I don't think that is what Wittgenstein is saying. I think he is saying it is possible to be dogmatic, in the sense of holding some traditionally held "primary theses" about the world (Relativity is correct) and yet still be capable of advancing your knowledge by way of critical thought. Perhaps critical thought doesn't target dogmatic core beliefs initially or directly, but it can eventually penetrate them.

Thank God. Someone understands my point here finally. I was going to lose my mind and l was beginning to think whether l was spewing complete garbage.

I think it is possible to think about the methods and obstacles that are present when one is using critical thinking and after reflecting on it. The whole post-positivist movement that was initiated by Popper as you have mentioned falls under that. But as you have seen with my discussion here, it is impossible to convince another person that there can be something wrong in the application of critical thinking in a highly critical field. People usually take that for granted, especially in science.

You should read Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher who argued for the presence of dogma in science. :smile:

I’m not willing to change the definition of a word to suit your claims.

You don't have to but we were using the same word differently.

Btw, don't you sense the deep irony

I’m not interested in this kind of word play tbh.

yet in colloquial speech we do call psychological fixedness,

hmm :sad:

How about the example l gave before and l will quote again.It was a matter which could not be decided on basis of evidence and a lot of other problems in religion, philosophy and even science cannot be decided on basis of evidence. Here is the example, it was treated as an axiom. You have to change your conception of dogma in order to include other forms of dogma.

physicists dogmatically accepted that time is absolute, yet they still managed to think critically on a lot of their topics based on time. Only in the 20th century, this conception of time was again challenged.

I swore an oath to uphold a Wittgensteinian view regarding philosophy

I am here.

Can dogma exist in an absolute form and encompass knowledge totally. I think that would be an exaggeration.
People can have fundamental dogmatic beliefs and based upon them exercise a limited critical thinking. Limited critical thinking can also happen when the person does not stand on dogmatic grounds, simply because of the limitation of the human mind. I understand why dogma doesn't change but it can provide a base for other thoughts to evolve. For example physicists dogmatically accepted that time is absolute, yet they still managed to think critically on a lot of their topics based on time. Only in the 20th century, this conception of time was again challenged.

I don’t see how using critical thought to decide who to believe in, can be called ‘dogma’

Any novice will have to select a certain viewpoint to follow or adopt and l believe critical thinking at that time is not possible, simply because of the absence of knowledge. Hence, it will be a lighter form of dogma

Sure, so far l have only checked his falsification principle in science and he does seem to engage in a meta epistemic study. Recently l had a discussion with a friend of mine on that topic and we could not reasonably draw a line between what constitutes scientific thesis and which doesn't. For example, a lot of modern psychology is in a midway between science and psuedo science.
But what's your take on it. Do you believe that we can think critically about critical thought itself. I think we can but it will always be a circular task. Even though all results may not be wrong, their reasoning can always be challenged.

It can make sense, as l explained here.

In that case, a certain amount of dogma is absolutely necessary in order for a person to gain knowledge of the subject before applying critical thinking on it. The vastness of the knowledge in the world means that there will always be people who are experts in a certain field and other people will have no choice but take their words for it

It kind of seems like you are saying, it is possible to think critically 'about' something specific, but it isn't possible to think critically about critical thinking?

I don't speak for him but l think there is some truth to it. The tools we use can only be applied to something other than themselves. If we try to improve the way we think. We will only end up with a conclusion that was pre-supposesd in the beginning. It will be a circular task.

Dogma basically means to accept as writ without criticism - ergo it is probably more likely to induce a lack of critical thought rather than broaden and refine critical thought.

In that case, a certain amount of dogma is absolutely necessary in order for a person to gain knowledge of the subject before applying critical thinking on it. The vastness of the knowledge in the world means that there will always be people who are experts in a certain field and other people will have no choice but take their words for it. Further more, the ability to think critically is totally different from the will to think critically. Consider a scientific theory which needs some refinement and despite the will and effort of many scientists to improve it, only a few will be able to think critically and succeed in improving it. I think we are confusing the will to think critically and the act itself.

Those open to shifting their world views are more open to taking criticism on board. I wasn’t saying for a moment that scientist, philosophers or pious people are automatically one more than the other, only stating inclinations instilled in them.

