That's a bit odd, at least for me. I start from the justified true belief account of knowledge, so for me, knowing something means being able to justify it, which would require some rationality, wouldn't it? — Ludwig V

Not always. I know it is autumn by looking at the falling leaves from the trees outside. My knowledge of autumn arrived to me purely from the visual perception. Why do I need to justify the knowledge? If someone asked me to justify it, I could then do it. But before that unlikely event, I just know it is autumn.

But in some other case of knowledge, rational justification is needed, helps or even based on. You seem to be over simplifying the issue, which results inevitably in the muddle.

I was trying to clarify the correct use of the concept "rational" from the muddled way. :)

Why would we not say that given that they believed their myths, they were rational to build the pyramids? — Ludwig V

Knowing something is not also being rational. One can know many things in the world, but still can be irrational, or be common as muck, have nothing to do with rational being. Reason and being rational can be basis of knowing, but reason and being rational is not knowing itself.

So you are saying that people with no language do not act rationally? That seems like a stretch. — I like sushi

Well, if you told me, you like sushi, or you ate 10 boxes of sushi, then I wouldn't take that comment as rational. But if you said, you like sushi, because of the health effects it can bring, or some other reasons why you like sushi from biological, social or cultural backgrounds, then I might take that explanation rational.

Having ability of using language or knowing meanings of some words doesn't make one rational, nor does ability or preference eating sushi.

I can certainly think without words. The guy from Mexico managed to cross a border and work in the US before coming to understand what language was. Do not confuse language with culture. Our understand of language maps onto the lived-world rather than the other way around. — I like sushi

Do not confuse language and words with the rational explications and justifications expressed in language.

OK. I can make some sense of that. To be rational is to rationalise. — Ludwig V

:up:

1. So do you think that the people who built the pyramids were rational or not? (They built them before the ancient Greeks started philosophizing.) — Ludwig V

They were physically rational, but not philosophically rational. There is no record or evidence of their rational explanations on how and why they had built them.

2. About the process of learning or acquiring a habit or routine. I grant you that putting on one's lucky trainers when going out to compete is not (normally) rational. But when the habit or routine is capable of rational justification - driving or fuelling one's car would be examples - is learning or practising those activities rational or not? — Ludwig V

You could ask them why they put on the lucky trainers, and if it is rational to do so, and also ask for the justification for doing so. If they can expound about it in rational manner, then they are rational. If not, they were just superstitious.

Doing something, practicing or training some skills are not rational. Only when they can elaborate on them critically, reflectively and logically, they could be regarded as rational.

Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

No, they are not rational at all. They are more in the arena of emotional states.

I agree rational thinking requires language and then questioning out one thinks and that animals do not do this and can not do so without language. — Athena

:up:

However, there is evidence that bonobos can learn language and judge right from wrong. Why not, we are on the same branch of the tree. But it is curious in nature that bonobos do not develop language independent of human intervention. However, if a bonobo does learn language at least one of them has taught the offspring language. I am wondering if they would continue to pass on language and if so, would they develop better language skills in following generations? (evolution working) — Athena

I am not familiar with bonobos and their languages at all, but I guess it is nowhere near in the complexity and diversity of human languages.

More important, should we assume all humans are rational thinkers or must they learn the higher order thinking skills to be rational? Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

Not all humans are equal, and rational even if they appear to be. Only some are.

Driving and fueling cars and opening the doors which most people do without having second thought about doing so based on habits and routines, and rationalising i.e. analysing, criticising, reflecting and questioning about them logically, critically and reflectively are different category of things.

The former is just doing and living, the latter rationalising and philosophising.

Coming from the math thread. Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

When someone has rational thinking, he / she must be able to reflect, analyse, criticise, and ask questions on the thinking. Just because a hawk has hunted his meals, or dog has opened door to go out for whatever don't mean they have rational thinking. They are just instinctual survival and habitual response by the animals.

If you trace back to the origin of rational thinking, then it would be the ancient Greeks. How did they start? They started by asking what is the world made of, and debating and analysing on the world linguistically. Then Socrates came to the scene asking how one should live to be good, and followed by Aristotle who asked and propounded what happiness is.

No animals can do rational thinkings like the way they did. If someone had rational thinking on why he went to a shop, then he should be able to explain the reason why when asked the reason why.

Suggesting animals have rational thinking is a gross confusion on the concept.

