Generally speaking, I think young kids tend to live in the (higher) sense of certainty because our mind is yet well developed to question many things in logical/rational manner when we are very young.
Also, adults around us are often very comforting and ready to provide assurance that things are for sure without any doubt.
As we get older and start to think more, some of us would realize that things aren’t that sure.
However, it seems that most of us would get uncomfortable with too many uncertainty or even the prospect of generalized uncertainty, and this would push us into the act of “certainty boosting”.
Common method of certainty boosting is the religion, where you are supposed to believe in the absolute (absurd) certainty of many things.
But some of us are a bit too logical/rational for religion, and use other things such as materialism, ideology, beliefs in technology/science/empathy/etc. Yet, these are still deceiving of our own mind and exaggerating the sense of certainty.
We can figure out people who love to boost the sense of certainty by their expression, an they tend to speak of reality, objective reality, fact, truth, and so on, in definitive manner.
It’s as if they are trying to self-hypnotize themselves by making exaggerated statement of certainty.
Also, I think they like to be agreed and supported by others about their boosted certainty, as if it’s logical/reasonable or even as if it’s absolutely so.
As Daybreak was saying in another thread, I think that truth/fact/reality for us is mostly whatever we believe at the moment: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=172048
Personally, I don’t think it’s a very good idea to over boost certainties, as it’s a form of self-deception that it can create mental problem in the person who does it.
More over, I think it does prevent us from thinking well because it can become nearly automatic subconscious habit of falsifying the evaluation of certainty on any given matter.
Some may even extend the tendency to exaggerate to many other evaluation, too.
And the thought may becomes very inaccurate to the point it’s virtually useless.
Possibly, educating teenagers so that they can get used to uncertainties and fears and other negative emotion, there might be less chance of becoming scared hypocrite adults (they used to hate so much), later, by themselves.
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I noticed that some people don’t seem to be able to boost the certainties on their own, and try to piggyback on the certainties of others.
This can be the core of “follower/believer” mentality.
We can detect these people as their opinion change depending on the opinion of others.
It’s as if looking at a school of fish.
I guess many animals have the built in tendency/mechanism to boost certainty of specific thing (under specific condition), such as baby birds following whatever they see first as their mother.
Many of human kids seem to believe whatever their parent tell them, up to certain age, too.
Probably, some adults are still like that, most of time, or time to time (depending on stress level, etc).
That is more a matter of what one deems sufficient to constitute certainty. In the absence of pure, absolute certainty, we are forced to rely upon that which we deem reasonably certain. Again, boiling down to perspectivism.
What about unconditional certainty? Certainty that’s not about something? Though I guess that would be called confidence, not certainty? Socrates, in his ignorance, seemed pretty confident, which is a kind of certainty I think. That kind of certainty should be boosted. It’s a good thing.
I declare that existence consists of the 3 entities of
me
all that is not me
the border or boundary between
I know without doubt (absolutely certain) that what I have declared to be true is true. The declaration necessarily included the whole of reality within its terms. Such all-encompassing declarations are what the religions once called “holy” (from being whole - all-inclusive or Godly).
Declarations are the first step in rational thinking (thinking logically toward a purpose - rationing logical steps). They include definitions and fundamental constructs of thought upon which a mental map of reality can be built.
A true statement is not necessarily related to reality in any useful way, eg; “unicorns have only one horn”. If declarations, which are true by definition, turn out to be useless because they form a useless mental map of reality, they are abandoned (paradigm shift). But those declarations were not false, merely useless and perhaps merely due to a better set of declarations being available.
!00% certainty is not founded “out there” in reality, but at home, with purposeful declaration with which one can measure, clarify, and verify perceived reality.
You say this, now justify it. How do you “know” these declarations are true? A declaration is not synonymous with a ‘truth’, to be sure. How do you know for certain that anything that is not you exists, and is not imagined, for instance?
Men once declared that slaves were to count as a fraction of a person – does that make it true?
