I used to be a recalcitrant skeptic

Bodhi Dharma Zen

Advaitin
Bodhi Dharma Zen
Joined
Nov 25, 2004
Messages
3,926
There was a time, long time ago, in which I believed in woo. I wanted to adhere to things like reincarnation, immortal souls, unknown mental "forces" and that kind of things.

Later, I learned that the world was more important than my beliefs, and so I spent a great amount of time reading books regarding philosophy and science, discussing with others, joining philosophical groups to discuss (mostly analytic philosophy) and even working at a lab doing some brain research. I was a recalcitrant skeptic, almost laughing about wooism at every opportunity. It was ok, for a time.

But later I understood something I was not prepared to. That "knowledge" is nothing but an opinion. Nobody in the world knows, really knows, anything. We all live and do things based on our beliefs. I realized then that even "hard core skeptics" are nothing but believers.

You see, all we have are opinions. Some of them can be tested against the objectivity ("that" what is beyond subjectivity), and some of them can't. Opinions are useful in that way, correlating better with the evidence (when we know what we are looking for), but in no way they can be ascribed as "more real" (this would mean that we can have "objective opinions", which is an absurd).

So, I ceased to be such a skeptic. I hope a day will come in which I will be able to open my eyes, and just marvel at the chance of being here. No questions asked.
 
There are certain things that anger me. I am just enlightened enough to know that through concerted effort, I could fully embrace the idea that I can choose which things anger me and which things don't. Right now, I am angry at con artists like James Van Praag and Sylvia Browne who prey on emotionally vulnerable people. I am not prepared to give up that anger.
 
There are opinions that have scientific studies supporting them and those which don't.
 
Last edited:
Ladewig said:
Right now, I am angry at con artists like James Van Praag and Sylvia Browne who prey on emotionally vulnerable people. I am not prepared to give up that anger.
Click to expand...

Why are you angry at them? Is the people receiving something? Maybe what they want? What can you offer them? Say somebody wants to talk with his dead mother. Say he/she finds comfort believing in life after death. Whats wrong with that, seriously.

And I'm not saying that I believe in an afterlife, nor that if, confronted, I wouldn't tell those people why their belief is a whole lot less probable than its opposite.

We skeptics are like paladins wanting to rescue people who is comfortable where they are. Maybe they don't need us at all.

Oh, and no, I'm not saying that we should let creationists to eradicate evolution from schools, nor critical thinking! Just that maybe we don't have to "rescue" people who is comfortable believing whatever they choose to believe, or want to believe.
 
Dogdoctor said:
There are opinions that have scientific studies supporting them and those which don't.
Click to expand...

Granted. And there are opinions which were validated by science that now are discarded as absurd or invalid. There are others that are mere assumptions, no matter how well the studies/observations are correlated to them.

I already say it, some opinions are correlated and some others not, but they will never cease to be mere opinions (as opposed to "knowledge"). It is amazing to realize how few and how little are our certainties.
 
This is why choosing our words and stating our message is so important.

Randi, for example, has been very clear about his message. He has never stated that psychic powers are not possible, he leaves that possibility open, instead he is saying no person has proven it currently. He has challenged specific people to prove it..they have not.

I think you are trying to suggest that the skeptic community thinks they know all the answers. I don't think that is the case at all. Instead, I think the skeptic community asks the right questions, and does a good job of stating the CURRENT truths. I think that is the minimum we should try to attain as a society.
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Granted. And there are opinions which were validated by science that now are discarded as absurd or invalid. There are others that are mere assumptions, no matter how well the studies/observations are correlated to them.

I already say it, some opinions are correlated and some others not, but they will never cease to be mere opinions (as opposed to "knowledge"). It is amazing to realize how few and how little are our certainties.
Click to expand...

Exactly the reason to require more than opinion.
 
Dedicated said:
I think you are trying to suggest that the skeptic community thinks they know all the answers. I don't think that is the case at all. Instead, I think the skeptic community asks the right questions, and does a good job of stating the CURRENT truths. I think that is the minimum we should try to attain as a society.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the community, if such a thing exists, ;) but I'm sure lots of its individuals think that way. Just look around and you will find several members who sport a somehow naive arrogance.

A true skeptic, on the other hand, behave like you say, he/she doesn't simply deny anything, nor approves it, no matter who is the "authority" behind any assertion.
 
Dogdoctor said:
Exactly the reason to require more than opinion.
Click to expand...

What would be that? There is "something" objective, there is "something" subjective. I believe in the end those two are just only one, other than that, I "know" nothing. Now, make no mistake, I do believe a lot of things. :)
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Why are you angry at them? Is the people receiving something? Maybe what they want? What can you offer them? Say somebody wants to talk with his dead mother. Say he/she finds comfort believing in life after death. Whats wrong with that, seriously.
Click to expand...

