Introspection is a type of reflection, which is a type of problem-solving, not a type of knowledge. — Galuchat

In a previous post, @TheMadFool pointed out that, as you say, introspection is not a type of knowledge. I agreed that it made more sense to say it is a good way of gaining knowledge.

Why not depend on both?
Seems to me they are different types of problem-solving tools.
Introspection examines mental events.
Reason creates and/or develops arguments. — Galuchat

I do use reason, but people here don't usually doubt the value of it, while it seems to me that introspection is often distrusted. That's why I started the discussion.

Mental faculties don't have credibility, people do. — Galuchat

Sources of information have credibility. You believe some more than others.

Now that makes sense to me. We could possibly divide all knowledge into two - internal (self) and external (physical world). Introspection is an inquiry into the former. — TheMadFool

Yes. I agree.

Whether we view the weather physically or virtually - both are simulations, who relate to the same derivation of possible weather.

The tempo of physically observed and virtual weather is the same. Which is to say they are principally and/or functionally the same.
But the rhythm of the two, which is to say the composition, does not align. This makes them practically different. — Shamshir

I really don't understand this. The modeler has created the weather model to allow her to predict the real weather. They are no more the same than the word "weather" is the same as the rain and clouds.

I'm curious why you would consider an objective truth a hindrance - as the title sets an objective tempo?
All answers would thus follow to be principally objective, yet practically subjective and I think it would be hard to be mislead by one due to their layered functions.

If there is no objective truth to the query, then any posited quality would be worthless - methinks. — Shamshir

I wrote elsewhere, I can't remember if it was in this thread, I don't believe that objective reality exists. That's not quite right. What I really believe is that it is not a very useful way of thinking about things in many situations. As I've said many times, the existence of objective reality is a metaphysical question and, as such, it doesn't have a yes or no answer.

Anyway, I don't understand this non-rational stuff you're talking about.

The way I make sense of non-rational is that it doesn't involve thinking of any kind at all, not even irrational thinking. — TheMadFool

Imagine one of your favorite foods - for me it's, let's say, a nice creamy fish chowder. I picture the bowl. Imagine the smell and the feel of it on my tongue - the warmth, the flavor, the feel of the chunks of haddock in my mouth. Don't label it, put it into words, think about it. Just experience it. That is non-rational.

But is introspection a kind of knowledge at all, or if it be a kind of knowledge is it a valid one? I don't think that I'd agree that introspection is a kind of knowledge, but rather is way of thinking. We look into ourselves, and try and identify -- make into words -- different parts of our mind. This is the belief that is based on a gut feeling. This is the belief that is based on an observation. The terms "gut feeling" and "observation" are products of a way of thinking about our beliefs and classifying them -- the introspective way. — Moliere

Good point. I don't really think I'd say introspection is a way of thinking, but maybe I should have said that it is a good way of gaining knowledge.

Knowing things like intelligence, ambition, laziness, focus, emotion and the list goes on without introspection might be just an exercise in theory, I don't believe you can really know them without introspection. Rationality, on the other hand, does not only not always yield results and it can lead one astray. — Judaka

I think introspection should be a large component of any philosopher's understanding of the world. Philosophers who fail to utilise their understanding of themselves and others and rely on rationality instead fail and end up in their own little world. — Judaka

You and I seem to agree. I would add to your list of mental experiences that can be known with introspection our experience of knowing, feeling, being conscious, and perceiving.

I don't understand because rationality is mandatory and not an option you can deny. I read somewhere that to be irrational is to fail or, worse, die a premature death — TheMadFool

I can deny that rationality is mandatory. Not that I don't ever use it, but most of what I do and know is not rational. It's not irrational either. It's non-rational. I have a lot of experience collecting, organizing, evaluating, and using data - specifically data regarding properties and bodies of water with contaminated soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment. Most of the upfront work we do is non-rational. Rationality mostly comes in when we have to explain conditions at the site to others and justify planned future work.

In other words introspection has to be done rationally. Otherwise you'd be schizophrenic, right? — TheMadFool

No. Introspection is observing yourself the same way you observe the rest of the world. You see what's going on. That's mostly non-rational. Then rationality comes in when you explain what's going on - to yourself and others. The experience itself - the observation - can easily be made more difficult by rationality.