Likewise, I can declare that neither you, nor anything external to you exists. Is that, then, true?
Well, to be fair, they have also been called ambiguous and useless.
Have you ever seen a map of any kind that is absolutely certain? We are, by nature, irrational creatures seeking rationality – how can you be sure you’ve found it? Also, logical does imply practicality or realism (Read Achilles and the Tortoise: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles_a … e_tortoise)
…then, by what means is it “true”?
Declarations are not true by definition–
Also, we do not operate this way. Logic is not mapped by a series of ambiguous declarations, but by experience, perception, communication, experimentation, discovery etc.
Anything can be declared. Is everything, then, to be considered truth relative to other truths?
That is called speculation and does not lead to certainty. This can lead us closer to a truth, but not certainty in that truth.
I do think there are different senses of certainties.
For example, our (self)awareness can be seen as the basic sense of certainty, the certainty that we are being aware at the moment.
And I do think there is the certainty boosting even at this level as we tend to presume the certainty of the given moment as if we are aware all the time and forever. Also, I think we tend to ignore the changes of the level of our awareness and consider as if it’s a simple matter of being aware or not.
And our sensory information comes with the sense of certainty, our emotion push/pull us with the great sense of certainty, and so on.
But these are all associated with the information/evaluation and thus the certainty about something, as you put it.
Now, there might be the sense of certainty without any information/evaluation attached on it.
It might feel good for the person who is having it, and it might appear as a good desirable state for others, too.
But I don’t think it SHOULD be boosted nor NEEDED.
Personally, I think it’s probably better for our emotional/logical health to remain uncertain and to get used to the sense of uncertainty, which can be uncomfortable, rather than seeking/creating false sense of certainty. It’s because I think the act of certainty boosting is based on the fear of the uncertainty and it’s a kind of lie, and it can create subconscious dichotomy and stress, making oneself even less “confident” than simply being uncertain.
This is starting to remind me of that “self-harmony” issue.
You are thinking in terms of someone declaring something for others to believe. I am referring to a single mind declaring something for itself to believe and work with so as to build a foundation (understanding). The declaration that I made is for me personally. It is not something anyone else must believe. They can do the same for themselves or they can declare a working paradigm for themselves that perhaps I wouldn’t believe if they stated it.
There is no requirement to publicly state the declarations that your mind accepts. In fact, you are not even aware of most of them because your mind already made them long ago, before you could speak or hardly think. Your conscious mind always has to reverse engineer the mind so as to discover what it already believes and why it is doing what it had been doing. You (your conscious thinking) did not create your mind. It created you.
I specified a small one for you as example already. As you say, we are learning, but one does not go from absolutely irrational to absolutely rational in a single step. That means that there are in between points where a few things become rational even though everything isn’t yet. The problem people have is keeping to what they truly can know rather than venturing so freely into speculation.
By definition. A unicorn is defined to be something that has a single horn. Its state of existence in reality is irrelevant to the truth of how it has been defined. Something must be defined before it can be declared non-existent. Thus there is a truth about it as a concept regardless of its physical existence.
You are still thinking in terms of public declarations. I am talking about the fundamental axiomatical declarations that begin a logic.
ALL logic begins with declaration even when not openly stated. There is no choice in that matter.
ALL truth is merely by virtue of statements being consistent with the fundamental axioms and structure of a particular thought model (map). Truth has no other meaning. We PRESUME the axioms and thus run into misunderstandings and conflicts such as to say something is true yet find that it doesn’t fit realty. But that is because our axioms (declarations) did not fit reality. Such a situation isn’t a matter of truth, but of consistent and useful mapping of reality.
Exactly. That is why every logic argument begins with “IF this… it true, THEN this… is also true.”
