How truly skeptical is our skepticism?

[Chanakya]

"Free Will" is used in two different, very importantly distinct context.

On a broad, neurological sense of course "Free Will" doesn't exist. That's saying that the concept of cause and effect doesn't exist.

On a social level "Free Will doesn't exist!" is like solipsism and absolute pacifism, an argument which can be 100% perfectly countered by throwing a rock at the person who claims it head.

If at the neurological level we accept that we have no free will, then how would it affect how a skeptic might deal with this? Like I was asking,

But how would this impact skepticism? Is it that despite knowing there’s no free will, the skeptic nevertheless proceeds as though he does have free will? (That would mean, wouldn’t it, that the free will question is irrelevant to skepticism?) Or what?

 

[JoeMorgue]

On a practical level, any practical level, the Free Will debate is meaningless.

Again, and believe me I don't keep coming back to this to just be a jerk, the angle I've usually seen with this is some variation of "Free will doesn't exist, therefore there is no difference between believing in Woo and not believing in Woo" or "People can't help believing in Woo because there is no Free Will" or whatver.

 

[Chanakya]

On a practical level, any practical level, the Free Will debate is meaningless.

That's my (not very well-informed and largely instinctive/inuitive) view as well.

Again, and believe me I don't keep coming back to this to just be a jerk

Nothing remotely jerk-y about you holding that general view or expessing it here. No problems, as far as I am concerned.

the angle I've usually seen with this is some variation of "Free will doesn't exist, therefore there is no difference between believing in Woo and not believing in Woo" or "People can't help believing in Woo because there is no Free Will" or whatver.

I can see how that line might be used to justify some irrational belief. For that matter, not just irrational belief but just about everything, if some rationalization for one's position is all one is looking for.

 

[kellyb]

On a practical level, any practical level, the Free Will debate is meaningless.

I've actually found it useful on a personal level for letting go of anger at certain people. Getting into the mindspace of realizing that if I were them, with their exact same genetics and previous life experiences, etc, I'd do the same thing they did, is useful for letting go of resentment. Way better than praying for god to help me let go of anger and find forgiveness back when I was Christian.

 

[kellyb]

(2) And two : I suppose it is possible to be wholly Woo-ridden in some areas, while remaining skeptical about other things. For instance, it is possible I suppose to have total, even fanatical, faith in the bible and church, while at the same time being robustly skeptical in all other matters. But could we properly think of such a person as a skeptic?

I think a lot of otherwise skeptical people have cognitive "blind spots". Whether such people should be called skeptics is a completely arbitrary, personal opinion, I think.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

What you say seems to make sense. To be honest, I haven’t really been able to wrap around the full implications of all that you say there, but on the whole what you say seems to make sense.

As for how this might apply to personal and everyday skepticism :

Am I right in thinking that what you’re saying here is essentially this : that the subjective and the objective are both valid modes of knowing ourselves and knowing the world? If that’s what you’re saying, then I agree fully.

Claiming that the objective alone is valid, or that the subjective alone is valid, both positions seem equally untenable to me. (Although I don’t really have the philosophic chops to identify and break down those arguments technically in the forms that I know they’ve been made in various places -- I've read bits and pieces of those arguments, in snatches here and there.)

That’s a fascinating angle you’ve brought out here. Whatever else you may have to say about this, I’m all ears.

Incidentally : assuming I’ve not misinterpreted your post, why are you even arguing this issue? Would you say that the odd position that the objective alone is valid, and the subjective never ever valid -- not valid even when you clearly recognize that it is subjective, and do not conflate it with what is objective -- would you say that is a widely prevalent approach/idea/position? (Question, not rhetoric. I don’t know the answer.) That is, do you think that my idea (and yours, unless I am mistaken) that the subjective is also a valid mode for knowing ourselves and the world, is not a mainstream idea?

So I apologize that I have to turn into a teacher and started throwing theory at you. Further you may even know this already.

Okay, first some social science and psychology, that you sorry to say need to read: Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
The numbers vary, but in general only 20% of adult humans achieve stage 5. Forget stage 6, that one is speculative. So what does Kohlberg have to do with subjective and objective? Well, stages 3 and 4 are in short inter-subjective. The subjective morality/ethics of a given (sub-)culture is in fact inter-subjective in that it is shared among its member. But that is often treated as objective.
An example in a debate about some aspect of morality/ethics as it pertains to stage 3:
Someone about a group of humans: I hate them, they are evil... (it can go on with more negative attributes).
Now the fact, that other humans and yourself can be claimed to be good or bad, is not objective. You are neither good nor bad, just because I claim so or in reverse. Good or bad are not concrete or tangible or observable. That insight goes all the way back in western culture to the old Greeks; Protagoras is attributed this: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."
Measure is subjective (in part, more about that later) and that they are or are not, are the dual contrasts of positive and negative. More about those 2 in general versus scientific skepticism.