I understand because you read Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching is, in my humble opinion, a different type of philosophy. It's replete with what are normally considered fatal errors in philosophy - vagueness, paradoxes, etc. — TheMadFool

So, 3,500 years of Chinese philosophy is wrong? I don't think so. Your "humble opinion" seems to be presumptuous and based on ignorance or misunderstanding. There's only one world. There are lots of ways of looking at it, but they're all describing the same thing. Eastern philosophy may be unfamiliar, but it's often sophisticated, subtle, and clear headed. Perhaps some western philosophers see see it as replete with fatal errors, vagueness, paradoxes, but it's not. Schopenhauer read Indian philosophy and acknowledged that many of his ideas are, if not influenced by it, at least consistent with it. Many of the vague ideas you talk about are also found in western philosophers. Kant's noumena have a lot in common with Lao Tzu's Tao as does Schopenhauer's will.

You probably mean that you think for yourself and use external material/sources simply as a good place to start an investigation. That's wonderful but how do you deal with frustration? I mean some philosophical ideas are notoriously difficult. Wouldn't it be illogical to go into the wilderness without a guide/friend who knows the trails? — TheMadFool

In my experience, many western philosophical ideas are difficult because they are inflated to ten times their actual size by adding unnecessary words that are more likely to hide reality than uncover it. I recognize that many people feel differently and get great value from western philosophy. I have been impressed with how they use it to understand how things work, but I have no patience with what I see as dead weight verbiage. I am very lazy which, by the way, is something I recognize because of introspection.

I honestly respect a philosophical view built from within and on ones own than the regurgitation of historical philosophy if I had to choose, although a mix of both is ideal. — DingoJones

Sounds like you and I agree. How aware are you of how your mind is working while you think? Is it something you pay attention to?

So overall I think introspection is valuable, but I am skeptical that "rationality" and introspection can really be two separate categories when armchair philosophizing. When building a bridge, yeah of course they are different, but when pondering philosophical questions, that becomes much less clear. — rlclauer

Yes, I think I agree with what you are saying. When I made the distinction, I was ...maybe projecting is the right word - anticipating what others might say. To me they are both just part of the package of what goes into knowledge. Maybe it's that self-awareness in this context is something I feel good at, while a rational approach doesn't feel as natural. I think it comes back to this quote from Kafka, which I haven't used in a week or two:

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

It's all right there in front of us. We only need to pay attention.

I do not think there is a relationship between knowledge being important and engineering as an occupation. I think engineering has financial incentives, but knowledge is acquired through many different occupations, none of them being superior to the other, as can be seen in the raging debates between philosophers and physicists. — rlclauer

I was speaking personally here, as an engineer. I wasn't making comparisons. Working as an engineer, I have been, needed to be, tried to be, very, self-consciously, aware of how knowledge works in the specific situations where I used it. I had to get it right. I wasn't saying that others don't do the same things.

A simulation is an objective reality - its subjectivity relies on its relativity to our own.
Is it misleading or are we mismatching - tempo or rhythm? — Shamshir

Not sure if I understand. The simulations I've worked with - groundwater and surface water models - are systems of simplified equations that are solved by a computer and then put together into description of the system - either visual or written. It's no more objective than the equations and data that go into it.

If there is no objective truth, is there subjective truth? — Shamshir

Let me restate or expand my statement - I don't believe that what we call objective reality is useful in many situations. I have no trouble thinking of things that way when we're talking science in a limited fashion, e.g. when we're talking about broader issues of knowledge, e.g. reductionism, I think it's misleading.

So, yes, I don't think that the idea of subjective truth is useful. In some ways, it is the heart of the matter for me.

Let's call the place Master Minds, with capital letter M's, so that Hanover will think he is in a classy place. We can then all be M&M's. :cool: — Sir2u

My vote still goes in for:

The Worthless Pseudo-Intellectual Nerousis Waste Of Time Trivial Folly Inconclusive Incoherent Play Dumb Charade Pathetic Morons I Hate You All Die Mother Fuckers Forum. — S

But, of course, I don't get a vote.

Hmmm.. I distinctly remember having to reinsert an extra space after I completed the sentence and asked about a double space no longer being necessary and was told that was an outdated idea. Now having said that: there is absolutely a setting on your margins that will increase the length of characters and spaces contained within a specified field to meet the perimeters. Word wrap is a common one that is used that I believe performs a similar but KISS application. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Hey, you guys have taken a deeply meaningful and, frankly, moving thread about new names for the forum and turned it into a dumb-ass discussion about dumb-ass rules of punctuation. I applaud your efforts.

The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades. — NOS4A2

Yes, my head is spinning. Here's a map.



Good old Mississippi and Alabama.

There are in contemporary philosophy debates over deflationary character of metaphysic. It has two main cores: that metaphysic questions are trivial, and answers are obvious, and that metaphysic questions are verbal, they are about use of words, not about facts. — Eiwar

It would be helpful to me if you would define what you mean when you say "metaphysical." It gets used a lot of different ways, often in the same post or thread.