Perhaps “should” was too strong a word. I guess I’m trying to say that the kind of uncertainty that leads us to be skeptical towards various views about things need not lead a person to become some sort of Woody Allen-esque character, quaking in their boots when faced with “the nothingness of the universe” or whatever the existential angst is supposed to relate to. If a person is filled with fear, or if a person is overly uncomfortable, that strikes me as a result of holding on to a need for certainty. It’s like with falling off a cliff - it’s the hitting things on the way down that hurts. It’s not the falling itself. On the other hand if a person is too comfy with their lack of certainty, there’s a good chance they have simply turned on the ignore function. It’s easy to just shut things out and pretend you’re o.k. with uncertainty.
Hmm, maybe I’ve ended up agreeing with you.
Anyway, I think our positions on this are at least very similar. But I do think concepts can flip-flop when things are taken far enough. For instance I’ve heard Buddhist teachers talk about emptiness as completely and absolutely solid. Likewise, one could say (whether or not it’s really true) that complete and utter relativity is the only absolute truth. Or for one final example, “the only thing that never changes is change itself”.
You lost me. You seem to be referring to declarations as something like a logical premise. Accepting, stating, or presuming a premise does not make that premise, or the conclusion that follows, true. In such a case, one would not be stating a truth, but begging a question – specifically, why is your premise something that is to be assumed?
A truth necessarily corresponds to reality, not just perception, but the relationship between perception and that which is being perceived. Truth is something both verifiable and indisputable as well.
As for the unicorn example, I don’t personally believe that the concern of philosophy should be “truths” that do not correspond to reality in any way. Truths on a purely conceptual level are matter of belief – these are not matters of certainty.
Realize the complexity of what we are talking about.
There is some “reality” out there (presumption/declaration), if not, the discussion concerning “truth” matching that reality is a bit pointless, agreed?
There being a reality out there is a DECLARATION, totally unprovable (everything could be a dream). It is declared simply because if it is taken to be a dream, there is no point in thinking at all or attempting to do anything at all, even live. The chaos/fatalists love it when people buy into the solipsist idea that nothing at all really matters. It makes the emperor stronger and the people weaker.
My earlier example concerned 3 entities that make up that reality; me, all that is not me, and the border between.
Note ALL thinking MUST begin with a Declaration of some structure that is relevant to the effort to live. Without that declaration, no decisions can be rationally made (which is why your adversary doesn’t want you to believe it).
It is similar to declaring a language. How do you know a particular word means what you think it means? Definitions are declared and thus become true, not because reality made it so, but because they were declared as structures for the language. The mind has the exact same concern of needing structures within so as to build understanding and it must create them itself (declare them), “me, all that is not me, the border between” or “there is a reality besides my own mind.” these are not provable facts, they are declared facts without which NO thought has any meaning at all.
Thus for the sake of RATIONALITY, such fundamental starting point structures are truth by declaration and incontrovertible.
Granted very many people make declarations that do NOT fit reality and thus become completely useless as truth and even offend truth, but like I said, truth is what actually fits the declared reality such as to be useful.
We have “objective truth” and “subjective truth”. Subjective truth absolutely must always precede objective perception. The mind has to be built on presumed truths before it can even be turned on.
Reality is the actuality. Truth is the mental model of that reality. And thus truth begins as declaration, not evidence. The mind must declare a truth merely to perceive evidence in the first place.
I do think that one of the biggest motivation for thinking is to be certain.
It’s to be certain of the situation, to be certain of analysis, to be certain of possible methodologies for future actions, to be certain of choices, and so on.
Although there are exceptions, I think emotion tend to come with the certainty pre-installed, most of the time.
And the sensory perceptions are often treated as if they are cure, too.
However, our thought is more hypothetical and dynamic. It’s probably so for treating uncertain information and to settle them.
So, I’d say that the natural tendency and use of our thought is to be certain.
And we learn to do it with more accuracy (if we learn well) as we get older.
First, most kids would be satisfied with the silly answers of adults.
But they would ask more questions and sooner or later learn that adults are nuts and stupid liars (if they learn to think, systematically, logically).
