Language is turing complete, so it's possible that every complete coherent idea can be expressed in language

in any case, the choice to leave a cult usually comes after a realisation that the teachings aren't true. I'm not sure that realization is usually a "choice"

I'm not sure what the "cult" thing is about. In any case, if you're not choosing your choice to change beliefs, then it's like that change just happened

Right, but not a choice to make that choice. So... you made a choice to do some thing, but you didn't make a choice to choose to do that thing. The choice just kinda... happened to you?

If it was a choice, was there a conscious choice to make that choice?

I agree that the things we call objective truths, we believe are objective truths for shared subjective reasons.

I think that's distinct from the question you asked in the poll though.

If we can't voluntarily choose whether a piece of evidence is good or not, how can we be sure we're updating our hypotheses correctly? — RogueAI

"Voluntarily choose" makes it sound arbitrary. Rather, some people aim to have their rational facilities set up so that they HAVE to accept genuinely good evidence. Changing their beliefs in the face of strong evidence becomes less of a choice and more of a mental compulsion - this evidence is so good that I MUST update my views, I'm not just Willy nilly choosing it

I don't believe the stuff I believe because I want to, I believe it because the combination of my life experiences and reasoning capacity make those beliefs the natural consequence.

There's a pro and a con in it: in making oneself apparently invulerable to propaganda, it seems frequently the case that one also makes oneself unavailable to *learn from what previous humans have learned*. So you have the plus of not believing a bunch of lies, but you have the negative of also not believing a bunch of truths. I think we've probably all seen people apply skepticism so deeply that they practically remove themselves from the entire human endeavour of sharing knowledge - if you can't trust what anybody says, then you have to learn everything from scratch yourself! And there's only so much of that any one person can do in their lifetime.

One of humanity's biggest strengths is our ability to pass on knowledge, learn from what people who came before us learned and documented. Shutting oneself off from that seems... counter productive, to me.

Like many things, there ought to be a way to find a healthy middle ground - one where you apply proper skepticism to avoid the most egregious propaganda, but you don't apply it so deeply that you have to start your knowledge journey from scratch.

Is it rational to hold an incorrect belief that helps you cope with pain and suffering? — Scarecow

Case 1 doesn't interest me much, I think it boils down to a semantic argument, but case 2 does. I'm not sure where I stand on that.

one of the most bizarre aspects about the pascals wager family of arguments

However, atheism couldn't possibly gain you any divine favor, and therefore it is irrational to hold atheist beliefs. — Scarecow

Such thinking makes you vulnerable to erntirely fictional threats, basically spiritual terrorism. All someone has to do is invent a narrative where you end up in hell, give you no evidence that that narrative is true, and they have you in the palm of their hands.

If god is good, he's better than that. If god is evil, no reason to suppose "believing in him" will keep you safe.

At the very least, a century on, chemistry certainly has not been reduced — Count Timothy von Icarus

I understand the case to be exactly the opposite to this - we in fact can quite literally simulate chemistry using nothing but quantum mechanics. Chemistry is one of the most explicitly reducible things there are.

For me, reductionism would only not be true if genuinely Strong Emergence was the case - if small things *stopped behaving like themselves* because they somehow "knew" they were a part of a bigger thing - like if an atom of oxygen no longer behaved like oxygen atoms normally behave once it knows it's inside a human brain, or something.

As far as I can tell, there's never been any experimental evidence that small things behave fundamentally differently based on things like this. Molecules behave like they behave, if they're in a brain or not, if they're part of a human or not. Small things *are not aware* that they're part of some bigger thing, and so they just do the things small things do. I don't see any indication that most experts in the physical sciences disagree with this, but I do see indications that many do explicitly agree.

If they did, I would be going back to the drawing board myself. I care what experts think, and if it somehow WERE true unambiguously that all physicists said "strong emergence is the case, we have these scenarios where we've seen small things that stop behaving like they normally do because of this bigger thing they're a part of", then... you know, I would care about that. I care what experts think.

I personally think one of the big confusions in these conversations comes from the assumption that 'more is different' is not what reductionists think. In fact the guy who invented the 'more is different' phrasing explicitly worded it in a compatible-with-reduction sort of way.

I find that it's very, very common for people who argue against reductionism to have placed reductionistic thinking into too small of a box. It actually allows for much more than its detractors realize.

When I said "the physical sciences are less reductionist," I meant that they are far less inclined to think that the ontological reduction can be done by pointing to "basic" building blocks that define all plurality. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It looks to me like that's exactly what they do though.