I think inclinations are due to human nature itself and not the subject beforehand. It manifests itself in different forms. In religious doctrine, you will find a relative freedom in the interpretation of their texts but within the fold of the belief system.For science it is opposite, you will be able to claim anything but the freedom will also require you to provide a more rigorous justification of your thesis on basis of mathematics and experimental evidence. Dogma exists in different forms in every activity human beings take part in.

Critical thinking is certainly dangerous without large doses of humility.

Was chatting about this sort of thing recently. The reason why ‘scientists’ are generally more capable of critical thought is likely because they are happy when their ideas/theories are proven wrong - that is exciting for them. When it comes to more dogmatic areas of interest (where ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ don’t fit so readily) the opposite is sought out: that is people look to be shown right in order to develop a sense fo ‘understanding’. At the extreme end the dogmatically religious types seek proof to rest on and do their upmost to deride any contradiction.

Critical thinking is largely absent from the cultural paradigm. If everyone was busy in such an act, it would be impossible to differentiate the creative people from the followers. Most Scientists also tend to be followers in a sense. Even though they can be more open minded to changing their opinion on certain matters than most religious people on religious matters. To give an example that will bring clarity to my claim. Consider Einstein, he was incredibly critical to come with a theory that fundamentally changed what had been accepted for perhaps 300 years. Yet all that critical thinking did not let him accept the parallel development that was taking place in the quantum physics. He obviously understood it better than most of us but he insisted that the theory was incorrect and it took quite sometime for him to get used to the viewpoint. Another important example is feynman, he did not like the field theory of Schwinger as it was more tedious. Even though it was far more rigorous than what Feynman had presented. The scientists are also human beings and will always end up being partial to one way of thinking over another in the field of science. Let's move away from science and focus on philosophy. The rift which existed between analytical philosophers and the continental philosophers or to put it more accurately, the complete indifference of each other to the others development is yet another example of a category of people,the academic philosophers being close minded, contrary to the opinion that philosophers are always open minded.

It is quite easy to target the religious people and take a jab at them. Dogma is comforting to the common man who doesn't really care about the technical details or whatever the fuss theologians have created. This is the way the social consciousness works and probably will in the future. The apologetics are really too close minded and do not represent the majority. I am sure most of them do notice the weakness of their arguments but for sake of defending their religion, still use them nonetheless. If you really want to understand some religions, you also need to look at them from a psychological point of view. A lot of philosophers who were deeply in touch with the human spirit were against apologetics and one of the best examples is Kierkegaard. He really understood what was the problem at hand.

It does, surely.

Um, no, I don't think so. The practice of ascetism is all about attaining a higher spiritual or moral state. The collective good very arguably qualifies as such. Where are you getting the idea that ascetism is about renouncing the collective good? This seems prima facie not true, as I just suggested.

The collective good is never a moral aspiration of the highest order. Renouncing this world is one of the steps ascetics undergo. I don't think we ever had any time in human history where such aims were adopted collectively. Besides that, in order to understand our true ambitions and intentions, we need to separate ourselves from the crowd. Remember that the crowd has no moral responsibility or consciousness in a way an individual has.Responsibility is always on an individual.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we we don't believe in it at all.

--- Noam Chomsky

But I do not think all hope is lost on consumerism. The consumer is not necessarily devoid of spirituality and completely full of self-interest. The same is true of materialists. I even suspect that, in due time, the world has room for a completely materialist religion, one that need not appeal to gods and ghosts but can no less sanctify and make holy the world.

Consumerism is one of the terrible products of materialism. I understand the way you used the term self-interest but consumerism doesn't even allow such precepts to develop. It controls the self interests and molds them according to the need of those in control of the market. I think we have entered into an age where we can see some sort of materialistic religions. l do not think that such religions will carry the same force as those that extend their answers to include after life and answer the questions around death, that are so vital for finding a purpose in life. They will be quite hollow and be too flexible to leave every generation confused in some respects. At least that's the way l feel.

And a religious society, at least the ones we've had, demand sacrfices of individual will to moral systems determined by scripture and religious authority. The Abrahamic religions have managed to make really rather incredibly repressive societies to the individual will.