This can put them into the great uncertainty because lots of things they took for granted can be all wrong, values, moral, culture, civilization, religion, and so on.
To compensate for this uncertainty, some would shut their rational/logical mind down and go back to believing mode of life, to religion and common sense.
Some may try to find comfort in spiritual/occult/magic/etc.
Others may continue to think, into more or less philosophical quest.
In addition to the differences of method to regain certainty, there can be the differences in the attitude toward exaggerating the certainty level.
There are people who try to gain comfortable level of certainty by cheating and over boosting. For them, (pseudo) logic and collective (mass hypnotic) effect seem to the preferred method of over boosting and maintaining the fake certainty.
But there are people who would not accept fake certainty of any kind, at all.
For them, rational/logical thinking would be the tool for analyzing and eliminating fake certainties.
If we remain very picky about certainties and don’t yield to the desire (only to jump on to one of fake, substitute certainties), we may arrive at the logical certainties that there is no absolute certainty. Usually,it means one has to remain in the uncertainty while thinking and this may make thinking difficult, too. But it may help one to get used to uncertainty, on the other hand.
Depending on how the person thought and the motivation behind the thought, it can be difficult to accept and live with the result. And again, some would go back to the fake world of fake certainties. So. there are many points people can drop out from this sort of quest and go back to the fake certainty and certainty boosting.
Now, go back to the two cases you talked, Woody Allen might be considered as someone who failed to think well systematic/logical/rational manner who still hopes for general logical certainty. Or he can be someone who have problem in living with general logical uncertainty possibly because he has too much emotional noises pulling him back or cultural beliefs preventing him from very logical/rational. His misfortune can be due to the conflict caused by semi-logical ambivalent thinking. He wants to be certain at the same time he doesn’t want to be certain of things he doesn’t like. He hasn’t made his mind up yet, or he doesn’t have refined preference/priority yet, keeping him in yo-yo state.
Another case you talked seem to be the denial, rather than really being comfortable with uncertainty. When the logical certainty of general logical uncertainty is clear enough, you are at least satisfied logically. It may leave emotion in suspended mode, but there would be no doubt for the lack of absolute certainty we tend to imagine, naively. Also, we start to learn the “liberating sensation/feeling” of loosing (subconscious) certainties. I mean, it feels good to loose certainties. I was definitely glad when I lost many different certainties, and this might be killing the craving for the certainty, in my case. These days, I purposely think to destroy some certainties I seem to have, and it’s fun. And When I loose the certainty, it seems I simply loose the interest in the matter, rather than staying in emotionally unstable state in search of certainty (and clinging onto it).
Maybe I should think more in the perspective of “lack of the interest” than “uncertainty”.
The appearance of flip-flop can be cause by the differences in the perspective (and the attachment on them), I’d say.
I think the Buddhist teacher is still trying to cling on the desire for something that is positively absolute. And he is probably wrong from the point of view that the emptiness or the absolute is only accessible by negative means. But as far as our impression of emptiness is concerned, I do understand that it may be taken as absolutely solid, as everything else is pretty impermanent and fragile. But we can say this when we really feel (or mistake something as) emptiness, as the most captivating thing and thus reality.
In the case of utter relativity, it’s the logical perspective we may have when we understand the nature of logic (or logos, which can be roughly equated as Dharma in a sense), I guess.
We can only evaluate something in relative sense. I don’t think there is absolute and non-relative evaluation, and this makes any evaluate truth (or logical truth) to be relative AND arbitrary one, lacking the absolute base.
And the change may change the rate and the way it changes, too.
If you happen to want/like changeless-ness, the emptiness doesn’t have any property/possibility (by definition). So, it’s free of charge, too, if you want one.
Oh, please don’t feel obliged to read/respond (especially quickly).
I know you don’t like long post so much, but it ended up a bit long.
