Maybe a logical reframing of this might be that it's possible to be certain of things that we do not believe that we believe?

IE: Possibly [(X is certain that P) and not (X believes that X believes that P))]

If belief as a modality collapses, this is equivalent to:

Possibly[ (X is certain that P) and not (X believes that P)] — fdrake

If I read you right, this is not actually what I claimed.

Let me give it a try.

1. I sense things in the physical world.
2. I assume that what I sense is the physical world.
3. I realize at the same time that my senses may provide me with illusions, not feedback on the physical world.
4. I am not able to establish to any degree of certainty which is true: my assumption in 2 or my imagination regarding a possible illusion in 3.

This is beyond @Banno. He believes that what he believes is true. I shall leave Banno to that, and he can merrily go about the landscape unfettered by any criticism by me of his believing that what he believes is true.

What more is there to a certainty, that it is not simply a belief?
— Banno
Think of it this way: the likelyhood that your certainty is right on (ie. that your belief is false, or else that your belief is right on target) is reflected by the degree of certainty. And the degree of certainty can't be established by any means by humans when it comes to KNOWING whether what we sense as reality is itself reality or not.

So what more is there to a degree of certainty: the possibility that our belief is false, or right on, or anywhere in-between. — god must be atheist

Are you claiming that a belief is always a belief that such-and-such is true? That's what I've long claimed. — Banno

This is where you confused me. Your statement is a non sequitur to my point. I tried to address the relationship between your apparent "wisdom" and my point. I failed, because there is no relationship there.

---------------------

Personal opinion starts here, unrelated to the topic:

You've given me the advice to read stuff. I suggest you start doing precisely that, starting with the forum posts of others, and attempting to understand the points of your debating opponents.

I realize that you are more into other stuff. You're more into making sweeping statements that are unrelated to the topic, spewed out randomly or else spewed out at points where it is critical in the debate to make a stand. You do it, in my opinion, because you are incapable of fathoming the meaning of the posts of others.

Those last few posts of yours are terrible. They make no sense. — Banno

I concur. The first of the last few posts was sensible, though, methinks. The one before the one I juxtaposed two of your declared beliefs.

For the record I don't consume street drugs (coffe, granted, but not even nicotine or alcohol). I don't know how to check out the time stamp on these posts. I must have been dead tired when I wrote them, and the next morning I realized they were gibberish.

But it was too late to change them by then.

I thought of stating "Please disregard my last few posts", but I thought I would leave that joyful job to you. Thanks for coming through.

The written word was never intended to “increase awareness, connection, and collaboration,” but on the contrary has been used since the time of Hammurappi to subject and control the people. — Noah Te Stroete

You in one fell swoop dismiss entire libraries of engineering and other scientific knowledge. Chemical, biochemical, whatever you want to name it, you dismiss all progress, catapulted from time to time by the written word.

By progress I mean efficiency and inventiveness. Pasteur's immunization; the Hoover Dam; telephones and the Internet; cell phones and smart phones and smart tvs; even books, clothing, and skyscapers are based on knowledge passed down and refined by the written word.

There is a theory of mobility; you go out, you come back, and in the main, your final destination remains the same. The difference between the rich and the poor, the only material difference in enjoyment of life and in lifestyle, is that in-between coming home, the rich can go farther away than the poor.

And besides, ExxonMobil profits never helped anyone I've ever met. Oil is sold on the world markets and the prices are the same for you, me, and everyone else I've ever met no matter if ExxonMobil owns it or not. I don't give a fuck about ExxonMobil. They are fucking the vast majority of Americans. — Noah Te Stroete

1. Oil is a commodity. It is sold on the commodity markets, which are not retail markets. If you buy a Columbia Coat in Vancouver, and one in Toronto, they may have vastly different prices. But oil is not such a goods. I can't explain it any better than saying it's a commodity. I can't explain it better precisely because I don't understand it either. But it's not the only commodity... corn, soy beans, minerals, uranium, etc. all have world-wide uniform prices.

2. ExxonMobil has helped lots of Americans, barring the sharing of profits. Americans' cars would not run without oil production; retail goods would skyracket in price or not be available whatsoever if they had to be manufactured and distributed without oil production. ExxonMobil sure takes a huge profit, and it sure takes the government by the balls and squeezes them until it gets what it wants (including wars), but one thing you can't say is that ExxonMobil does not help Americans.