In my understanding of the morality given to us by Abrahamic religions. A lot of the matters that involve morality are in fact left to our own consciousness. The books do present certain moral codes but they are not enforced robotically but with keen self evaluation. For example, slavery wasn't explicitly prohibited by any Abrahamic religion yet it is now universally adopted to be morally reprehensible. The false dichotomy which Plato presented was inherited by the theologians mistakenly and l think morality evolves like any other form of human thought.

Well, sure they can. They can spend money on vodka and go swimming or they can have consciousness raising meetings. Marxists in Western societies can choose between all the options their peers do. Marxist professors for example. There is always a way to aim for as much pleasure as possible or to aim for something else, regardless of income and circumstances

I regard all Marxists professors who live in capitalist states and do not even attempt to move to a place where their world view is in practice to be hypocrites. They can certainly entertain the idea of Marxism but with regards to their living choices, they do not believe in it at all. By Marxists l mean all those who live by it and practise it. It's not a weak argument in my opinion. We are what we do.Take for an example medicine. If a person believes that the medicine is effective and he is feeling sick, he will take it.

Wow. Scientism, which is the idea that the only route to knowledge can come via science, is a position that could be held quite easily by ascetics. In fact most of the people who claim to that epistemology that I know tend towards a rather disciplined life and certainly not an extravagant one. And when I use the word 'discipline' I am not being complimentary. I am using the word neutrally. I am a theist and do not adhere to scientism, but I don't recognize the materialists you are talking about, not as a rule or even as tendencies.

Ascetics that follow a certain religion, say Abrahamic religions often tend to believe in some sort of inspiration from God, not revelation but inspiration as a means of knowledge. Rumi is quite popular and he did believe in a world that is beyond science but l leave this matter at your hand to explore further more. I don't think a few personal examples from your experience will invalidate the fact that those who believe in scientism also tend to be materialist.They do not have to live an extravagant life and extravagance is really hard to quantify. For some ascetics, eating food twice in a day and sleeping for 8 hours is already extravagant. According to science, death is defined as the death of the brain. Hence, those who believe in scientism have a firm ground for themselves to engage in seeking the pleasures of the carnal self, simply cause they believe it is all there is to a human being besides intelligence.

The act of asceticism is in essence separating oneself from the percieved collective good and being free from the desires of the carnal self in any form, individual or collective.

You can disagree but as far as l have understood, Marxism is a theory and communism is the final product of Marxism. Communism does not always fail but l find it difficult to see a sufficiently large communist state that is based on anarcho-syndicalist principles.For communism to function in the modern world, we will always need bureaucratic communism, which will always end up taking away liberties. Besides that, Marxism does not allow religion in any form and this isn't only in practice but in theory also.

Although marxism aims to liberate human beings, particularly the working class from worrying about the basic neccessities of life and depending on an income for survival.They have to pay a price for that. In order for communes to function and work properly, the individual will has to be negated in favour of the collective will. The institution of religion and family are also opposed by Marxists and most people want to uphold them in one way or another. Therefore in a marxists state, such people will be denied all liberties related to the personal will or any other activity deemed unfit by Marxism.

Marxists do not favour hedonism but they cannot be in any way ascetic as they lack the element of freedom despite refraining from sensual pleasures. Further more, marxists cannot justify their ideals from the point of human will power as they negate it. As a matter of opinion, l think we can couple them up with hedonists as they do not liberate the human soul and engage it in an endless struggle and enslavement rather than a struggle to liberate oneself.Scientific materialism is vital for marxists as they believe in the supremacy of science over religion and spirituality.l will not say all those who favour scientism are marxists but those who are marxists need to believe in scientism.

One of the most difficult aspect of asceticism is describing it. It can only be lived and experienced. Whatever Buddha or any ascetic says will always be lost in translation when it is spread around people who don't live that type of life. It takes an empty stomach to understand how the poor feel.

Thanks for pointing it out and Yes. By materialism, l meant to imply a hedonistic viewpoint of life. However l still believe that a hedonist and a materialist who believes that the world is nothing but matter are completely natural to each other and most of the time, we find both qualities together.