Say you wanted to buy a neato, nifty, new High Definition Television set. Say I spent a significant amount of time with you, educating you about High Definition television signals and HDTV equipment. Say you made a decision to buy a new HDTV setup from me at a high price. More expensive than you had seen advertised elsewhere, and significantly above your original budget for the purchase. Say I delivered to your home a shiny new HDTV, HD cable box, and HD DVD player, along with all the requisite wiring and accessories, connected everything, placed the remote control in your hand, collected your money, and bid you "good watching." Say you watched this new TV system for several weeks, perfectly contented with your purchase, until your next door neighbour dropped over for a beer, and saw it. And say, just for the sake of argument, your next door neighbour said, "dude, that's not HDTV. That looks like crap! Come next door and look at mine." And say you went next door, and your neighbour showed you his system, for which he had paid less than half what you paid, and say it was dramatically better. Mind blowingly better. And say you did some follow up research and discovered that I had sold you a bunch of several year old, non-HDTV, completely substandard equipment, and charged you top dollar. You had not gotten what you paid your top dollar for. in fact, I had completely lied about what I had sold you. What's wrong with that, seriously?

I'm glad to hear that nobody would be angry at me on your behalf. After all, if it hadn't been for your neighbour popping your bubble, you would have gone on being perfectly happy with your purchase. Right?
 
Last edited:
I guess I see it differently.

Something that describes a 'skeptic' is not whether or not we all hold opinions and if they are right or wrong, but how can we live and think in a manner that allows us to ask new and better questions. It seems difficult to deny that some questions are better than others, and that even the provisional answers we decide on have better results than others.

We ask a question.
We look at the answers.
We use those answers to ask a better question.

Learning to ask better questions represents a kind of true knowledge. The characters on this computer screen did not come from voicing random opinions of equal weight.

The simple metaphor I keep in mind for skeptics is that of being a pioneer. People like Randi and Sylvia are a bit like wagon train guides, they exist as temporary leaders that guide or warn but they would just have different destinations in mind for the traveler.

I suppose that any leader can be perceived as arrogant, and any of us could be. But claiming arrogance seems like a distraction from asking a better question - are they leading a good direction?
 
Gr8wight said:
I'm glad to hear that nobody would be angry at me on your behalf. After all, if it hadn't been for your neighbour popping your bubble, you would have gone on being perfectly happy with your purchase. Right?
Click to expand...

Your example is flawed, but I will attempt to rescue the ideas, please correct me if you feel I'm wrong.

1) There are some certainties in the world. (HD TVs offer better image than regular tvs)

2) There are tools to let us differentiate between those certainties (lets call them true beliefs) and some false beliefs. (You can be presented with facts regarding resolution and other variables)

3) Let's say that false beliefs cause damage to those who believe in them. (You have paid for obsolete technolog)

4) Some people are here to deceive others. (you evil) ;)

Now. I will translate those points to what Im trying to say.

1*) There are correlations between what we feel/believe and what happens.

2*) There are tools to let us differentiate between those correlations IN RELATION to our cosmovision or point of view.

3*) Some beliefs damage those who believe in them, but the line between "false" and "true" beliefs is thin and always moving.

4*) Yes, and also people who actually believe what they are doing is right. And, thankfully, some skeptics around to challenge those who do want to deceive on purpose ;)
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
What would be that? There is "something" objective, there is "something" subjective. I believe in the end those two are just only one, other than that, I "know" nothing. Now, make no mistake, I do believe a lot of things. :)
Click to expand...

Something that is testable and tested rather than just an opinion.
 
Kopji said:
I suppose that any leader can be perceived as arrogant, and any of us could be. But claiming arrogance seems like a distraction from asking a better question - are they leading a good direction?
Click to expand...

Good post, thanks. Asking the right questions, yes, thats very intelligent, and yes, skepticism is one of the tools we need to do that. But we also need a cosmovision, or point of view, that allows us to ask those questions. And that allows us to believe they are the right questions ;)

As for the leaders. Yes, I believe that we skeptics are Alpha people, this is, by definition, leaders. Some of us don't like to push others in any direction (most of the time) some others do. Its a matter of preference and, maybe, being angry, like Ladewig :)
 
Last edited:
Dogdoctor said:
Something that is testable and tested rather than just an opinion.
Click to expand...

Yes. Like gravity. Now, problem is. What is gravity? Yes, we know its there, we know some of its effects, but we have no idea of what it is... a force? a distortion of something else? are gravitons real or just convenient constructs?

We have a word for it, whatever that is, and that (and some mathematics) suffice for somehow trivial tasks (like calculating orbits), but everything else is an opinion.
 
Last edited:
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Yes. Like gravity. Now, problem is. What is gravity? Yes, we know its there, we know some of its effects, but we have no idea of what it is... a force? a distortion of something else? are gravitons real or just convenient constructs?

We have a word for it, whatever that is, and that (and some mathematics) suffice for somehow trivial tasks (like calculating orbits), but everything else is an opinion.
Click to expand...

So science doesn't understrand gravity as well as you would like them to. So what?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom