What in our mind is not in a belief system?
Hi everyone!
I am new here. Thought I would jump right into the fray. Seems like a really bright group. I hope to challange and be challanged in a postive and constructive fashion. That said, lets dive in!
Look at what Paul said: "It's a fool's errand to try to define skeptic, atheist, god, intelligent design, free will, and scads of other words. Even if you do, most people will interpret the word to mean something else, as SusanB said."
Is it a fool errand to define "work", or "pressure", "gravity" or temperature"? Is there some a priori thing that seperates things of the mind from the need for definition, as opposed to things of the external world?
To start, I understand the gist of the discussion, and at the level of the discourse, of course, there is a process of seeking validation for some specific claim.
But Paul actually tangents on the real issue: how do you know what anything means? Do you understand how and why you use language? Do you know the processes that underlye your very ability to understand anything? Do you know with any kind of certainty at all the meaning of any specific word? Is it not perhaps a fools errand to think you know anything?
"Certainty is only possible in mathematics, and mathematics is a matter of arbitrary convention". (A penny to anyone who knows from whom that quote was taken)
How far are you willing to take your skepticism? What do you really know? Isn't it possible that that the entire set of ideas in your mind has the ontological equivalent of seeing faces in clouds?
Ultimately, I would suggest, it's all belief.
One of the things I have seen, generally speaking, looking at postings here, is that people do not appear to appreciate that language is a closed system. You can only define anything in terms of other words. When you empirically validate your ideas, you are merely extending the net of language. This is good in so far as it opens up the vistas of language, but it in no way eliminate the fact that you have gone nowhere. That scale is not "real" - it is merely an extension of language and (language's grand daddy) culture. You started out in your mind, and you ended in your mind. It's like a mobious loop.
One of the smarter ideas on the block right now is that our ability to symbolically represent "reality" evolved in a contingent fashion. Meaning that the representations in no way have to represent "truth", they only need to approximate "what is out there" well enough that we can generate progeny. That is, like it or not, the essence of evolution.
So, I would suggest that, just the presumption that you can know this better than that, is in itself a belief. A belief grounded in so many unspoken presuppositions, (about language, and mind, about yourself, about others, about society, and time and space) that you have little choice but to recognize that even this processes of validating some specific item in your mental experience, is itself just one more element in the cloud of your mental experience.
Again, how far are you willing to take this process of scepticism?
"Unawakened man knows only facts, no mysteries, to him things are their own explanation; the world is there and what else is there to know? Such is the animal outlook; to the bovine mind pastures may be good or bad, but they need no explanation. Thus unawakened man is content with the facts of existence--his environment, his food, his work, his family and friends are so many facts surrounding him, pleasant or unpleasant, but never in need of explanation. To speak to him of mystery hidden in his life and his world would not convey any meaning; he exists and the fact of his existence is sufficient unto him. Death and life themselves may for a while cause him anxiety or joy, but even then they do not arouse any questions; they are familiar and customary. It is the very familiarity of life which hides its mystery to the animal mind. That which seen once would be a marvel becomes familiar when seen a hundred times and ceases to suggest the possibility of further explanation.
With the dawn of intellect the mystery of primitive man is lost and naught but facts in their vulgarity remain; in the sublime ignorance of a self-satisfaction, which doubts neither itself nor the world, man moves among mysteries which, could he but realize them, would strike terror into his heart.."
(A whole dollar if you can figure out who this quote is from!)
End of my first post!
Take care all
Don DeGracia
Hi everyone!
I am new here. Thought I would jump right into the fray. Seems like a really bright group. I hope to challange and be challanged in a postive and constructive fashion. That said, lets dive in!
Look at what Paul said: "It's a fool's errand to try to define skeptic, atheist, god, intelligent design, free will, and scads of other words. Even if you do, most people will interpret the word to mean something else, as SusanB said."
Is it a fool errand to define "work", or "pressure", "gravity" or temperature"? Is there some a priori thing that seperates things of the mind from the need for definition, as opposed to things of the external world?
To start, I understand the gist of the discussion, and at the level of the discourse, of course, there is a process of seeking validation for some specific claim.
But Paul actually tangents on the real issue: how do you know what anything means? Do you understand how and why you use language? Do you know the processes that underlye your very ability to understand anything? Do you know with any kind of certainty at all the meaning of any specific word? Is it not perhaps a fools errand to think you know anything?
"Certainty is only possible in mathematics, and mathematics is a matter of arbitrary convention". (A penny to anyone who knows from whom that quote was taken)
How far are you willing to take your skepticism? What do you really know? Isn't it possible that that the entire set of ideas in your mind has the ontological equivalent of seeing faces in clouds?
Ultimately, I would suggest, it's all belief.
One of the things I have seen, generally speaking, looking at postings here, is that people do not appear to appreciate that language is a closed system. You can only define anything in terms of other words. When you empirically validate your ideas, you are merely extending the net of language. This is good in so far as it opens up the vistas of language, but it in no way eliminate the fact that you have gone nowhere. That scale is not "real" - it is merely an extension of language and (language's grand daddy) culture. You started out in your mind, and you ended in your mind. It's like a mobious loop.
One of the smarter ideas on the block right now is that our ability to symbolically represent "reality" evolved in a contingent fashion. Meaning that the representations in no way have to represent "truth", they only need to approximate "what is out there" well enough that we can generate progeny. That is, like it or not, the essence of evolution.
So, I would suggest that, just the presumption that you can know this better than that, is in itself a belief. A belief grounded in so many unspoken presuppositions, (about language, and mind, about yourself, about others, about society, and time and space) that you have little choice but to recognize that even this processes of validating some specific item in your mental experience, is itself just one more element in the cloud of your mental experience.
Again, how far are you willing to take this process of scepticism?
"Unawakened man knows only facts, no mysteries, to him things are their own explanation; the world is there and what else is there to know? Such is the animal outlook; to the bovine mind pastures may be good or bad, but they need no explanation. Thus unawakened man is content with the facts of existence--his environment, his food, his work, his family and friends are so many facts surrounding him, pleasant or unpleasant, but never in need of explanation. To speak to him of mystery hidden in his life and his world would not convey any meaning; he exists and the fact of his existence is sufficient unto him. Death and life themselves may for a while cause him anxiety or joy, but even then they do not arouse any questions; they are familiar and customary. It is the very familiarity of life which hides its mystery to the animal mind. That which seen once would be a marvel becomes familiar when seen a hundred times and ceases to suggest the possibility of further explanation.
With the dawn of intellect the mystery of primitive man is lost and naught but facts in their vulgarity remain; in the sublime ignorance of a self-satisfaction, which doubts neither itself nor the world, man moves among mysteries which, could he but realize them, would strike terror into his heart.."
(A whole dollar if you can figure out who this quote is from!)
End of my first post!
Take care all
Don DeGracia