3. As a private opinion, and I don't suppose anyone here will agree with me, I offer and put it to you that there is no difference in lifestyle between people who earn $2000,000 a year and people who earn two billion a year or anywhere in-between; and I put it to you that the life of the rich is only marginally better, if at all, than that of the middle class, or even that of the poor (outside of America, the poor).

- all three strata enjoy medicare (in rich countries outside the USA)
- all three strata have enough to eat, and good tasting food too;
- all three strata have access to public education (free until grade 12)
- all three strata have access to entertainment;
- all three strata have access to hygienic products and lifestyle;
- all three strata have access to clothing, transportation and telecommunication.

These all apply to Americans and non-Americans in the rich countries, except the first point.

MY point? A rich can't eat a thousand or million times more food than the poor. He can't get a thousand to a million times cleaner, healthier, uncold, unhot (against the elements), unnoised, he can't dance a thousand or a million times more steps, he can't get a billion or a hundred million times laid more, they both have the same amount of orgasms over a lifetime, see the same amount of movies, play the same amount of computer games, sing the same amount of blues in the shower.

Being rich is an American dream which is idolized by the poor, protected by the rich, and unbeknownst to all involved, who are stupid enough to not think it through, in and by itself being wealthy by a large margin buys you double the fun, but not even triple, never mind 1,000,000 times the fun.

We got the Super Bowl and Twinkies, right? — Noah Te Stroete

Now you are talkin'. Sports, and drugs. Rock'n'Roll went out the window with sex, i.e. with the sexual counter-revolution, due to AIDS. It was only coincidental (or a conspiracy) that new musicians can't make any serious money whatsoever. Grand theft is a national pastime in certain industries.

Whatever. You're a fool. — Noah Te Stroete

NO, no. My conspiracy theory is in the news. Yours is behind the headlines. Mine are in the li(n)es. Yours are in-between.

Which are more likely to be true?

"When two conspiracists lock antlers."

Also, social control is crucial to maintaining the power structure. — Noah Te Stroete

They learned this from Hitler's Nazi movement, and from the Communist terror propagation. Except in America everyone buys the lies. This is because the powers that be suppressed education. The communists' biggest mistake was to teach science and literature and art to their young. Consequently, every citizen saw right through their lies.

I have news for you: the American establishment lies are almost identical to those of the communists. The difference? Amys believe them. Russkies did not.

We have 40-50,000 troops in the Middle East as well as oil executives and contractors and military bases in the countries surrounding Iran. — Noah Te Stroete

Yeah, but half of that number in troops are Americans-turned-Jihadists who were enchanted by the wonderful promise of the Islam. Plus, after joining up, they could kill people without repercussions... big attraction for most young hot-blooded All-American Boys.

Ah, yes. Nancy Reagan. Dumb cunt. — Noah Te Stroete

But she was nice and religious.

She so dumb, she couldn't cunt up to five. She kept missing the number 4.

re-establish the USA as the only dominant force in the Middle East, — Noah Te Stroete

It did not work... for long. There is no presence that we know of by the USA in the Middle East wars.

Then the Reagan Revolution happened. — Noah Te Stroete

"Just say NO."

It has a ring to it, it has the writers behind it, it is unmistakeably a slogan... yet even this hasn't worked.

and as of yet attained freedom from propaganda. — Noah Te Stroete

"Poverty is where it's at. Yeeee-Haw, poverty, don't leave home without it." -- Does not have the same ring to it. They have better writers.

And don't be so naive as to think that the CIA doesn't have some trolls or shills on this forum. They are at least monitoring it closely (as is the NSA). — Noah Te Stroete

I caught a flee in my undershirt. It jumped off, but I caught it. I killed it.

Upon closer examination under a microscope it turned out it had a built-in microchip, several of its legs were bionic, and it spoke seven different languages concurrently and fluently. It was of course incomprehensible, what with speaking seven languages simultaneously, but still, even my grade 7 class can't do that.

Of course. What else is there but money, power, and politics? — Noah Te Stroete

Oh. I know da answer for that.

Sex, drugs, and Rock'n'Roll!!

Some grasshopper species are actually more plant-based than animal-based.

the integrative measures that are employed in Feynman's path integral. I'm familiar with functional integrals, which involve measures on sigma algebras of "points" (functions) in a space, but the "DX" in the Feynman "sum over all paths" integral is still a kind of puzzle to me. — jgill

This qualifies as the quantified theory of love?