If someone came up to me and presented a proof that 1=2, l would immediately discard the proof. The OP obviously didn't present something that ridiculous but it does amount to saying that the prove Cantor gave was wrong as it proves the opposite.There isn't a third possibility here. It isn't about herd mentality here since it is mathematics.In mathematics, we stand on the shoulders of giants and it does not tolerate any weakness that we find in philosophy, religion or social sciences. I understand where you are coming from but you have to see for yourself that in this sub section, we need to be more objective and avoid beating around the bush as we normally do.

Sure, if you take Cantor and OP. If you take the countless mathematicians on one hand and OP on other hand, the outcome isn't that favourable. :wink:

How is my proof wrong?

That's what this should be about. Either all the mathematicians since Cantor have been idiots and retarded to not notice the fatal flaw in the proof or OP is wrong. What's the probability for each case.

The set of real numbers is uncountable, and by uncountable we mean that we cannot establish 1-1 correspondence with the set of natural numbers.

You can reject the axiom of infinity and then proceed to say that an infinite set does not exit but if you accept this axiom, cantor's proof of the fact that the cardinality of the uncountable set is greater than the cardinality of the countable set remains true.

It doesn't really matter, why should our species continue to survive in the future and why should we believe that our planet will survive the future ? This planet has went through worse problems than global warming and those who are not the fittest will be erased from the face of the earth. If we really want to save our human race ( prove that we are fit mentally ) and many other species, we can start cooperating and instead of just signing treaties and then pissing on all of them later on, we need to start electing leaders that take the global warming problem seriously.
But that's just too much expectation and just too unrealistic, l can't control the pessimist in me.

That's generally a difficult question to answer but with respect to the past, an observer is required. As far as the present world is concerned, we can possibly think of the independence of the physical world from our senses.
In a technical sense, if we want non-materialistic objects
(mathematical truths) to have a world of their own, we will need an observer in that sense but as far as material objects are required, generally no. But for theist like me,everything that exists has atleast 1 observer.

I think the modern QFT does not use dirac sea as positrons are good for describing why the universe does not show an excess of negative charge. Besides that, how can you suppose the universe existed forever and let's suppose it didn't exist forever, how would you explain the transformation from non time to time.

I think the modern QFT does not use dirac sea as positrons are good for describing why the universe does not show an excess of negative charge. Besides that, how can you suppose the universe existed forever and let's suppose it didn't exist forever, how would you explain the transformation from non time to time.

There might be change without a sense to detect change but there cannot be time without a sense to detect change.

So in a universe with time, all changes would be detectable. Hence time puts a constraint on change, all changes now depends on time. But you mention further ahead.

. Change precedes the concept of time, not the other way around.

Maybe it's just me but if change precedes time, are you implying that change comes first and then we get time. If that's not what you meant, can you clarify this point.We usually talk about change and time simultaneously and how can change which precedes time, be dependent on time which follows from it.

If I am in a system in which every object is at rest, why would I say they are moving at a constant velocity? They have no velocity. Also I never said that “motion presupposes time”, what I say is that time is a measure of change, and motion is a form of change. Change precedes the concept of time, not the other way around.

Also if I am in a system in which all objects besides me are at rest, I would still see change: if I move my eyes the scenery would change, I would sense my heartbeat, my thoughts and imagination could change, ...

A system in which all bodies are at rest is identical to a body in which all bodies are moving at a constant velocity as in both systems, change is not detectable. I think change includes time as a measure and it would be incorrect to say that time is a measure of motion as motion includes distance too. The units are totally different. Time is a measure of time and motion is a measure of distance or displacement/time. You cannot place yourself outside the framework of time and place all other objects under time in the same system. At most you can select a different framework with respect to time.Time either applies to everything or it doesn't in a system.

Also, velocity doesn’t have to be defined as distance over time, it can be defined as a fundamental concept

I haven't come across any such definition and could you define it here. That would either reduce velocity to something else or compromise all other physical units that depend on it.

As I said the ‘transition’ wouldn’t be a process, suddenly there would be change, but no one would be there to see it so it’s not even meaningful to speak of it that way. Change already exists as soon as the transition begins, so the ‘transition’ itself belongs to change, there is no change (and thus no time) before change. And again no one would be there to see it, if you assume someone is looking at non-change turning into change then that means there was already a being so there was already change.

