So your claim is that if we permit illogical theories then reincarnation is permissible? — Banno

Life is not reducible to logic. Most of what transpires in the human realm fits into what Pareto call non-logical action, in case you didn't notice. All I pointed out is that failing to fit with a known scientific theory does not in itself invalidate an hypothesis. If it did, there would be no scientific breakthroughs or paradigm shifts.

Making such a theory scientific will push up its credibility rating to 100%, a desirable state of affairs, don't you think? — TheMadFool

It would if the subject matter was within the realm of science. Or perhaps I should say "current science."

But being unfalsifiable relegates any theory of reincarnation based solely on memories of past lives to pseudoscience. Can we do anything to repair such theories to make them scientific? — TheMadFool

But as I was pointing out, not all theories in the "human" realm are - or must be - scientific. To think that all theories must be scientific in nature is what leads down the slippery slope of reductionism.

I think Popper was talking about his famous falsifiability criterion for judging whether a given theory is scientific/empirical or not. If a given theory T explains everything then, nothing contradicts it and so it's unfalsifiable. — TheMadFool

Correct.

In sociological analysis it can be a given that there are "non-logical" theories which nevertheless factor significantly in the actual operations of the human world. So relegating the theory of reincarnation to the realm of non-logical theories doesn't undermine it.

I'm curious what you guys think of this idea: almost everyone in the Western world is essentially enlightened or capable of grasping the core facets of an enlightened mindset due to pervasive infusion of basic science and history into the educational system along with the centrality of technological thinking in broader culture — Enrique

Here I would you you are overestimating the general level of education. Even at the secondary school level, core competencies are deteriorating. For those who do go on to post-secondary education fields are becoming increasingly siloed. I think there is a frightening lack of generalized knowledge. Compared to fifty years ago I would say that people who are educated are less "comprehensively educated" now than then. And yes, this is a major barrier to any kind of enlightenment.

I'd say I'm more of an omnivore. I try to identify the gaps in my knowledge, and systematically fill them in while intuitively following theoretical directions from areas where I'm already conversant. Last year I studied Systems Theory extensively. That included some socio-psychological applications. I decided I had a gap there, so I dove into socioeconomics: Mead, Habermas, Weber, Marx. I'm halfway through the last volume of Capital. Did a bit of a detour to read Popper's three volume Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery. That was a real eye-opener and something I'd hugely recommend to anyone.

Once I finish Parsons and Marx I'm moving into more socio-political stuff and linguistics. More Habermas, Dewey, Cassirer, Saussure. Ideally I'd like to consolidate my understanding in some kind of practical political way. I think the world is ripe for better ideas and reform.

Vygotsky looks good. Interesting how these sociocultural models of action seem to create a mutually coherent structure. The Parsons I'm reading is actually his interpretation of Marshall, Pareto, and Durkheim, so kind of a synthesis.

I've been thinking that it isn't so much that theories are "true" as that they are cohesive and coherent, both internally and externally. So what we are really doing in learning more and different theories is building up a vocabulary of descriptions that allow us to progressively better conceptualize and communicate abstract concepts. Like your description of perception, making an intelligible self and making an intelligible world.

The Peircean answer is when it becomes "my truth" rather than "our truth".

Language binds us as social animals to a collective identity, a communal point of view, a culturally-constructed model of "the self". So "truth" becomes that to which a community of inquirers practising practical reasoning would tend.

The community of inquiry is broadly defined as any group of individuals involved in a process of empirical or conceptual inquiry into problematic situations. This concept was novel in its emphasis on the social quality and contingency of knowledge formation in the sciences, contrary to the Cartesian model of science, which assumes a fixed, unchanging reality that is objectively knowable by rational observers. The community of inquiry emphasizes that knowledge is necessarily embedded within a social context and, thus, requires intersubjective agreement among those involved in the process of inquiry for legitimacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_inquiry

Pragmatism navigates the middle path between the extremes of relativism and positivism, or idealism and realism. — apokrisis

Yes, this fits very closely with the social philosophers I have been reading, Mead and Parsons certainly.

