My theoretical framework

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Without the smugness, incessant petty insults, I assume?

So, Pixy, have you seen yourself in the mirror lately? I'm usually calm, but can't stand people who act, well, exactly like you described.

Have you checked how you answer to most woos in the forum? One thing is to try to educate them, I have nothing against that, but your attitude (that I have replicated with you and others who behave like that) its not a nice one.

So, treating you like you treat others is not pleasant to you.



Peace from now on. Just remember this.

 

[Dancing David]

Oh, baloney. That's just a ploy to avoid having to deal with truth and falsehood.

Not really, it is a consequence of functional defintions. In this case I assume that you are using true to mean a thought that acurately predicts the behavior of reality. And I am certainly cool with that defintion, I just like to annoy people by pointing out that all thoughts are equally true and equally false it is only by application to the behavior of a reffered to object that they find truth/validity.

I remember, a few years ago, I had a dream that I'd bought a new car. I woke up and for a few minutes still thought I had a new car. That thought was false. After a while, I realized, no, I still have the same old car. That thought was true.

Okay, so you are using the functional defintion. Lots of people don't so I just try to rattle them by saying that all thioughts are false or all thoughts are true.

There are no 2 ways about that.

As far as validity or truth, sure. But then there is that whole area of things people assume to be true, without ever examining what they hold to be true. The thread on subjectivity and science is full of that.

What in the world is that supposed to mean? I have no idea what the phrase "perceptions... manufactured wholesale from... sensations" might refer to. I really don't.

It means that parts of your world are just made up by your brain and created by the brain from limited data.

Obvious examples are the blind spot in the visual field of a single eyeball, or the color of a sunset, less obvious is the nature of memory or complex abstractions like "Upper Blomboskians are lazy", "All liberals hate the USA".

Things like that, they are part and parcel of the way the brain works as it searches for and creates patterns. I believe that the world exists, which is why I advise some people (in the subjectivity and science thread) to not walk into trees.

Didn't your daddy ever talk to you about assuming?

he said to wash my hands before eating after making an assumption!

Bottom line here, although we are undeniably prone to certain (evolutionarily advantageous) delusions, no species could reasonably be expected to survive if its perceptions did not, by and large, correspond pretty neatly to external phenomena.

Oh sure, taht is true, it is just there is a much wider margin of validity when it comes to abstract concept and certain perceptions like memories. You can really upset people by telling them that consciousness does not exist. they want for this high level abstraction to be the truth and don't really thgink about it. there is no ghost in the machine, or at least it is superfluous.

Sure, there is no "flavor of bananas" or "sound of a buzzsaw" anywhere out there in the world. But so what? The fact is, in the healthy brain, there's a damn good correspondence b/t those experiences and very real phenomena in the physical world.

I say that a lot, and all the time, which is why I mentioned phototropins to BDZ in the other thread.

You're going to have to find a better term than "wholesale" b/c to me this refers to certain features of capitalist economy, and I have no clue how you might be using this term in reference to perception.

I mean wholesale, like as made "in a bunch and in large quantaties", your colors are generated from sensations in less that 15% of the visual field.

memeories are likely to be much worse.
(Or better).

Huh? By that, do you mean that politics and philosophy are BS?

I mean people see things that they think are true and never examine.

Actually, I'm a milltown kid. Yeah, I have an education, but I'm still a collard-eating boy from red clay Georgia. Always will be.

Yum, I can't say I favor collards but I sure like mustard greens.

Got that red dirt in your heart, eh. I think the term redneck is just overused. Course most people round here think I grew up in a 'city' of 30,000

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

It means that parts of your world are just made up by your brain and created by the brain from limited data.

Exactly. The visual system is one of the best known, and that it is more easily understood (experientially) as we are, primarily, visual animals. But the same goes for other senses, and then the union of all the types of information in a single construct.

A table is a surface with certain tactile textures, it is an obstruction of sound, and so on. Something in the brain then unites all those different things in a single, unifying concept, that we call "table".

Oh, and there are no tables without us.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Bodhi, you could have saved yourself a lot of typing if you just said that all knowledge, sensations, "facts", and thoughts are tentative and that there is only one immutable truth concerning reality:

The universe is an elegant madness that none can fully fathom.

Oh, and Piggy: All scientific understandings, theories, and knowledge are built upon the shifting sands of semantics, ontology, and philosophy. Just because consciously delving into those realms leaves you with a nauseating sense of vertigo and frustration doesn't make them irrelevant or meaningless. They are the foundations of all thought -- including your own.