So for good and bad some humans treat those in the sense of naive objectivism. Naive objectivism works in the following manner: You can get away with claiming something is objective as long as it is subjective and it subjectively works. I.e. a subjective belief works if it makes sense and can give rise to further behavior.
Back to "I hate them, they are evil..." can make sense and can lead to further behavior; legal/law activity, violence/killing and so on.

That leads to stage 4: The law. The law is a formal inter-subjective system, which relies on the monopoly of power and access to resources. Yes, I know I sound like a communist, I am not But the problem with the law is that it can institutionalize violence and suppression in the name of the common good. Yes, there it is again, common good as objective. There is no common good and no better world out there. In the recorded history of mankind no one has been able to make an objective; i.e. with reason and logic and without bias; moral/ethical system. There have been many attempts, but when you look closer they always break down. It is connected to rationalism and foundationalism in epistemology and connects to the idea of a first principle. Find something, which is fundamental, which can't be denied, which is self-evident, which is certain and so on. Then build an ethical system based on this principle. The problem is Hume and the is-ought problem. Take Kant and that you shouldn't lie. Turn in it a fact; sort off: Never lie!
So premise: Never lie.
Therefore/conclusion: ?
Well, you can always tell the truth or you can refuse to answer. Which one is it then? You can't decide that with reason, logic and without bias or measure as back to Protagoras.

So stage 5:
Social contract and individual rights.
As a loose "rule" it goes like this: We are all equal qua being humans and we are different as individuals.
This is connected to a lot of theory, but here is another one you need to read:
Moral Foundations Theory and

Now the problem with this theory is that I am a liberal/progressive (US terms), yet I am also a conservative because I can integrate all 6 categories back to that, we are all equal qua being humans and we are different as individuals.

So to end this about bias and subjectivity in morality/ethics. No human can for a lived life be only rational as with reason, logic and objectivity and without bias. We are all irrational in that sense, when it comes to morality/ethics, but you can learn to spot subjectivity/bias in yourself and others and thus become rational in the sense, that you know, when you are irrational. I.e. when you use subjective measure as back to Protagoras.

So why is this important? Because if you treat another human as a moral/ethical negative, you increase the chance that you will harm that human and/or yourself. I.e. you can harm the other human, but you can also cause that human to respond with harm against you.

I’d asked some questions about what you’d said in your first post in this thread. We needn’t revisit all of them now, but one specific issue I’d like to go back to. You’d said in that post that personal skepticism is a very different thing from scientific skepticism. My own view was/is that the two are essentially the same thing, except that scientific skepticism is probably a broader (and more formalized) application of personal skepticism. When I’d first said that to you, I wasn’t sure if that was just my own personal (and uninformed) view : but other posters have since come out in support of this position.

Would you talk a bit more about your views on this?

Sorry, I have hit the wall. I know but it will have to wait until later for me to do it in depth. I won't promise, but there is a chance I can answer tomorrow.
In short all 5 categories in philosophy: Metaphysics/ontology, logic, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics are about knowledge, though some of that is subjective knowledge, where as western modern natural science only concerns itself with objective knowledge as better, more rational, true and what not. Thus science or rather scientists can be "blind" to the subjective, because they are conditioned only to operate only with the objective. Now combine that with the above about subjective/inter-subjective and how that can lead to naive objectivism and then you "got the problem". A given scientist can be good at science, but bad at spotting naive objectivism or treat the law as objective/rational and so on. Some people can only spot bias in other humans. To be a general skeptic you have to be able to spot your own bias.

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Something else, not just to you or about you and I:

Religion, philosophy, science and skepticism.

Now among these 4 categories there may be some of them that you don't like. I accept you as human and I accept if you don't like some of them. But I do it differently, I like all of them.

So if reality doesn't care how I feel and think, the same thing applies to you. Reality doesn't care about us, it is not special to you or me. It is the same; reality doesn't care if you don't like some of these or if you like some of these and the same goes for me. I don't like this double standard of reality doesn't care about me, but it cares about you, because it matters what you like or don't like, but it doesn't matter what I like or don't like.
This is the universal double standard always used to “shoot down” differences in subjectivity. Reality cares about you, because it cares about what you like or don't like, yet reality doesn't care about me.
It always happens in these Internet debates, someone claims that reality doesn't care about me, yet it matters universally what that someone cares about and apparently reality cares about that person, because that person speaks on behalf of reality as to how reality really is.