Sure, it is a declaration – once it has been declared. Perception of a reality is observation, which seems intuitive to me. As a child, you are not making mental declarations like “Mom exists”, you just see and experience mom. Thus, she exists as far as you are concerned. We make assumptions about reality before we even have knowledge of “declarations”.
How is reality unprovable? It’s uncertain I suppose, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest we are actors in some form of reality. A belief in ‘reality’ is a matter of practicality – that the belief can be declared is a matter of communication.
It is practical. For all intensive purposes, assuming that what we perceive is ‘reality’ is in our best interest. It is declared as affirmation. I’d be willing to bet you assumed reality far before you were conscious enough to make a declaration about it.
I’m not sure primal drives and functions of the ‘Id’ are concerned with declarations. These drives are innate, but still relevant to survival. I think you may be confusing “thinking” in general, with reasoning.
Well, for one, we are not always rational, so neither are our decisions or ability to make them. Without a declaration, no decisions can be rationally explained perhaps.
Definitions are interpretations – they are assumed true before they are, and in order to be, declared. Reality actually does dictate the truth of a definition, though – I don’t follow your argument here. A definition that corresponds to reality is accepted as true, and thus become a function of language.
Finklefranks – Currency used by ancient Egyptians in acquisition of bear assholes.
There is a definition. Is it true now? Is this a new structure for language?
Why?
Sure, they become declared at some point. Even so, solipsism doesn’t necessarily imply a total lack of meaning in one’s thinking. Meaning becomes entirely subjective is all (not that I believe this).
I would argue truth by observation or experience more fundamental. Communication, and subsequently ‘declaration’, is not our sole grounds for a belief in reality. Truth is not always rational. Thinking in terms of practicality must take preference to some degree.
That would make them not ‘truths’ at all; no?
Truth is what actually fits perceived reality such as to be useful.
Then what is declaring these presumed truths? Your concept of the mind is beginning to seem like that of a machine.
Subjective truth can, and does, proceed objective perception pretty often, as far as I can tell. One guy reads the Bible and says “Jesus is God”, another reads and says “this is a fairy tale” – subjective ‘truths’ based on object perception.
This completely rules out inductive reasoning - developing a conclusion from evidence. Perspective is your mental model of reality. Truth lies in the relationship between perception and reality.
No. You’re still not getting it. Your brain started presuming declarations literally before you were born. They are prewired to a large degree. Your “instincts” are entirely formed of declarations of what is important to you. The idea that you exist is a prewired declaration/assumption that you cannot change. And if you did change it, all you would do is destroy your ability to think at all (although you might fit right into modern society).
Your brain starts thinking LONG before you have a conscious.
It begins merely as a machine. It grows through experiences into a conscious entity. The real logic never really changes and always begins with declarations that allow for future thoughts to become certainties.
What we call consciousness is memory. You become conscious of something through the help of the knowledge you have, and that knowledge is locked up in the memory.
The translation of a sensory perception within the framework of your experiencing structure is thought. You can’t translate without being aware or conscious of things, without memory. And you can’t think without knowledge. It’s difficult for you to understand this because you cannot comprehend a state where knowledge is not there because you know. The reflex actions of the body’s innate survival mechanisms is what you are referring to probably.
Being a psychologist/engineer and having designed very sophisticated thinking machines from scratch, I understand the mind in a different light. None of it is mysterious to me.
Consciousness ==awareness of self and surroundings (which requires short term memory functioning, not long term or cognitive memories).
The knowledge you have about the mind is the mind. If it is possible for you to be free from this knowledge, then for you there is no mind. The mind and the knowledge you have about the mind are one and the same. There may be something like the mind, but you will never know that. It can’t become part of your conscious thinking.
We are conditioned which is necessary to live in our environment by means of an arbitrary artificial intelligence. So our consciousness is influenced by that, practically produced by it. The movement of thought is millions of frames of memory going by providing us the appearance of a reality that we have been conditioned into. Any perception of certainty lies therein. Knowing our limitations is the beginning of intelligence.