 

[Piggy]

Oh, and Piggy: All scientific understandings, theories, and knowledge are built upon the shifting sands of semantics, ontology, and philosophy. Just because consciously delving into those realms leaves you with a nauseating sense of vertigo and frustration doesn't make them irrelevant or meaningless. They are the foundations of all thought -- including your own.

I find that to be false. I see no basis for it.

The fact is, as we progress, we do learn.

When I was in the English Dept it was still fashionable to propose that science and history are merely two types of discourse among many others, none of which is priveleged.

This is demonstrably untrue.

The fact that you and I are having this discussion in the way we're having it is proof of that.

 

[Piggy]

Just because consciously delving into those realms leaves you with a nauseating sense of vertigo and frustration doesn't make them irrelevant or meaningless.

The nausea and frustration come from sitting in a room listening to otherwise intelligent people spout the most transparent BS.

Sure, you can get the same feeling if you take your own feet off the ground and your eyes off the real world and allow yourself to be caught up in their spinning dances of self-referential claptrap.

But that's your own fault.

 

[Piggy]

It means that parts of your world are just made up by your brain and created by the brain from limited data.

True. Also mundane.

You can really upset people by telling them that consciousness does not exist.

You can also make a damn fool of yourself b/c obviously consciousness does exist. Just because it's not quite (or at all) what we've thought it was for milennia doesn't mean it ceases to exist.

And you see, it's this sloppiness of thought and phrasing that puts a burr in my boot.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

And you see, it's this sloppiness of thought and phrasing that puts a burr in my boot.

And yet, you keep uttering blah blah blah again and again, and again, and again. You complain, you whine you babble your little rants. We all know that. What else? Can you elaborate a fairly intelligent arguments? counter arguments? Anything interesting at all?

For example, you claim that philosophical arguments are absurd, yet you have been unable to utter even ONE single argumentation on the why and/or the how. Lets state clear that if it is your OPINION then it is fine, but why on earth should anybody in the world trust your opinions?

You want the world to dance at your rants? Because, no matter how loud you complain... the world couldn't care less.

 

[Piggy]

Can you elaborate a fairly intelligent arguments? counter arguments?

About what? As I've said before, there are no intelligent arguments either for or against nonsense. All that can be done is to reveal it as nonsense.

For example, you claim that philosophical arguments are absurd, yet you have been unable to utter even ONE single argumentation on the why and/or the how. Lets state clear that if it is your OPINION then it is fine, but why on earth should anybody in the world trust your opinions?

I don't imagine that anyone does trust my opinions.

But all you have to do to refute me is to pony up with some philosophy that has some practical value. Why is that so hard?

no matter how loud you complain... the world couldn't care less.

At last, something we agree on.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Oh, and Piggy: All scientific understandings, theories, and knowledge are built upon the shifting sands of semantics, ontology, and philosophy. Just because consciously delving into those realms leaves you with a nauseating sense of vertigo and frustration doesn't make them irrelevant or meaningless. They are the foundations of all thought -- including your own.

Of course. Philosophy is more than building up arguments above undefined terminology. Specially since last century philosophy is more about how we can make sense of language than thinking abstract ideas.

Piggy is trapped in this feeling that religion and philosophy are the same, and while is true that some old philosophers used to discuss about religious terms (good, evil, angels and souls) modern philosophy has MANY branches, some of them even necessary for keep science on the right track.

On the other hand, other than by his ignorance in this respect, piggy can be a funny character. If you are sleeping for example.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The universe is an elegant madness that none can fully fathom.

hehe sometimes, maybe, we take it to seriously!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

But all you have to do to refute me is to pony up with some philosophy that has some practical value. Why is that so hard?

So, do I need to do your homework for you? I have pointed out analytical philosophy

"A philosophical school of the 20th century whose central methodology is the analysis of concepts or language."

The goal of this school is to end with unintelligible and useless babbling as the how many angels fit in... (you know it, because you have used it) and understand, exactly, what kind of thing is meaning and how it is implied in our everyday use of language.

How about philosophy of science?

"The investigation of questions that arise from reflection upon science and scientific practice. Such questions include: what distinguishes the methods of science? Is there a clear demarcation between sciences and other disciplines, and where do we place such enquiries as history, economics, or sociology? Are scientific theories probable, or more in the nature of provisional conjectures? Can they be verified, or falsified? What distinguishes good from bad explanation?"

You can't have science unless you know what you are asking, unless you have a theoretical framework that is self consistent and follow concrete rules.

So there you go, two examples of good philosophy. So, stop the crying!

 

[gnorville]

I used to think the same thing when I was about 16. Then I observed the phenomenon of frustration brought on by the noumenon of school, work etc. It seemed that everyone else's theoretical framework was having quite an effect on me. I've been trying to get even ever since.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I find that to be false. I see no basis for it.