So what you care about, matters to me, because you matter to me, because you are a human. And I don't care about that reality doesn't care about us. I care about that we as humans take care of each other.

So what is reality? Well, reality is what has existence independently of the mind, right? So reality is not the mind, so where is the mind and how does it exist? How can we talk about something, which isn't a part of reality, yet apparently this text in part about the mind takes place in reality and you are reading it. So there is something funny going on here.
Reality doesn't care about humans, yet humans are a part of reality and some humans care about some humans, so it would seem that parts of reality care about other parts of reality.

So what is going on? Well, in philosophy it is connected to naive. Naive means in practice not just a simple explanation, but a to simple explanation. In a formal sense, that reality is X and not non-X, is to simple in practice. These different kinds of explanations are a form of naive dualism. Here is an example:
Someone: Reality is logical.
Me: No!
Someone: That is illogical.
Me: Yes and yet it would appear it is a part of reality, since you can state it and speak about it.
Someone: The illogical is not real.
Me: You are doing a naive dualism of real and unreal.
Someone: Something, which is not true, is unreal.
Me: No, it is real, otherwise you couldn't talk about it.
Someone: What, which is false. doesn't exist.
Me: Yes, it does.
Someone: This is meaningless, absurd, irrelevant, doesn't work, doesn't matter and it is wrong.
Me: To you, but not to me.
Someone: All you do, is to think. You sit in your armchair and think reality. You think, that reality is you and that you are all that matters.
Me:...

Now we are doing a deep understanding of how reality works in practice and that includes you and me and how we think alike or differently, but reality is not just us. Reality is a lot of categories of words which relates to different processes in reality, which I treat as all interconnected. So e.g. a hazelnut is interconnected to e.g. a motorcycle all the way back to the Big Bang. Everything in reality is interconnected and everything is relevant as a part of reality.
Now I can't think for you and if you think sometimes in terms of naive dualism, I accept that you do that. I just do it differently. We are all equal as humans and different as individuals.

There is a class/categories of words, for which what they are about, wouldn't be about something unless there are humans. E.g. gravity is not such a word, but that gravity is relevant in explaining reality, so for all of the following words, which wouldn't be here, unless it it were for humans, the only one in the sentence, for which, is not case, is “gravity”. In that preceding sentence, the rest of the words are related to human cognition.
So whether this text is relevant or irrelevant, it is only relevant to humans and that includes you and me. How reality works in practice, means how reality is to humans. Not that all of reality is humans, but that reality includes humans right now and thus if we are to talk about reality, then you and I are also relevant, no matter how much you claim that reality doesn't care for me and what I think and feel.

So if we are going to debate religion, philosophy, science and skepticism, we can end it right here. You are so special that all of reality is about how reality is relevant to you and that includes religion, philosophy, science and skepticism. So if some of these are irrelevant to you, they are irrelevant to how reality is, right? Sorry to burst your bubble, not that is not quite how reality works in practice. You are relevant as a part of reality, but you are not special, because all other humans are equally relevant as a part of reality. That is the joke about all of the words: Useful, meaningful, works, it matters, makes sense, relevant and so on. They are only relevant because of humans and neither you nor me control how they work for other humans. You hold no Objective Authority over what is useful, meaningful, works, it matters, makes sense, relevant and so on. Neither do I, I just know that it applies to both of us.

That is the end of part 1.
We can't in practice debate what reality is, unless you learn not to do naive dualism. Of course, we can debate it using naive dualism, so here is that debate using reductio ad absurdum. You are not me, so you are not real!!!

With regards

BTW I am a hardcore old school skeptic, so I am not nice. If you use doxa or everyday common sense, I will point it out.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Okay, first some social science and psychology, that you sorry to say need to read: Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development

The very article you link to also explains why Kohlbergs research was flawed, and his conclusions tentative at best. Not sure if only Chanakya needs to take your advice...

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

The very article you link to also explains why Kohlbergs research was flawed, and his conclusions tentative at best. Not sure if only Chanakya needs to take your advice...

Yeah, you can't observe it yourself.
There are never any debate which either is based on good or bad behavior and/or good or bad people OR claims to the "objectivity" of the law.
I know of the limitations, but the main stands.
Morality and ethics have a cognitive element. How you understand (cognitive) morality and/or ethics, determines how you understand meta-ethics and determines what good and bad are to you.

I know, reality is objective, there is only objective knowledge and subjectivity is bad. All that is subjective cognition.

