals, and therefore it is justified having a hierarchy based on who has the best knowledge? In other words, I question where the justification built into your model is based on.
Of course, you shortened the model, and maybe some of these axiomatic arguments were left out, and so now their absence means these questions prop up. — Caerulea-Lawrence
Is 'survival and desired goals' a neutral, all encompassing, by-all-agreed-upon purpose? From my perspective, and I hope this comes across in the right way, your values, your truths, are some I view as far from universally held — Caerulea-Lawrence
If anything, humans and animals alike follow a rather peculiar impulse to diversify for the sake of 'something', but not for the inherent sake of Knowledge or complementary desired goals. At least this is how it looks to me. — Caerulea-Lawrence
My thoughts on the matter are that many of our human 'ways' are incompatible with each other. An example would be how people generate applicable knowledge, not for survival and "desired goals", but for destruction and obliteration.
Knowledge is therefore power, a good and a tool, and never neutral. — Caerulea-Lawrence
And, You might want a bendable building in an Earthquake, but what if the builder was cutting corners to save costs, and so your house falls down? — Caerulea-Lawrence
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