I've had my say. You've had yours. I'm comfortable leaving it at that. I'll leave it up to other posters to say more if they think it's needed.

PS___If my comments are off-topic and irrelevant, I will apologize for hijacking your thread. — Gnomon

As I wrote in my previous post, I was wrong when I said the subjects you have raised do not belong in this thread.

I am constantly testing my personal beliefs and feelings against those of other people -- as in this thread -- to see if they know something I don't. — Gnomon

I don't know something you don't, I just see things differently than you do. These are metaphysical questions, it's not a matter of .... wait, I've already said that. A lot.

What do you mean by "anti-Islamic" content? I don't understand this - Islam, as a "belief"-based state has every right to be criticized as any. That it shields itself from criticisms behind labeling others as "anti-Islamic" or "Islamophobic" is a part of the fascist nature of "belief"-based states such as Islam. — A Gnostic Agnostic

You provide a broad brush caricature of Islamic religious belief. You compare Muhammad to Hitler. You say the "House of Islam is a house of mastery in deception." You say Islam is the "root of fascist-Nazism." You start making a broad statement about the fact that belief is not a virtue, but it quickly turns into a gripe against Islam. You are not just criticizing specific Islamic religious or social practices, you are condemning an entire religion. I stand behind my judgment that your post is anti-Islam.

To me, that is a statement of fact, not judgment or condemnation of the things you've written.

Remember that one can be Gnostic to any religion. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.

I find "believe is not a virtue, as one can "know", via conscience, who, what, where, why, when, how and if *not* to "believe", and this is necessarily superior to "belief". — A Gnostic Agnostic

I don't know what to think of your ideas, but the OP is very well written and pretty clear, given the complexity of your ideas.

I did not provide reasoning for a "lack of belief" anywhere - that "belief" is not a virtue does not mean lack of a belief. I understand "belief" has a utility, but the point is it is not a virtue. That "belief" itself is "believed" to be a virtue is a problem. One can have a belief, but when it is made into a virtue it becomes problematic as there is a state superior to "believing", which is "knowing". This includes knowing what not to believe, which requires conscience (ie. self-inquiry). — A Gnostic Agnostic

Until you wrote this, I didn't get that you are making a distinction between belief and the virtue of belief. You also make a distinction between belief and knowledge that I don't agree with in this context.

I find "belief" to be the agency required by what is referred to as "satan" to confuse people into "believing" such: whatever "good" actually is, is really evil, and whatever "evil" is, is actually good - like an inversion. I find "belief" therefor to be like chains that enslave people to something that is not actually real and, as it happens, the reality is actually the opposite. How potent can a god be if it requires "belief"? Is it not the goal of "satan" to make people "believe" that satan is god? In what possible scenario would "belief" be a virtue if so? To indulge in the very thing satan needs to confuse? This is why I do not grant for a moment that "belief" is any kind of virtue. — A Gnostic Agnostic

I think this is what lead me astray. Are you only talking about religious belief? On the forum, we talk a lot about beliefs of all kinds and how they relate to knowledge.

You are smart enough to know that indeed this is a rant, but I would suggest another question, what is behind your rant? — 3017amen

I don't want to put words in @3017amenn's mouth. I'm not sure he is talking about the same thing I am, but I had the same thought. Your posts have a lot of anti-Islamic content, e.g. comparing Muhammad to Hitler. Are the other monotheistic religions different? Do your feelings come from personal experience with Islam. Calling yourself "Gnostic Agnositc" gave me the impression that you come from Christianity.

You might like the Tao Te Ching better. Or the traditional split: Daoism in the sheets, Confucianism in the streets. — StreetlightX

And you can read the Tao Te Ching in an hour.

Lesser known Shakespeare quotes:

• I got married to the widow next door. She's been married four times before - Henry V
• That was no lady, that was my wife - Macbeth
• The first thing we do, let's kill all the Kardashians - Henry VI Part II
• Hello, my name is Hamlet. You killed my father. Prepare to die. - Hamlet
• Yeah, Pop was kind of a dick - Richard IV.
• Geez, I can never remember - are we Montagues or Capulets? - Romeo and Juliet
• Cheese it, the copse. - Macbeth (stolen)

If you don't think metaphysics is a "useful" concept, — Gnomon

I find it a very useful concept. What I said is that 1) the concept of absolute reality is a metaphysical one. 2) As a metaphysical concept, it isn't true or false, it's useful or not useful and 3) I believe it is not useful because it is misleading.