With regards

 

[Chanakya]

I've actually found it useful on a personal level for letting go of anger at certain people. Getting into the mindspace of realizing that if I were them, with their exact same genetics and previous life experiences, etc, I'd do the same thing they did, is useful for letting go of resentment. Way better than praying for god to help me let go of anger and find forgiveness back when I was Christian.

Well yes, that works, I suppose.

People are probably far less likely to harbor a grudge against or hatred for a hurricane or a tsunami, for instance, that has caused them loss, than some individual ; and if you can think of the individual as not having free will, then I suppose it is easier to get rid of unproductive hatred.

But given the enormity of the implications of not having free will, isn’t that a bit like -- pardon my clumsy (and not very complimentary) metaphor – inventing paper, and then using it simply to float paper boats in a puddle?

In any case, that apart, you seem to agree that having (or not having) free will seems to be largely irrelevant to how a skeptic acts or thinks, is that right?

I think a lot of otherwise skeptical people have cognitive "blind spots". Whether such people should be called skeptics is a completely arbitrary, personal opinion, I think.

Hm. Makes sense.

Amazing how much insight I’ve gained from this very short and very simple thread. (And that’s probably no more than a function of my never having really thought about these basic issues, but still.)

The more I think about this, the more it seems to make sense, that skepticism should be seen as a process, no more and no less. The specific conclusion(s) to some specific question(s) that someone arrives at is ultimately irrelevant : what is relevant is the process by which those conclusions have been arrived at.

Seen in this light, it seems silly to think in the way I’d been thinking, when I started my OP by saying “I self-describe as skeptic”.

No wonder skeptics aren’t a particularly close-knit group. It is conceivable that skeptics who’re protesting against some specific stripe of Woo might band together (e.g., against some specific enormity committed by followers of some specific religion, or even against religion in general, or against, to take another random example, homeopathy), but skepticism is probably too general to really result in something cohesive (except to protest against something).

Still, however, there is relevance for forums like this one, a great deal of relevance. Of course, any random person with an email id and time to kill can sign in here, and it isn’t too difficult I suppose to speak skeptic-ese and appear on the surface to be all skeptical and rational -- and not everyone and everything one encounters here is to be taken seriously, as I’ve discovered myself -- but still, there is a good amount of self-selection here, I suppose. That if nothing else. While irrational thought and disingenuousness cannot be wholly removed, still I suppose most people here will recognize basic fallacies when they see them, and know to distinguish critical thinking from unthinking rhetoric. That’s more than one can say of most folks one encounters IRL. The kind of environment you get here, where rationality is (at least in theory) given primacy to, that makes this place worth coming back to.

 

[Chanakya]

So I apologize that I have to turn into a teacher and started throwing theory at you.

Not at all, Tommy. You’re only responding to my questions, and for that I’m grateful.

Further you may even know this already.

No actually. I’d read something along these lines, but my memory’s shaky on this, it was probably something entirely different I’d read about. I remember coming across this study with a questionnaire that involves a trolley on rail tracks being diverted to save a child, in the process harming some random person (I distinctly recall the rather odd detail that this person was described as being overweight, in a word fat). Something like that. I suppose the principle is the same, and probably the object of the study as well.

Okay, first some social science and psychology, that you sorry to say need to read: Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
The numbers vary, but in general only 20% of adult humans achieve stage 5. Forget stage 6, that one is speculative. So what does Kohlberg have to do with subjective and objective? Well, stages 3 and 4 are in short inter-subjective. The subjective morality/ethics of a given (sub-)culture is in fact inter-subjective in that it is shared among its member. But that is often treated as objective.
An example in a debate about some aspect of morality/ethics as it pertains to stage 3:
Someone about a group of humans: I hate them, they are evil... (it can go on with more negative attributes).
Now the fact, that other humans and yourself can be claimed to be good or bad, is not objective. You are neither good nor bad, just because I claim so or in reverse. Good or bad are not concrete or tangible or observable. That insight goes all the way back in western culture to the old Greeks; Protagoras is attributed this: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."
Measure is subjective (in part, more about that later) and that they are or are not, are the dual contrasts of positive and negative. More about those 2 in general versus scientific skepticism.

So for good and bad some humans treat those in the sense of naive objectivism. Naive objectivism works in the following manner: You can get away with claiming something is objective as long as it is subjective and it subjectively works. I.e. a subjective belief works if it makes sense and can give rise to further behavior.
Back to "I hate them, they are evil..." can make sense and can lead to further behavior; legal/law activity, violence/killing and so on.