I have to admit i actually don't have the faintest what we are talking about here.

The indeterminacy of both quanta and people relate to the potentiality of their objective or ‘measurable’ states of being. The human capacity to predict that potentiality to some extent, and to set up causal conditions based on probability calculations - to effectively interact with reality beyond time - is also what makes our own potentiality impossible to predict individually, but measurable on a macro population scale. — Possibility

In a high school dance, where everyone went solo, not in couples, back 50 years ago, every boy first asked the prettiest girl to dance. Or dreamed of it. The girls, on the other hand, talked about the tallest, strongest, most dapper boy, in hushed voices, throwing glances at him and telling each other "I will absolutely DIE if he asks me."

This is a perfect predictability of whatever. Manifestation of potential to love.

You're right. In fact, there is a science now of writing fiction. They know precisely what any one person on the globe is willing to read. It has some seventeen elements, although some experts insist it has over 30 elements. All elements are essential and fundamental, and at least N elements must be present in the work to make it work. The elements include not only characters or events (not events, actually), but mostly style, conflict, conflict resolution, and also sequencing of events.

Basically Hollywood tapped onto this in 1913, and they've been producing films of the same story line ever since, without an exception. Given any genre, the movie is still the same.

So, please do share your writing with us so that we all may feel the wonder of something as yet untouched and virgin as Mother Earth once was. — Noah Te Stroete

hate to let you down, but my mother was not a virgin.

I will only say, in conclusion of this introduction, that an editor once informed me my works are “too experimental and non-commercial” to be published. — Randy333

It is a huge compliment to a writer who is experimental and non-commercial.

On the other hand, I've been compared to Shakespeare. By some editors. They said, of me, "this guy ain't no Shakespeare."

To be honest, the reason for rejection of my works that hurt me the most (not including no-replies) was when I submitted a fiction book titled "Miss Manners' Guide to Sex", full of literary short stories, and the book was returned with the remarks, "we only publish fiction. We suggest that guides and other instruction books should be sent to publishers where they are judged by peers." Those mofos never even popped the book open!

A writer's goal is to produce material to be read. At least your editor read your stuff; therefore you got 100% more readers than what I got for my book.

Well done.

In some circumstances there is nothing better to do than what the person actually is doing. To say "you have nothing better to do than..." is a moral call, which is a condemning voice, without any punch, other than it being humanly degrading and provocatively insulting albeit in a mild way**. However, it is a non sequitur, a strawman, an ad hominem, and misplaced pacifier all at the same time.

Because most people do what they do because there is nothing better to do.

** I say mild, because there are much harsher expressions of lingual condemnation than the one used here. On the Richter scale of insults, it registers a noticeable but not traumatizing 1.7.

Seance Sense Made Sensible for the Senses

I went to a seance and heard an apparition
Say to the medium, "appardon, but the partition
between living and dead are a pair of tits on
a padre's son; appoint me to a rendition
and I will sing you the blues of apparitions:

"which ghoest like this: appardon, but the partition
between living and dead are a pair of tits on
a padre's son; appoint me to a rendition
and I will sing you the blues of apparitions:

(And over and over again.)"

Randy, you are a writer. You have a superb command of verbosity. That opening post is reading material enough to win top prize in a short story contest.

Imagine if everyone became bulletproof. Then guns would lose their bite. And that would be a good thing — Pfhorrest

Imagine that on a philosophy forum website everyone would become stupidity-proof. Then arguments would lose their bite. And that would be a good thing.

an economy with at the core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system (run by depraved pagans -- ed) — alcontali

Savonarola.

Fieldism vs Materialism: an example of misplaced oppositionals

Materialism is not opposed to fieldism. Materialism's tenet is not that matter exists; it is that supernatural powers don't exist.

Fields are not supernatural.

And most precisely, matter exists as well. The formation of matter in terms of quantum mechanics is defined; I am not at all familiar with it. But fields manifest as matter under certain circumstances.

Matter is a function of fields; that is a given, and as such, matter may not be the fundamental component of materialistic relationships in the universe, but its name can be applied to include all those relationships alongside those that involve actual matter, that are not supernatural.

thank you for putting up the quote.

Are you claiming that a belief is always a belief that such-and-such is true? — Banno

Hehe! I actually never made such a claim, because it would be false. (And yes, you can call me out on that, what with my giving you an understanding I claimed two posts up.)

I can have a belief, that my belief is actually false.

For instance, my belief is that there is no god.