Does the color “red” exist outside of the subjective mind that conceptually designates the concept of “red?” — Mp202020

What is the difference between the colour "red", and the concept of "red"?

Truth is truth. There is no separate religious truth and factual truth or rational truth or empirical truth. Religions claim a lot of things e.g. the Biblical God created the world in six days. — Truth Seeker

I don't agree with you. Their truth is not philosophical or empirical truth.

I am talking about what Buddha taught. Not what different schools of Buddhism teach. — Truth Seeker

It doesn't matter what Buddha taught. We notice how the historical buddhism has been, and is now in reality.

On the contrary, religions claim to be true. "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6, The Bible (New International Version). — Truth Seeker

You are talking about totally different kind of truth which is in the Bible, i.e. the religious truth. It is not the factual or rational or even empirical truth.

Of course they talk about truth. But what does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. Their truth is not the truth the non-believers know as truth.

No, Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths and they are based on empirical observations. — Truth Seeker

There are so many different schools of Buddhism. They all claim totally different things.
Most Buddhists I have met talked about good luck, good health, good fortunes, and rebirthing to richer and more successful folks in their next life. Nothing else.

Most religions rely on faith instead of evidence. — Truth Seeker

In that case, truth or falsity don't belong to religious domain. Rejecting religions solely on the basis of lack of truth is not reasonable.

Buddhism is an exception in that Buddha's original teachings are based on what is empirical. — Truth Seeker

Most religions including Buddhism have been for the believers' wishing good fortune, prosperity, good health, good luck and better afterlife and rebirth after their deaths, rather than academic or philosophical debates on the universe or self.

Some folks and authorities have been using and abusing the religions for justifying their wrong doings and forcing the other folks into irrational actions and practices. These facts are not faults of the religions, but the people and authorities.

When did you first wake up from the American dream? — an-salad

The dreams coming true happens only in the movies and fictions. Waking up from the dreams into the cold reality is what happens in real world.

How could religions be true when they contradict themselves and contradict each other and contradict what we know from evidence-based research? — Truth Seeker

The current western narrative at least focuses on the contradictions in religion, signifying a turn in the Dialectical battle in which Science has only recently made headway, but continues to face threats (Fanaticism, Theocracolies, Fundamentalism and Traditionalism). — ENOAH

Contradiction doesn't mean it has to be rejected out right. Contradiction means it could be further investigated and analysed. Recall Hegel? Without contradictions, there is no progress or understanding in the universe.

Religions have their own truth system, which is different level from truth system based on rationality. There is possibility that human reason is not powerful enough to perceive and understand all the existence in the universe.

You said that you have been reading much and all the religious books. I am sure you would understand my points.

The believers of a particular religion believe their religion is true. This also spread their beliefs to their children. There is often a steep penalty against leaving the religion one is born it. For example, leaving Islam is punishable by death. This is how religions survive for thousands of years. — Truth Seeker

I don't know anything about Islam, Hindu, Buddhism or Christianity, but I used to think there might be something that is more than what non-believers see and believe.

Whether or not I believe in them, religions exist and billions of people believe in them and live their lives according to them and happily kill others for them. — Truth Seeker

It seems to be sure that one thing common in religions is that it is beyond the rational thinking system. You kept brining in religions into your threads, so I was expecting that you might be saying something more significant than religions are fiction. Claiming that religions are fiction without solid arguments has no significance in philosophical discussions.

I agree with you. — Truth Seeker

:cool: :ok:

The questions here are, then, what is purpose (in itself), where does it come from, what is its ground? Or, what exactly gives it all meaning, makes it all worthwhile? — tim wood

Purpose is like the concept of cause and effect. It doesn't exist in the empirical world. It comes from the human mind i.e. imagination, desire, motives or will. It is psychological in nature.

Truth has nothing to do with subjectivity or objectivity. Truth exists no matter whether you know it or not. Knowing or believing has nothing to do with truth.

You may not know a box exists on my desk with a content. But it does exist, and it has its content.
At the moment, I don't even know what content the box has in it, because I forgot about it, or I have not opened it and checked it out yet. Truth exists even if no one knows it. The universe started at some time and by some causes, but no one knows about it. The truth of the universe exists, but no one knows it.

Therefore talking about subjective or objective truths is a confusion. Knowing or believing are mental events about something, which has nothing to do with truth.