That leads to stage 4: The law. The law is a formal inter-subjective system, which relies on the monopoly of power and access to resources. Yes, I know I sound like a communist, I am not But the problem with the law is that it can institutionalize violence and suppression in the name of the common good. Yes, there it is again, common good as objective. There is no common good and no better world out there. In the recorded history of mankind no one has been able to make an objective; i.e. with reason and logic and without bias; moral/ethical system. There have been many attempts, but when you look closer they always break down. It is connected to rationalism and foundationalism in epistemology and connects to the idea of a first principle. Find something, which is fundamental, which can't be denied, which is self-evident, which is certain and so on. Then build an ethical system based on this principle. The problem is Hume and the is-ought problem. Take Kant and that you shouldn't lie. Turn in it a fact; sort off: Never lie!
So premise: Never lie.
Therefore/conclusion: ?
Well, you can always tell the truth or you can refuse to answer. Which one is it then? You can't decide that with reason, logic and without bias or measure as back to Protagoras.

So stage 5:
Social contract and individual rights.
As a loose "rule" it goes like this: We are all equal qua being humans and we are different as individuals.
This is connected to a lot of theory, but here is another one you need to read:
Moral Foundations Theory and
[qimg]https://um-insight.net/downloads/3031/download/static1.squarespace.png?cb=035bd2706daed46fe664680c75bf3ab0&w=500&h=[/qimg]

Now the problem with this theory is that I am a liberal/progressive (US terms), yet I am also a conservative because I can integrate all 6 categories back to that, we are all equal qua being humans and we are different as individuals.

So to end this about bias and subjectivity in morality/ethics. No human can for a lived life be only rational as with reason, logic and objectivity and without bias. We are all irrational in that sense, when it comes to morality/ethics, but you can learn to spot subjectivity/bias in yourself and others and thus become rational in the sense, that you know, when you are irrational. I.e. when you use subjective measure as back to Protagoras.

So why is this important? Because if you treat another human as a moral/ethical negative, you increase the chance that you will harm that human and/or yourself. I.e. you can harm the other human, but you can also cause that human to respond with harm against you.

While I’m not sure how authoritative/ ‘correct’ the exact conclusions of the study are, whether those separate stages are actually fact, whether that is always the case (the article itself discusses issues with the methodology), but I take your point, sure. I agree with you when you conclude that “We are all irrational in that sense, when it comes to morality/ethics, but you can learn to spot subjectivity/bias in yourself and others and thus become rational in the sense, that you know, when you are irrational.”

On the other hand, I can see how everything that is objective can, ultimately, be described as basically inter-subjective. That sounds like general philosophical word-games to me, but really, I wouldn’t know how to properly counter that kind of an argument (except to say that it seems wrong to me). Even some simple wholly physical experiment, after all, is only as objective as the observations of individual scientists : isn’t it more properly inter-subjective in that sense? I would normally leave word games / thought games of this type alone (largely because I wouldn’t rightly know what to do with them!) : but since we’re expressly discussing these things here, would you know how to counter this argument? The argument that objectivity is no more, ultimately, than inter-subjectivity?

Incidentally : ethics and morality are one aspect of the “subjective”, but there are other things as well, other aspects. Appreciation of music, for instance. Music, art, these things are essentially subjective : yet exploring how we relate to them probably is a legitimate means of learning more about ourselves and about the world around us.

Sorry, I have hit the wall. I know but it will have to wait until later for me to do it in depth. I won't promise, but there is a chance I can answer tomorrow.

Please, take your own time. I think this discussion is important (at least to me) and interesting as well, but it isn’t remotely urgent. Plus, as you see, I myself log in here only for short periods every day or two or three. So whenever you’re comfortable responding, a day, two days, more if you wish, as long as it takes. A discussion carried along through posts with gaps of days in between them works just fine for me. I’ll check in here at this thread for your response whenever I happen to log in to these forums.

In short all 5 categories in philosophy: Metaphysics/ontology, logic, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics are about knowledge, though some of that is subjective knowledge, where as western modern natural science only concerns itself with objective knowledge as better, more rational, true and what not. Thus science or rather scientists can be "blind" to the subjective, because they are conditioned only to operate only with the objective. Now combine that with the above about subjective/inter-subjective and how that can lead to naive objectivism and then you "got the problem". A given scientist can be good at science, but bad at spotting naive objectivism or treat the law as objective/rational and so on. Some people can only spot bias in other humans. To be a general skeptic you have to be able to spot your own bias.

With regards

Again, I agree. Naïve objectivism of the kind that you speak of seems much too …well, naïve, literally, to be actually held seriously as some kind of philosophy. Is it? (I mean, do you think it is seriously held/believed by large numbers of people?)