Seems like a non-starter until someone comes up with a coherent definition of Consciousness.. — Scemo Villaggio

What does it mean to define something? You can define "abstraction", because abstraction is a concept (I hesitate to say an abstract concept). You cannot really "define" a horse. A horse is what it is. You can "describe" a horse. In the same sense, I think you can "describe" consciousness, but you are not in a position to "define" it.....

I wonder, at what point does the agreement, "there is a truth," degenerate into the disagreement "this is the truth?"

Perception is as much a business of making an intelligible self, as making an intelligible world, in short. — apokrisis

Nicely put.

That's an interesting assumption. Nothing more. — Banno

For you, it's an assumption. For me, it's definitive of the ongoing experience of reality. I guess we each have our own truths. Mine fits with my understanding, I'm sure yours fits with yours.

Indeed, juxtaposing object and subject leads to incoherence.

So don't do it. — Banno

Except that objectivity and subjectivity are inextricably bound and form the basis of the world as we know it.

↪Pantagruel SO, sometimes the ball falls up?

Sure. — Banno

Why did I know that was coming?

It's context (frame) relative. If you are standing at the antipodes of the globe, and the ball is dropped, then what is it's direction, relative to you? Everything is true within a specific context.

Only a perspective which was completely free of intention would be truly objective. But then it would not be a perspective.
— Pantagruel

Sounds like a koan.

What is the view of no view viewed?

How is it that there is no thing in the "thing-in-itself"? — Nils Loc

Nothingness coiled in the heart of being? A lot of eastern philosophy I have read involves concepts like "passive volition" or "no mind". It may be something that you can actually "do" more effectively than you can encapsulate it with reason. Performance knowledge vs conceptual?

What is it you think this word does, here? — Banno

Qualifies the sense of "true" to match my earlier comments, that it is a perspective, and a reduction, or an approximation, rather than an absolute.

↪Pantagruel ...and yet the ball falls down. The funny thing about facts, scientific or otherwise, is that they are true. — Banno

More to the point, they are approximately true....

What you say is very true. There in an intrinsic energy of dialectics that needs to be considered. The human world is definitely polarized; and I think from the appropriate perspective, nature really is too. Systems theory shows natural systems exhibit a similar state of "heightened imbalance".

Excellent point.

Actually, facts themselves are ultimately subjectively conditioned inasmuch as they always represent one specific perspective. Scientific facts epitomize this. A scientific fact is always an abstraction from a holistic natural state to isolate some particular elements within a particular experimental perspective. It has been said, we murder in order to dissect. And we do it continuously. Only a perspective which was completely free of intention would be truly objective. But then it would not be a perspective.

So Hobbes as pessimist need not believe that we should be selfish, nor do I think a pessimist is bound to believe we should be selfish. It's quite possible for a pessimist to think we should be unselfish, but yet are not. — Ciceronianus the White

It is possible, but my point was, if you do move from psychological egoism to a standpoint of ethical egoism, you have given normative force to a pessimistic interpretation, which to me seems self-contradictory.

Speaking from the standopint of the principle of uniformity of nature - the foundation of laws/rules that restrict, confine, limit, coerce, shackle, chain our freedom. Too much freedom is also not good though. — TheMadFool

Actually we limit our own freedom in order to do anything.

"The limitation of possibilities is the necessary condition for the liberation of possibilities."
~Sydney Hook, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism

You should not unless you''re a bot.
To disagree is to be free.

:chin: — TheMadFool

But not free to agree....

Since, the pessimist bases his attitude on the uniformity of human behavior (people were/are bad and so they will be bad) and the optimist's attitude turns on humans being capable of breaking their habit (people were/are bad but they can be different) and since humans have clearly demonstrated they're capable of change when they so desire, it seems to be that the optimist has realized something important about us viz. that we're capable of changing our nature or, at the very least, fighting it. — TheMadFool

I agree. :up:

The gist was, if you are making a normative choice, it seems more reasonable to opt for an optimistic versus a pessimistic norm. That the notion of a norm is inherently melioristic, in other words.....