Hindus believe their holy books are true. Just as Christians, Muslims and Jews believe their holy books to be true. Only the nonbelievers disbelieve the holy books of all religions. The holy books of all religions are self-contradictory and mutually contradictory. I have studied most religions. — Truth Seeker

Most "Hindus" would say, [and I currently generally agree,] that vis a vis the only ultimate reality, everything projected into the world [as a representation of/by Mind] is ultimately a fiction and yet we have been deceived by it. And not just for a few millenia, but since the dawn of human history [as opposed to prehistoric human animals] — ENOAH

If all the religions are fiction as you claim, then why do they keep believing in them for thousands of years?

Isn't there a whole branch of philosophy called the Philosophy of Religion? — Truth Seeker

Philosophy of Religion doesn't deal with the legitimacy of the claims made by the religion. Philosophy of Religion is mainly interested in the linguistic and conceptual analysis of the religious scriptures and expressions.

But if you just label all the religions are fictions, then people might wonder what was the point of you even mentioning them in your posts.

It's written in their holy book. I don't agree with them. I think all religions are fiction made up by people. — Truth Seeker

Two questions come up to mind.

1. If it is a fiction, then why people have been deceived by it for so long time? 5000 years? Surely it takes 5 minutes for ordinary folks to know it is a fiction.

2. If it is a fiction, then what is a philosophical point of it?

Under what ground and evidence Hindus believe the universe is illusion and things have immortal souls which reincarnate according to karma? Do you agree with them?

Might I suggest, respectfully, the illusion that you might not have any illusions? — ENOAH

Sure, I am not ruling out possibility of illusions in life and the world.

You are welcome. It sounds traumatic especially for a young child.
I have never been kidnapped. So it is hard to imagine how it would be like to go through experience like that.

I have not read much in Religion, so the Hindu system is unfamiliar to me. Would it be similar to Buddhism? I recall some Buddhism scripture saying "Seeing colour is seeing emptiness" or something like that.

Neither am I. But we are in the Philosophy forum, and can try learn to philosophise by reading books and discussing the topics.

You listed illusion as one of the possibilities for the idea of Self. I think it is somewhat meaningful concept. In my time of childhood, I had been living with the 100% of illusions on the world, life, other people and the Self.

I believed Santa Claus was real.
I believed people live forever.
I believed if people die, then they come back to life in a few days of rest, after seeing the same action movie actor being killed in a movie, then a few weeks later, he was back in another movie fighting the gangsters.
I believed that old folks are born old, young folks like me are born young, and it will be like that forever.
I believed that my parents might be God, because they could buy me nice things.
I believed that the world is the size of my town where I lived.
I believed that when I am asleep, the world disappears, and I am the centre of the universe.
... etc etc.

Those were some of my childhood illusions, which were all proven to be false, as I was growing up. I am not sure what other illusions I might still have.

We don't have the means to test the simulation hypothesis. — Truth Seeker

Philosophy doesn't dirty its hands doing tests. That's the job of science.
Philosophy inspects the problems, investigates, analyses, reasons, argues, criticises and come to the conclusions.

There is no such things as Empirical Logic. We apply our reasoning to the empirical events or objects. The way you apply your reasoning to the events, objects, formulas or statements, be it inductive or deductive is called Logic.

Hypothetical talks are interesting even though they are not philosophical statements. I am a big fan of science fiction. — Truth Seeker

We shouldn't stop at hypothetical talks, but once certain presumptions are agreed, then we could move on to the reasoning on the presumptions, arguments and finally the conclusions can be induced from the arguments.

For instance, what does simulations have as the properties? If somethings is a simulation, then it must have a simulator (God?), simulated (people or you), and observers of the simulation. Simulations also can have hypotheses, forecasted processes and the results. Do we have some or all of these elements / properties on the simulation of life in this universe?

Fair enough. I'll do my best to comply because I respect the value in that. Please assure me you don't mean to exclude the imagination. — ENOAH

Imagination is a powerful mental event, which is a vital concept for providing us with the answers to the discussions. For example, isn't imagination the source of the idea of Cause and Effect in Hume?

Also, please keep in mind that even the dogs are permitted the scraps off their masters table. — ENOAH

Of course, we all co-exist in this universe communicating and sharing the ideas and information via language and actions.

Hypothetical talks are not philosophy, and they belong to mysticism or esotericism. Philosophical discussions are based on logic, reasoning, facts and the critical investigation on the facts, premises and conclusions in the issues for the verified truths.