Incidentally, one nitpick here (without really taking away from your larger point) : While it is true that laws are based on inter-subjective values and opinions, nevertheless for the individual at some particular time and place, the laws that apply are very much part of objective fact. Whether stealing is a crime or not, and if it is, then the kind of punishment it results in (arm getting lopped off, or incarceration, or a fine and some community service) : surely at the individual level that is objective fact, part of one’s concrete and objective worldview?


That sounds wise, how you conclude your post : “Some people can only spot bias in other humans. To be a general skeptic you have to be able to spot your own bias.” How do you suggest one does that? Deliberate self-awareness, and inviting and being open to feedback, those seem obvious answers to that “how” -- but is there some structured, technical means towards this that you might be (implicitly) referring to?

 

[Chanakya]

So if reality doesn't care how I feel and think, the same thing applies to you. Reality doesn't care about us, it is not special to you or me. It is the same; reality doesn't care if you don't like some of these or if you like some of these and the same goes for me. I don't like this double standard of reality doesn't care about me, but it cares about you, because it matters what you like or don't like, but it doesn't matter what I like or don't like.
This is the universal double standard always used to “shoot down” differences in subjectivity. Reality cares about you, because it cares about what you like or don't like, yet reality doesn't care about me.
It always happens in these Internet debates, someone claims that reality doesn't care about me, yet it matters universally what that someone cares about and apparently reality cares about that person, because that person speaks on behalf of reality as to how reality really is.

So what you care about, matters to me, because you matter to me, because you are a human. And I don't care about that reality doesn't care about us. I care about that we as humans take care of each other.

OK. I guess I agree with that much.

So what is reality? Well, reality is what has existence independently of the mind, right? So reality is not the mind

I don't think I agree with that at all. Our mind is very much part of reality, why wouldn't it be?

Some kinds of philosophy (sophistry?) hold that nothing exists outside of the mind. Without really having the philosophic chops to argue that down, I don't think I agree with that kind of an extravagant position. But then I wouldn't bend the other extreme either, and deny reality to something that manifestly exists (the mind, I mean), why would I?

Actually that's what I meant by saying, earlier, that I think the subjective and the objective both are (or seem to me) to be valid means of knowing ourselves and the world.

so where is the mind and how does it exist? How can we talk about something, which isn't a part of reality, yet apparently this text in part about the mind takes place in reality and you are reading it. So there is something funny going on here.
Reality doesn't care about humans, yet humans are a part of reality and some humans care about some humans, so it would seem that parts of reality care about other parts of reality.

So what is going on? Well, in philosophy it is connected to naive. Naive means in practice not just a simple explanation, but a to simple explanation. In a formal sense, that reality is X and not non-X, is to simple in practice. These different kinds of explanations are a form of naive dualism. Here is an example:
Someone: Reality is logical.
Me: No!
Someone: That is illogical.
Me: Yes and yet it would appear it is a part of reality, since you can state it and speak about it.
Someone: The illogical is not real.
Me: You are doing a naive dualism of real and unreal.
Someone: Something, which is not true, is unreal.
Me: No, it is real, otherwise you couldn't talk about it.
Someone: What, which is false. doesn't exist.
Me: Yes, it does.
Someone: This is meaningless, absurd, irrelevant, doesn't work, doesn't matter and it is wrong.
Me: To you, but not to me.
Someone: All you do, is to think. You sit in your armchair and think reality. You think, that reality is you and that you are all that matters.
Me:...

Now we are doing a deep understanding of how reality works in practice and that includes you and me and how we think alike or differently, but reality is not just us. Reality is a lot of categories of words which relates to different processes in reality, which I treat as all interconnected. So e.g. a hazelnut is interconnected to e.g. a motorcycle all the way back to the Big Bang. Everything in reality is interconnected and everything is relevant as a part of reality.
Now I can't think for you and if you think sometimes in terms of naive dualism, I accept that you do that. I just do it differently. We are all equal as humans and different as individuals.

There is a class/categories of words, for which what they are about, wouldn't be about something unless there are humans. E.g. gravity is not such a word, but that gravity is relevant in explaining reality, so for all of the following words, which wouldn't be here, unless it it were for humans, the only one in the sentence, for which, is not case, is “gravity”. In that preceding sentence, the rest of the words are related to human cognition.
So whether this text is relevant or irrelevant, it is only relevant to humans and that includes you and me. How reality works in practice, means how reality is to humans. Not that all of reality is humans, but that reality includes humans right now and thus if we are to talk about reality, then you and I are also relevant, no matter how much you claim that reality doesn't care for me and what I think and feel.