Do you think realism constitutes a normative position? I guess pragmatism might fit?

In fact, I'm the only one thinking now. I'm that demon Descartes was always going on about, and I'm pretending you're thinking, just as I pretended he was. Sorry. — Ciceronianus the White

Aha! A dispute!

I cannot be mistaken about the fact that I am thinking now.

You can take any key part of your experience, and say that because of this, the simulation exists. — opt-ae

Cogito ergo sum doesn't say thinking is the cause of existence, only evidence of it, qua certainty.

Your psychology might be an accumulation of your experience, but you are also an entity. A real thing — Lif3r

My experiences are real. My experience of my physical form is real. My experience is inclusive of everything I am. I'm an advocate of the embodied/embedded school of cognition.

Are you still you after you die and cease to experience? — Pinprick

I wouldn't know, that wasn't at issue.

because there is a difference between you as an individual entity, and the experience you are having. They are two different things. — Lif3r

I'm sorry, says who? I am something other than my experiences? Fancy that.

Money for example. In some tribes the concept of a standardised currency doesnt exist. But for most of the world it does. But wait it only exists when you believe it does. When you stop believing in the value of money it doesnt exist. So "to whom" is the "existence" relevant? Who do we believe when we try to qualify the existence if money? How does money "exist" or not "exist?" It has both a material and symbolic component. Both of which can "exist." And both of which can be made redundant/ discarded and no longer "exist".

It seems some things can exist and not exist simultaneously depending on what perspective is used to measure it. — Benj96

This doesn't explain to me how something exists and does not exist. You are talking about whether a concept is known or unknown, not whether it exists or does not exist. The category of existence (and it's dyadic opposite) is plenary by definition. Once you abandon that framework, you are simply talking about something other than existence!

Dewey also applied this principle to the means-end issue. Utilitarianism presumes that certain ends can be imposed on contexts, wherein means can then be selected arbitrarily (i.e. the ends justify the means). Dewey offers that, instead, we should always be prepared to "discover" new ends based on the discovery of new capabilities in contexts. Talcott Parsons espouses an almost identical perspective in his analysis of social action and economics, we should discover new wants based on our new activities, not arbitrarily formulate new wants and attempt to tailor our activities to them.

What about things that do not fit into either of the categories 'exist' or 'not exist'. — A Seagull

What things would those be?

1. Everything that exists occupies a space.
— Daniel

Where do you get this idea from?

What do you mean by 'exist'? What do you mean by 'space'?

Does mathematics 'exist'? Does phase space 'exist'? — A Seagull

If they are inside a mind then they do....

I don't see human beings as being toto caelo different from other creatures in this respect (or many other respects, for that matter). What we call "morality" simply aligns with a naturally beneficent (or maleficent) disposition which results in behaviours that are either communally beneficial, or communally destructive. This seems to me as intuitive as saying that moral sense suddenly emerges when the human brain achieves a certain level of sophistication (e.g. Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, what have you).

Are you speaking metaphorically? I don't get it. — TheMadFool

I'm in the same boat when it comes to your topic....

Just because one doesn't have a moral theory doesn't preclude one from acting morally. Things may be good and bad in a natural way. If you are saying that only man can formulate the idea of good, that is one thing. But saying the good is man seems to me the height of anthropomorphism. Unless you were being ironical?

I receive some comfort, as little as it may be, from the realization that all that's good in the world comes from mankind. — TheMadFool

Fresh air and clean water are good.

Just finished Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Never read it back in secondary education. I liked it a lot. — darthbarracuda

Steinbeck is brilliant. :up:

I am interested in how one can even begin the process of legitimate metaphysics? — Shawn

Look at Karl Popper's concept of the "metaphysical research programme". Whereby legitimate metaphysical theories can be used to "steer" scientific research in a self-correcting loop.

As I think @Janus was getting at, science is about the "elimination of error" (Popper). Metaphysics is about intuitive apprehension that transcends the limits of current science. The two work together.