All bivalent systems of predicate logic only have (by definition of bivalent) two
Boolean values of True or False with nothing in between. What you have been
saying is the same as saying 2 == 5. — PL Olcott

I never said that. You keep misinterpreting me.

Anyhow it shows you that bivalent logic is not useful and incapable for the real world uses in describing the complexities of the structures, events and objects.

Not sure if your previous post was about the function call in Prolog, but it didn't look like the standard way of using function calls in the other PLs, hence I asked you about the difference between math functions and programming functions.

No apology is needed for your delayed reply. — Truth Seeker

That's cool.

Death could be the exit from this simulation. — Truth Seeker

Death cannot be the exit from the simulation at all, because no dead person has ever survived after their deaths. Once a person dies, he / she never comes back to reality or empirical world at all. They just totally cease to exist eternally.

What if there are an infinite number of universes? If so, the one-in-infinity possibilities would be real in at least one out of the infinite number of universes. — Truth Seeker

You could try to prove their existences. I doubt anyone can prove it, but it doesn't mean that you cannot prove it. If you still believe in the possibilities of the existence of an infinite number of universes, why not try to prove it first?

Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct then there could be an infinite number of universes. — Truth Seeker

You need to read up QM then.

Unfortunately, we have no way to test this hypothesis. — Truth Seeker

If an infinite number of universes existed, it would be in the mind of the believer. Never in the physical world.

They call functions of the Boolean type predicates in all orders of predicate logic. Functions of any other type are called functions. Predicate: >(5,2)==TRUE Function: +(5,2)==7 — PL Olcott

For some unknown reasons, you changed the subject to Functions. There are differences in functions of math, and functions in computer programming. Can you explain the difference?

Predicate: >(5,2)==TRUE Function: +(5,2)==7 — PL Olcott

Could you please explain that in plain English? And how is it related to our discussion?

I didn't say we can eliminate the idea of simulation. We could be aliens experiencing a simulation of what it is like to be a human on Earth. Death could be the exit from this simulation. — Truth Seeker

Sorry for my late reply. I have been busy with the work, and had no time for reading posts.

It sounds too far-fetched to say that we could be aliens experiencing a simulation of what it is like to be a human on Earth, when you were born from your own parents, and been brought up by them going through the state education system, and been living a normal human life on Earth.

There is no logical, empirical or physical ground for that beliefs, unless you remember something realistic experience of yours such as being thrown into the Earth from the outer space, or landed somewhere on Earth via UFO etc.

The belief could be interesting in SF, but without any evidence or ground, it would run the risk of committing self-deception.

Looks like I didn't understand him. — Truth Seeker

Thank you for your confirmation. It's good that we can eliminate simulation from the idea of self and life. We can move on to the other mental states or events such as illusion, dreams, hallucinations and hypotheses for the investigations.

Instead of a three values system with {True, False and Nonsense} I have bivalent systems of logic that derive a type mismatch error for any expression that is not a proposition. — PL Olcott

It is a Boolean valued system. When epistemological antinomies are involved they must be rejected
as a type mismatch error because that have no Boolean values. — PL Olcott

You are confusing between HOL and Computer Programming. In HOL, there is no such things as Boolean values. There are {Truth, False, Unknown, Contradiction, Neutral}, and they are the values of logical interpretation.

Boolean is a type of data in programming language. Boolean type value is not True or False, but "1" or "0", and certainly never have anything to do with "Nonsense".

Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTNvcy5LZPo where Elon Musk explains why he thinks we are living in a simulation. I don't agree with him. — Truth Seeker

He is not saying life is simulation. He is saying that civilisation is simulation, because it is such a short time of history compared to the whole universe.

All civilisation will end, and they could end anytime. We could be living in a simulation, and this is his point. It sounds like a metaphor.

Elon Musk thinks that our perceived world is a simulation created by our descendants. I wish we knew more. — Truth Seeker

Under what basis and evidences, life could be a simulation? Simulation sounds like you have control in starting and ending the simulation, and also being able to rerun the simulation whenever you wanted. Recall when you are playing the Role Playing Computer games? You can control what RPG you want to play, and Exit anytime when you don't want to play any more?

But there are many things in life you have absolutely no control such as being born, ageing and death. How could life be a simulation, if you don't have any control over these things?

I have found that line of reasoning ineffective so I switched. We have to resolve my prior reply before you can begin to understand my updated reasoning. — PL Olcott

Please reread my post above.