My original comment was simply an attempt to point-out that the visceral feeling of knowing is equivalent to Faith --- what's true for you, may not be true for me. Faith is based on a fractional understanding of reality. Only by sharing and comparing our personal beliefs can we get a feeling for truth and knowledge in a more general sense. — Gnomon

All knowledge is based on a fractional understanding, science no less than other types. I think you have misunderstood what I mean when I say knowledge includes feelings. The body of knowledge I've been talking about is everything I know - intuition, observation, personal experience, what I feel, what I perceive, what I remember, what I've studied and read, and every other thing I've done that gives me experience and understanding of the world. That incorporates uncertainties about the knowledge included. It also incorporates other people's understanding of how things works when I decide it's relevant and useful.

When push comes to shove, the body of knowledge is mine. It has to be, because it's invented, developed, evolved, figured out, made up, whatever - for my personal use making the decisions I am responsible for. I don't think I can give a better explanation than I put in the OP. I think you and I are far apart in our understanding of how these things work. I think that the distinction between reason and faith is not a very helpful one in this context. My understanding of your belief is that they are the heart of the matter. Please set me straight if I'm wrong.

As we've gotten into this, I think I now agree with you that this subject is relevant to the theme set up in the OP. Given that we're so far apart, I'm not sure where we go from here.

The best current book for the lay reader is Nick Lane's The Vital Question. — StreetlightX

Thanks. I'll take a look.

What think you of this? — Banno

First, this is an interesting conversation, but the title sucks. It gives no indication about what the subject is. I've read through the thread and I don't know what it means. If you fixed it, you'd probably get more involvement.

As for Rome vs. USA - Seems to me things have changed since then. Was it 400 AD? The world is different. It's even different from when the British had their empire. The British Empire sort of faded away but the UK is still a significant voice internationally and economically. Since World War 2 and especially the end of the Soviet Union, the world has become less colonial, both formally and in terms of economic influence. Countries formerly considered third world have become more independent and more significant economically. Some have become much more significant - e.g. Brazil and India.

It seems likely to me that the US's influence will continue to reduce as other countries get relatively stronger and richer. I think that's a good thing for everyone, including the US. I see us slipping back into a more equitable group of nations. I'm sure we'll still be one of the big boys for a while.

Thus ironically, we have no general goal or purpose, but each day is a sort of bad faith in output expectations due to our initial conditions of survival, boredom, and comfort. This requires social organization to shape us to value the daily outputs we create. This becomes a de facto goal. It is an odd squashing of a general purposelessness into detailed output. Faux mini-goals masks the general purposelessness. What happens when it is stark individual purposelessness? Angst, uneasiness, disorientation. Back to the outputs we go. — schopenhauer1

I will not clutter up your thread with my opinions beyond this. We've discussed this numerous times before. It's just a new verse in your anti-natalist song. A song I find off-key and discordant.

we do not know what they would look like — Bitter Crank

If a new organism did develop completely independent of existing life, it seems to me it would be unlikely to be DNA based. There is also speculation that the genetic material in the earliest life might have been based on RNA or even some other organic compound. I guess it's also possible that a new species could develop from a virus or other source of DNA that might look like our current life.

Chasing the dream of absolute Truth is not practical for materialistic purposes. — Gnomon

I was trying to make a stronger statement. I do not believe that absolute or objective truth exists. That's not quite right, because the existence of absolute truth is a metaphysical question. Metaphysical questions don't have true or false answers. It is a matter of usefulness. I don't think the idea of absolute truth is useful and I think it is misleading.

I don't want to go off topic, which I think we're starting to do. There are lots of threads on the forum that discuss this issue. I've started some. It's an issue that is near and dear to me. I don't think there are any active right now. Actually, there is one "Metaphysics - What is It," that @Pattern-chaser started and which closed out last week. Maybe PC wouldn't mind us reopening it to discuss this issue.

I like that you put evolve in quotes there, because abiogenisis is not evolution. For evolution you need reproduction, and then you get a self-perpetuating proces. Molecules don't reproduce, — ChatteringMonkey

I used "evolve" on purpose, because it seems to me there is probably a lot of a sort of evolution going on before something reaches the point we might call it alive. It isn't just chemicals combining until a chance leads to life. There is a very complex non-biological process of self-organization that leads to chemical cycles and the development of what they call "nanomachines." See "Life's Rachet." Somebody here on the forum recommended it. Was it you @StreetlightX? Maybe it was @apokrisis.

See the Wikipedia link for nanomachines. The first animation shows one of the naturally occuring nanomachines that Hoffman described. A living cell is full of these and other processes going on at all times.