I think you're staking out for me the position that the mind isn't part of reality, and arguing against that "naive" position. Well, that isn't my position at all.

Of course, if that's just a rhetorical device to simply argue against the "naive" position, just a generic "you", well then OK.

So if we are going to debate religion, philosophy, science and skepticism, we can end it right here. You are so special that all of reality is about how reality is relevant to you and that includes religion, philosophy, science and skepticism. So if some of these are irrelevant to you, they are irrelevant to how reality is, right? Sorry to burst your bubble, not that is not quite how reality works in practice. You are relevant as a part of reality, but you are not special, because all other humans are equally relevant as a part of reality. That is the joke about all of the words: Useful, meaningful, works, it matters, makes sense, relevant and so on. They are only relevant because of humans and neither you nor me control how they work for other humans. You hold no Objective Authority over what is useful, meaningful, works, it matters, makes sense, relevant and so on. Neither do I, I just know that it applies to both of us.

We can't in practice debate what reality is, unless you learn not to do naive dualism. Of course, we can debate it using naive dualism, so here is that debate using reductio ad absurdum. You are not me, so you are not real!!!

I'm not very sure I get all of that, but I guess you're still arguing against a mind-less conception of reality? If you are, then like I said, without going into technical details and basis purely on what appears reasonable to me, I do not subscribe to such a view. I would say that the objective world out there, and my/our mind, both are very much part of reality.

BTW I am a hardcore old school skeptic, so I am not nice. If you use doxa or everyday common sense, I will point it out.

Not at all, Tommy. I'm enjoying discussing this with you. Although like I said I lack your close familiarity with all of these technicalities and these philosophical terms and concepts, so you'll have to make some allowance for that.

By all means, anything you find lacking in my common-sense views, do please point out those lacks. I may not necessarily agree with you always, but it is precisely for you to explain your views and for me to understand them that we're both here, you and I.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

1. I think that science (or more properly, the scientific method) is one specific, particular (and formalized) application of the broader concept/idea/philosophy/approach of rationality in general. I know you disagree, and I’d like to know why.
2. I think that both the world out there, as well as my mind, both of these comprise reality. That is why we have two modes, the subjective and the objective, of understanding reality (and also the in-between “inter-subjective”). I think you don’t quite agree with this either? I’d like to know more about why not.

1. first, in historical terms in western culture the idea of rationality goes back to the philosophers of the old Greeks. But there is a bias build into rationality, namely that you can explain reality using only reason and logic as opposed to emotions. Or in the weak sense that rationality is better than emotions.

So how is it, that I claim that general skepticism is not the same as science? Well, it ties into 2. Science or rather natural science, because in some other cultures science in the Anglo-Saxon sense is not science, science is the science of nature or natural science. You also have mathematics as a science, social science, human science (humanities) and philosophy. Another way to spot this is in the idea of a theory of everything. Reality is fundamentally physical and can be reduced to a physical theory of everything.

So the question is, can we explain reality using rationality and its formalized version natural science? Can we reduce reality down to physics using reason and logic? And the answer is neither yes nor no. In philosophy there is a technical term: Necessary, but not sufficient. In the broad sense it means that e.g. gravity is necessary, but not sufficient in explaining reality. Even broader yet, natural science and rationality are necessary, but not sufficient in explaining reality. Now go back to the 5 versions of science and call them A to E. So can we add up A to E and explain reality using only reason, logic and evidence(natural science) and the answer is no.

In an everyday sense you are better off using reason, logic and evidence(natural science), because they are all necessary in understanding reality, but they are not sufficient. So how is that?

Well, it is contained in this quote by Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."
We then add Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
And finally Arthur Conan Doyle: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Protagoras is about cognitive relativism; i.e. how you make sense of reality is necessarily not the same as me.
Nietzsche in the broad sense is about morality and ethics (the monsters) and when you go deep and try to understand reality, cognitive dissonance (the abyss) is the result; i.e. reality does not add up, when only using rationality.
Doyle is a version of skepticism, i.e. when you realize that you can't use rationality alone, you realize that reality is not logical or governed by reason.

So how do I give evidence for that?
Well, it is simple. Remember subjective and objective. Now add a Boltzmann brain. It is the theory in theoretical physics that you could be in an universe, which only consists of your brain. So what is the probability of you being a Boltzmann brain versus you being in the universe you believe that you are in? It is unknown! How come?
Because the objective; i.e. the rest of the universe appear the same to you in both cases and in both cases are the cause of your mind. You are the effect of something else, the rest of the universe caused you to experience(your mind), but you can't know which universe you are in, because your experiences are the same in both universes. That is the limit of reason and logic. You can't using reason, logic and evidence to control the universe. The universe controls you in the objective sense and all you have is your subjective experience of it.