If we take this viewpoint into consideration, the interval between change and non-change would not even be zero as you noted that the transition also belongs to change. The state of non-change and change overlap and from non-change emerged change. Would this imply that the state of change is the same as the state of non change as they could be replaced by each other. Won't that be a contradiction.

If instead we suppose that change was always there, there is no beginning, so fundamentally there is no infinite regress, you would never find a beginning because there simply isn’t one. If you can’t find something that doesn’t exist then just stop looking for it.

This would mean that some objects were being changed forever. Let's apply this supposition to an example, suppose that an object is accelerating in this system and if we also assume it was accelerating whenever we look back into the past, it would have an infinite velocity at present, which wouldn't make sense in a physical world. That's just my little thought experiment.

Your summary of the contemporary viewpoint of time in science is quite impressive and accurate as far as my knowledge is concerned.
To get to your big question which is really interesting.

This suggests that without change there would be no direction to time. The big question then is is change just a direction indicator for time or is change time itself?

Let's consider the scenario you presented, a world without motion, as a standin for the real scenario we need to consider - a world without change. In such a world there won't be a direction to time, nor will there be a way to measure time. However, this doesn't mean there is no time for the simple reason that even in the world we're familiar with there are things that don't change e.g. physical constants or mathematical truths etc. but that doesn't imply that there is no time, does it? Ergo, even if time is measurable and has direction only because of change, time isn't change and doesn't draw the essence of its existence from change.

Since time provides us some key information about an object besides the 3 dimensional coordinates. In that way change provides us information of the type of change along with the length of change and so on. However, you can judge for yourself that change provides way more information about an object in the universe than time itself. Hence time cannot be change in my opinion. However, time can be an essential component of change (or not) and that is the crucial aspect of the relation between these two concepts. This question still remains unaddressed.

We agree with the conclusion that time isn't change but l don't think your argument for the independence of time from change holds weight. The universal constants and mathematical truths do not exit in spacetime as material objects and hence they would not count as an example to prove independence of time. Besides that, even if we suppose that there are objects that do not change, then it would not be possible to let other things around them change as time either applies to all objects in a system or it doesn't.

In a way, yes. Since the past is captured by objects that existed before the present like the light from the stars that have died and don't exist anymore.The past is essentially information otherwise if we suppose it exists like the present, then the present would be the past, that wouldn't make sense in a way.

That's a nice way of describing the progression of the argument.

Our definition of 'universe' is itself framed within the limitations of our own understanding. The fact is, we simply have no firm conception whether there might be anything 'outside' of the known universe, in either space or time. The question whether it might be rotating in respect of some unknown (and perhaps, to us, inconceivable) reference point therefore remains open."

Let's suppose God could see a static universe with nothing around it in that dimension as a thought experiment. Would the universe cease to have time then ?

How could there be time without change? Time is a measure of change, or more precisely a measure of relative change (a comparison of some change relative to some other change, or said differently a comparison of some process relative to some other process).

It's easy to see the existence of time without a sense to detect change. Change in of itself is meaningless as it has to be detected by someone.Consider yourself in a system where every object is moving with the same velocity. In that case, you won't be able to see change but motion presupposes time according to you, hence you would still require time.

Either change always existed, or change arose from the absence of change, but the transition from non-change to change cannot be described in term of a process, it cannot be explained, so physics will never explain that.

In that case, we run into a paradox. Let's suppose change emerged from non change hence time was invented after change existed,but since the transition itself requires time, we have to assume time existed before change existed in order for non change to turn into change.
If we suppose non change was always there we run into an infinite regress. You see the problem with both solutions.

That's the point. The question about the content of a statement is irrelevant with regards to the logic of truth conditions.

Other than that, we have statements that are self evidently true.The rest can be compared to the world and if the state of affairs are identical then the statement are true, that's correspondence theory.

Weed and philosophy go together like oreos and milk or in case you are english, like biscuits and tea. :wink:

One of the simplest yet conclusive definition of truth comes from Tarski.

This statement is true if and only if it is true

Based on this definition, we can tell the truth conditions for all statements that involve existential quantifier, universal quantifier and all other logical operators including negation. We can extend this system to natural languages too.

The controversial matter is whether the definition involves truth correspondence theory or not.