3.5 billion years ago, which is actually pretty fast after the earth became somewhat suited for life. Then it took a very long time to evolve multi cellular life. — ChatteringMonkey

That strikes me as the main reason new life doesn't come into being. If it takes 100s of millions of years for it to "evolve" from non-living matter, we would never see it "pop" into extence. Even the simplist life is incredibly complex. That leaves a very big door open for development to be disrupted by other life or changed conditions. Seems like it would take a very long period of stable conditions to life to develop abiotically.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." — rlclauer

I'm with you and Einstein. If you can't explain it to your son, you don't understand it. I have found myself using philosophical terms more than I used to. Some of it is useful and even when it's not needed, it's good to use the same type of language as the rest of the people on the forum. There's nothing mysterious about reality, knowledge, or morals, so no weird language is required.

Nobody on this forum should be making up new philosophical terms unless they're ridiculing something or someone.

And since we're on the subject of clarity, I'll make my usual pitch for defining important terms in the opening post or as they come up. At least 50% of the arguments on the forum come from people using different meanings for the same words.

Don't you keep yourself logged in? How dare you log out! — Baden

Some of us have lives. Not me, but some of us.

That's true, but has any subjective worldview come close to absolute Truth? We can either strive to get closer to objective truth, or give-up that dream of mutual understanding, and just retreat into our little isolated cells of solipsism. It's the realization that an insular worldview leads to misunderstanding and mutual distrust that drives us to seek the holy grail of unbiased objectivity. — Gnomon

You seem to have very different ideas of how the world and knowledge work than I do. I don't believe the idea of objective or absolute truth is a very useful one. I think a search for it is one of the primary causes of the misunderstanding and mutual distrust you refer to. There are a lot of people on the forum who agree with you. This probably isn't the place to get deeply into that.

I suppose that the conclusion of every sound logical argument flows is a reasonable deduction from the truth of its premises. However, does every argument need to follow a or some logical form for the conclusion to be reasonably deduced? If so, in the example above, what is the logical form that this argument takes. — MichaelJYoo

Following the standard set of procedures for presenting logic makes it more abstract and formal. More like math, which was probably the point. It can also make the structure of the argument clear. The only time I use it is when an idea is confused and mixed up with other stuff.

And that's the good part. It's also used to add a veneer of false legitimacy. You see that here on the forum a lot. My general thought is, if you can't say it in plain speech you don't understand it.

This paradox arises out of the ill-defined nature of borders and nations. Are there other things we can apply it to? It might be helpful in rigorously defining concepts. — Paralogism

It applies to much of what we know or perceive. Some examples - colors, races, languages, motorcycles, species, forests, science, art, mental illness.

Rule of thumb - anything an elephant wouldn't recognize as a thing.

Alright so in your last comment "you" is not me, but "one" is that right? — Judaka

I've been clear I don't think you've done anything that would require any action from the moderators. — T Clark

This is intended as a straightforward acknowledgement that you have violated no guidelines in the posts that I've read.

In my opinion, the function of Philosophy, as opposed to Religion, is to find some objective worldview that all reasonable people can agree on. — Gnomon

Has anyone ever, in the long history of the world, come anywhere close to finding "some objective worldview that all reasonable people can agree on?" Answer - No. Reason - because there isn't one, never was one, never will be one, never can be one. Although I refuse to agree to disagree on principle, I will agree to leave it there.

Rational philosophy will never reach absolute Truth (God's values), but by canceling-out conflicting human values, we may get closer to a general truth that we can all live with. — Gnomon

Again, there's not one small, sweet chance.

I'm still here so I can't have disobeyed the rules too badly. The forum is not mine, I cannot say what it is but what it is to me is still intact. It doesn't matter to me whether people want or don't want me to be here. — Judaka

I've been clear I don't think you've done anything that would require any action from the moderators.

The word "responsibilties" holds a certain importance to me, so when a forum that I barely visit and consider entirely dispensible has rules that I haven't even read, I am unhappy about saying I have a responsibility to abide those rules. There are consequences for not abiding by them, that's what I'd prefer to say. — Judaka

This forum means a lot to many of us. It's clear it doesn't to you. If you feel the need to throw your weight around without following the rules or being courteous, why don't you just go somewhere else?

Yes, it's my choice to be hostile, I do not need validation from anyone but myself. I have the capacity to be unkind. When I believe it is right to be unkind then it is right. I know that no matter what I believed there'll be people who disagree, it was never an option to act in accordance with all the responsibilities people think I have. — Judaka

Well, on this forum, you do have responsibilities. They are spelled out in the Site Guidelines. There are, as discussed in this thread, procedures for dealing with people if they don't live up to them. As I indicated, I haven't seen anything from you that rises to that level.