So the objective is unknown, but apparently the cause of your experiences. In the formal sense the objective is das Ding an sich(that is Immanuel Kant), i.e. the thing in itself independent of your experience of it. It is unknown what objective reality really is, other than it is independent of your experience of it, but the cause of your experience.
So now you have looked down the abyss long enough and the abyss has gazed back at you. Now take of a leap of faith and live the rest of your life in the belief that the rest of universe is as it appears to you in your experience of it. So now we are back in reality. But now we know, that there is a limit to rationality and evidence.

But what about God? Well, some humans are religious and others are not. But can't we decide that? No, because religion is all the way to the God of the gaps a part of das Ding an sich. Whether there is a God or not is as unknown as it is unknown whether you are a Boltzmann brain or not.

So enough about metaphysics, transcend beliefs and what reality really is. For the rest of this text we are inside methodological naturalism; i.e. we treat reality is if it is as it appears in the mind and the objective matches the subjective experience of it.
Then we need ontology or rather the set of necessary, but not sufficient parts/explanations of how reality works in practice.
In practice in time and space for the arrow of time reality is connected as a strong philosophical principle; the physical gives rise to chemistry, which gives rise to biology, which gives rise to cognition in humans, which gives rise to philosophy, which gives rises methodological naturalism, which gives rise to the physical. Notice it is circular in one sense and dogmatic in another.

You don't question methodological naturalism, because that is what allows you to use reason, logic and evidence in practice. But you can't avoid emergent properties, which are not reducible to something else. I.e. the set of categories you use to describe reality include objective, inter-subjective and subjective terms, which are not reducible to each other. You need all 3 kinds and you hold them as interconnected, yet not reducible to only one category. In philosophical terms you describe reality as the human experience of the interconnected web of the objective, inter-subjective and subjective or if you like physical and mental terms or external sensational and intra-cognition as per epistemology.

So back to modern western natural science and rationality; i.e. the Enlightenment. You need a fundamental belief of what reality is (natural or super-natural; i.e.), you need to find your core values (morality, ethics, psychology/social science and aesthetics; i.e. subjective and inter-subjective) and you need to deal with reality is practical manner (rationality and natural science; i.e. objective). But you can't do it without all 3 if you look closer; i.e. skepticism.
So is reality in part objective? Yes, I believe so, but that belief is subjective. That is the joke or if you like the abyss.

I don't know what reality really is and I don't care, because it seems to work anyway.

With regards

 

[Chanakya]

Tommy, sorry for this very late response. Your post above, on first reading, frankly left me bemused.

Of late, I've read a good bit more about your views, as expressed in your posts in other threads now running. And, while I understand that your views are decidedly non-mainstream here, nevertheless I find them interesting. Which is why I've come back to this thread, and to your post, after all this time.

I'm going to venture some questions here. Would you look at each of them separately, individually?



1. So what?

I'm sorry, that sounds brusque. What I meant is this : Even if one were to grant you that everything is indeed subjective, how would that impact how we act?

I'm guessing that one would, nevertheless, have to act as if there is indeed a class of 'things' that are objective. Do you agree? And if you do, your insistence on classing everything as subjective, while interesting, doesn't really seem to have any actual application, does it?

Or don't you agree that we need to pretend that objective things are objective?



2. Why bother with all of this philosophy/metaphysics? Does it really serve any purpose?


You're saying that, starting from philosophical bases set in Western Philosophy centuries ago, your conclusion necessarily follows. Now I don't really know enough to contest (or to agree with) this view of yours.

But granting, for the sake of argument, that you're right : Does it really help, really, to invoke centuries old philosophical systems to look at our current way of looking at things?

For instance, your definition of rationality. Might it not make sense to directly start our personal skepticism, our personal way of looking at the world, directly from an empirical standpoint, using reason to help us along?

Or do you think there is anything to be gained, really, by going through all of this philosophy? If you think that, can you spell out what?



3. Seen from this perspective, wouldn't it make sense to look at emotions, for instance, as part of what is rational? (Albeit a subjective part of what is rational?)

Seen from this perspective, that is, if we are to take emipricism directly as our starting point (without worrying about how some ancients and some not-so-ancients might have thought and argued about this in their tomes on philosophy), I go back to what I'd said earlier on :

I think that both the world out there, as well as my mind, both of these comprise reality. That is why we have two modes, the subjective and the objective, of understanding reality (and also the in-between “inter-subjective”).

Going by an emprical worldview, would you agree with that?