As Max Tegmark puts it, "everything can fit on a T-shirt." This is the opposite of smallism, the idea that all facts about larger things are fully explainable in terms of facts about smaller constituent parts — Count Timothy von Icarus

Another thing we interpret in exactly opposite ways. I see that phrase as something entirely reductionistic. If you explain the smallest things in the universe, you explain everything - an explanation of the smallest things can fit on a t shirt. (I'm a big fan of max tegmark btw, and I would be genuinely surprised if he weren't a reductionist himself - the sorts of trains of thought that lead to a Tegmarkian idea of existence are, to my eyes, very very reductionistic)

If you just have one entity, then process does all the explanatory lifting. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's already the case, even now - I agree with you that it would be EVEN MORE the case, but it's already the case now. How do we explain chemistry? Via quantum processes. Sure, now there's more than one type of "quantum thing", but it's still the processes - the interactions of those things - that has the bulk of the explanatory power. I don't see that as anti-reductionistic - "What processes at a low level produce this high-level behavior?" is a reductionistic question to me.

Whereas, it seems like reductionism is far less popular in the physical sciences, and this makes sense given they have very many good "top-down," explanations and because unifications—the explanation of disparate phenomena in terms of more general principles— seem to have been far more common over the last century than reductions. You can even see this in the goals of the fields. In physics, the goal is "grand unification," whereas in neuroscience the goal itself is generally seen as involving some sort of reduction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not seeing the things you're seeing. A "grand unification" looks like a reduction to me. I don't see what in the physical sciences would make you think they're not into reductionism - it looks to me like exactly the opposite.

Do you feel this malicious towards people just because they have ideas you don't agree with? Or did he harm you personally in some way?

All part of the materialist dogma, I'm afraid (one of whose leading exponents has recently begun to decompose.) — Wayfarer

If this means what I think it means, it seems awfully mean spirited. Are you mocking someone for dieing? Because they believe natural evolution is a good explanation for the origin of species?

E.g. the largest controversy ongoing in biology seems to largely center around concerns that "teleology" or something like it, cannot be allowed to gain a foothold — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can you give any sources that would demonstrate that this is genuinely a real controversy among experts in the field?

[edit] read some of this wikipedia page, it looks like the teleology controversy is mostly a matter of using teleological language. That makes sense.

If something is happening randomly, it doesn't seem like it's in my control. I don't see how randomness adds control - in fact to the contrary, I think it takes away control.

Yes, determinism doesn't necessarily prevent me from feeling pleasure or having meaning, but it also doesn't give me any say in the matter. — QuixoticAgnostic

Does indeterminism? It wouldn't seem so to me.

is that what you think I was doing? Do you think I said something incorrect?

There are two types of people; those who think people are always one type or another, and the rest of us. :wink: — unenlightened

I didn't say there are two types of people. I think you read too hastily perhaps.

there's probably a few different types of people who don't even bother thinking about it, and here's two such groups:

1. People having such a good time in their life that the question hasn't had any need to arise, or 2. they're finding it quite natural to engage themselves in projects they find meaningful without even trying

your list is a good start. Not all ideas have to be beneficial to the holder, but they should usually not be explicitly super harmful or they will die too quick (viruses have this same property - a virus that's too eager to kill it's host quickly doesn't spread).

They're viral, and just like viruses they can evolve to survive better.

almost certainly, yes. There's a reason why the question most associated with philosophy is "what's the meaning of life?" It's also the reason why so many religious people are (perhaps rightly) scared to let go of their pre-packaged meanings.

I set the bar too high? But those are your words. "can only be understood by first understanding everything there is to know" -- that's from your OP. I'm trying to understand why you set the bar that high.

So what's an example of an inductive belief that you wouldn't understand without first understanding everything there is to know?

Some empirical logics can only be understood by first understanding everything there is to know — Barkon

I think we'd all benefit from an example of this. What is an example of an inductive belief which can only be understood by first understanding everyone there is to know?

If I may make a suggestion, I think you should move away from calling these things "a logic" and find a more universally shared vocabulary. That's all.

It's a statement referring to a logic. — Barkon

A logic is a statement referring to a logic. Okay, so... the definition seems self referential and circular now. If a logic is a statement referring to a logic, then in order to know what a logic is, I first have to know what a logic is. So what's a logic? Well, it's a statement referring to a logic. Okay but what's a logic? A statement referring to a logic of course.

I still don't know what a logic is

Do you perhaps have a link to someone else defining this usage of "a logic"?

okay. "It will be day time if the Sun is to rise above Earth" looks like a statement to me. You're saying it's not a statement, it's "a logic". I don't know what you mean by that, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of other posters here also would not know what you mean by that. What is "a logic" and how is it different from a statement?

I don't know what you're saying "no" to

when you say "logic" do you mean "statement"? Because "It will be day time if the Sun is to rise above Earth" looks just like a normal statement to me.

And as a statement, sure, we know this statement is true for empirical reasons - we observe it regularly, we live in a world where other people observe it regularly.

fair enough

don't you think naming schools after rich benefactors serves as a useful incentive to get them to donate? If their vanity is the only reason they donate, why not pander to their vanity and help all those students at the same time?

Which of those attempts at formalization resonate with you most?