The fact is, as we progress, we do learn.

When I was in the English Dept it was still fashionable to propose that science and history are merely two types of discourse among many others, none of which is priveleged.

This is demonstrably untrue.

The fact that you and I are having this discussion in the way we're having it is proof of that.

My point was that our learning is limited by our basic assumptions within language and philosophy. Ofcourse we gain more knowledge as time goes on but our ability to articulate and examine the basic underpinnings of our assumptions, thought, and language are absolutely vital to that process. Its what separates human beings from chimps and what allows us to even HAVE an evolving scientific framework.

The nausea and frustration come from sitting in a room listening to otherwise intelligent people spout the most transparent BS.

Sure, you can get the same feeling if you take your own feet off the ground and your eyes off the real world and allow yourself to be caught up in their spinning dances of self-referential claptrap.

But that's your own fault.

What you are referring to are wanna-be philosophers who suck at philosophy. I find them annoying as well.

Like I said earlier, philosophy without empirical grounding DOES become irrelevant self-referential crap. Its also equally true that if a scientist that is unable to step back and examine his basic conceptual foundations hes nothing more than a technician that follows the insights of others who can. Hes like the chimp that follows the rules of being a chimp without any deep understanding of those rules.

 

[Piggy]

On the other hand, other than by his ignorance in this respect, piggy can be a funny character.

I'll certainly concede the point that I'm ignorant of philosophy.

I keep waiting to be shown its value. The closest I've come so far are Gould's comments on scientific philosophy in "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory".

When I was in high school, a teacher talked me into an independent study in philsophy. I read the classic philosophers, St. Augustine, Pascal, the German guy whose name I can't spell, and dozens more on up to today.

What I wanted to do was to point out how what they were saying was, in every case, either (1) obvious, (2) nonsensical, or (3) demonstrably incorrect. That's what I found.

My teacher wanted me to gain an understanding of the progression of thought, but I really didn't care about that. Studying the history of error wasn't of interest to me then.

As an undergrad I took a philosophy course and again found that all the arguments we studied fell into the same 3 categories. I chalked philosophy up as a waste of time, and nothing has come down the pike so far to give me any reason to change my mind.

Science, on the other hand, was worth the time one put into it.

So that's my background.

Ignorant, yes. But for me to decide that it's worth my time to get un-ignorant, I'm going to have to have a glimmer of hope. So far, I see none.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I'll certainly concede the point that I'm ignorant of philosophy.

I keep waiting to be shown its value. The closest I've come so far are Gould's comments on scientific philosophy in "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory".

Your view that practicing philosophy is useless is, itself, a philosophy. "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" is an examination of the epistemology underpinning the theory of evolution.

Everyone has a philosophy but the practice of philosophy is putting those views and assumptions under logical scrutiny. Its much like mathematics except instead of dealing with quantitative entities like numbers it deals in the qualitative realm of thought and concept.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

What I wanted to do was to point out how what they were saying was, in every case, either (1) obvious, (2) nonsensical, or (3) demonstrably incorrect. That's what I found.

Yes, but before they said it, did category 1 exist? It seems so obvious now that it is a part of our everyday life. What the German guy said was not so obvious at the time for a lot of people and there are many who will still not accept his criticisms of Christianity.

When it comes to metaphysics, the Greeks did it all before Plato and he screwed up the course of western philosophy thereafter. Most of the past 2000 years of it has been a bit of a waste of time, except that it has served to uncover bad arguments. That has been the main benefit of it. Perhaps our views are skewed by the astoundingly fast pace of improvement in science, which uncovers the slow pace of philosophy?

Or as Huxley said of natural selection (supposedly) -- how stupid not to have thought of that myself.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You can also make a damn fool of yourself b/c obviously consciousness does exist. Just because it's not quite (or at all) what we've thought it was for milennia doesn't mean it ceases to exist.

And you see, it's this sloppiness of thought and phrasing that puts a burr in my boot.

And like every argument about God, it all depends on one's definition of consciousness. I think David was agreeing with what you say -- that consciousness is not what people think it is.

 

[Piggy]

And like every argument about God, it all depends on one's definition of consciousness. I think David was agreeing with what you say -- that consciousness is not what people think it is.

I think he is, too. This is another thing that bothers me about philosophy -- it induces speech impediments.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I think he is, too. Whis is another thing that bothers me about philosophy -- it induces speech impediments.

Gotta agree with ya there. Most philosophical arguments when fully analyzed are just arguments over how we use language. But you already know that, so I think I'll stop blathering now.