Then I think, maybe there is a god. It does not manifest, but its existence is possible.

Now: do I believe my belief is true, or that my belief is false?

------------

Another example:

I experience the world. My belief is that the world I experience is real.Then I think of solipsism. All of a sudden my belief is that my belief is false.

Are you claiming that a belief is always a belief that such-and-such is true? That's what I've long claimed. — Banno

I just realized that you claimed here a tautology. "A belief is always a belief". It can be followed by "that such-and-such is true" or by "that such-and-such is false", and it will still hold true, as you claim nothing more, that a belief is a belief.

In this very sense, I agree with you too. An apple is an apple, a god is a god, and a belief is a belief. Make no mistake about it.

Are you claiming that a belief is always a belief that such-and-such is true? That's what I've long claimed. — Banno

Actually, that is not what you have always claimed. Here's the proof:

Even the truths of the two systems are different. In the empirical world, there are no truths. Only approximations. In the a priori world, the truths are perfect.
— god must be atheist

Perhaps you confuse being true with being justified. There are obvious empirical truths - such as that you are reading this post. — Banno

You are claiming this now, because I convinced you of its truth. I don't know whether to figuratively praise you for learning from me, or else to figuratively deduct points for claiming something that belies your earlier claim.

Are you claiming that a belief is always a belief that such-and-such is true? That's what I've long claimed.

What more is there to a certainty, that it is not simply a belief? — Banno

Think of it this way: the likelyhood that your certainty is right on (ie. that your belief is false, or else that your belief is right on target) is reflected by the degree of certainty. And the degree of certainty can't be established by any means by humans when it comes to KNOWING whether what we sense as reality is itself reality or not.

So what more is there to a degree of certainty: the possibility that our belief is false, or right on, or anywhere in-between.

I appreciate that you may have known the concept beforehand. I have a little devil that sits on my shoulder and asks me, "why does anyone need to quote** an online reference to explain or define the meaning of a concept they are familiar with?

** Please note well: it is not the CONCEPT that I contest you'd needed to look up, but it is that I am surprized you needed to quote the DEFINITION of a concept you are familiar with. I appreciate, however, that you can conclude that your earlier unnamed concept coincides with the correct definition if you look up the definition ONLY IF you compare the two.

0 = x - x It really means superposition of everything is equal to nothing, — Zelebg

I don't follow that. How can you be sure that for every X there is exactly and precisely a -X? This is a statement verifiable only by empirical study. And no such study exists.

On the other hand: x - x does not mean "you have x, you have its negation, and the two cancel out each other." The original meaning of the minus sign is "take away", and it is not "negate" or "create the diametrically opposite." X take away X means that you have an X, and you then take it away, meaning putting it somewhere else. This is simple.

I’ve never heard of the Autonomism either. — Brett

Okay, I'll jump on the bandwagon. I’ve never heard of the Autonomism either. But there are an infinite number of other things as well (literally, and figuratively both) that I haven't heard of.

Autonomism in my days was called "l'art pour l'art".

Now I'm wrecking my brain, trying to think of something smart to say about autonomism. We, here, all of us, are incredibly well-informed experts on things we've never heard of before.

Something smart about autonomism, like "your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose".

How 'bout "An autodidacta will never write a negative review on his or her teacher, unless of course the pupil happens to be a genius who can't live up to his own expectations"?

the so-called artistic license includes even a license to kill i.e. immoral things can be done in the name of art. — TheMadFool

equivocation

Artistic licence does not carry a legal weight. A five-year-old artist can't drive a car or get married to his mother quoting his or her poetic licence.

And as far as I know, artistic licence is not a government issued licence to enable one to create art, either.

B2. There is no actual infinity of objects — Bartricks

This is a point of contention; we have no data of an observed infinity of objects, but it is not inconceivable that there is an actual infinity of objects.

E1. If an object is indivisible, then it is simple, immaterial and has not been caused to exist
E2. My mind is indivisible. — Bartricks

Simple objects are not capable to function. They are simple; they don't have component parts, as per being a simple, indivisible thing. Only those things can function (I.e. respond with different responses to different causation) that are not simple. My mind (please, don't accuse me of speaking for you, Bartricks) is capable to function in different ways in different circumstances of impressions. Therefore my mind is not simple, and therefore it is not indivisible.

My mind is indivisible. — Bartricks

That's one point I'd contest if I were a psychiatrist-philosopher.