On 'Certainty'

I think most of us are so sure about so many things.
In the West (or in any country and culture strongly influenced or rather contaminated/polluted/infected by the disease like nature of Monotheism), I think it’s natural for people to be over simplistic and too sure of many things because Monotheism simplifies things/matters down to single (imaginary) source they call god. All fine and/or difficult questions are avoided and settled using the “omni-XXX”, ”absolute/infinite-XXX” nature of god, too easily.
So, people are mentally conditioned to see and think about things in overly simplified and definitive manner rather than careful and prudent approach that tries to maintain precision and finer distinctions.
As result, people tend to think and talk in definitive and over assertive manner regardless of their (often very shallow) level of understanding. especially in monotheistic culture (although other culture may share the tendency to different degree).
It’s more so when people are religious. What they say can be often very illogical and incoherent and practically meaningless (other than the expression of subconscious hope and fear), to my personal taste.

It is interesting to note that most people think to obtain more certainty but end up in settling with substitute certainty called belief or rough theories/hypothesis as if they were absolute certainty.
However, although it’s rather rare, there are some people who care about the quality of the certainty they seek, and usually they end up loosing the substitute certainty and/or overrated certainty they had by cultural, biological, and other conditioning. And they become less certain about many matters, and they may even start seeing the potential result of seeking certainty with precision, which is the general lack of any definitive certainty or the lack of any absolute certainty in any matter.
They learn that they don’t know much, and possibly not at all with absolute certainty and become whole a lot more prudent in expressing something definitive.
It can be seen as ironical that people who seek the certainty with more rigor would end up in general uncertainty, often loosing all the certainty they thought they had.
Strangely, if the exercise of seeking the certainty is done with enough rigor and care, the resulting uncertainty would be so undeniable that the negative effects and uneasiness caused by the uncertainty can be minimal or non-existent.

I t seems we get uneasy with the uncertainty when we think/hope that we can find (quick and easy) certainty somewhere and look for it, left and right. But it (uncertainty) does not produce much uneasiness when our regard is fixed on it and when we don’t wobble nor swing our gaze/focus.
In other words, the uneasiness associated with uncertainty might be coming from the hoping and seeking the quick and easy (substitute) certainty and the resulting unsettled/wobbling focus.
The wobbling/unsettled focus might well be the source of uneasiness, and that’s possibly why even the cheap substitute like religion and god can provide some level of relief because they settle the attention to some degree.

However, the cheap and substitute certainties aren’t well examined and thus people clinging on them know the low reliability of them (usually subconsciously), although they may try to boost their certainty scale by repeated affirming words like “real”, “fact”, “true”, “exist” and/or by worshiping, glorifying, and overrating them.
And the (subconscious) knowledge of the fragility of their certainty may make them uneasy and even fearful and then sometime angry when something/someone remind them what they claim to be certain isn’t that sure.
I think this is why anyone who holds onto fake certainties, fake absolutes react often badly in conversations and in discussion forum like this.
And it is applicable not only to simplistic religious people but to atheist, materialist, and anyone who pretend to be sure of something more than they actually can be.

Having said this, settling with the easy and unexamined conclusion that thing are unknowable or uncertain would not do much good. It’s similar to adopting cheap and quick position declaring “I’m an idealist (or materialist, humanist, nihilist, etc)”. Unless the gaze into uncertainty resulted from honest and rigorous quest for the certainty, our desire for the certainty remain intact and the wobbling/swaying tendency of our regard/focus to look for the certainty would stay unchanged.

So, if we want to be sure (and I think it’s our natural tendency built into our logical mind to desire the certainty), we’d better seek the certainty with the utmost rigor and precision we can think of, even if it might (and it’s likely to) end up in general uncertainty when it’s done, well enough.

In other words, from my preferred point of view, the sign of superficial certainty (especially of unlimited and/or generic nature) indicates that the person have most probably caved in to the desire to have ANY certainty and it’s likely to be not very reliable nor meaningful.

i always find that likelihood is the best working substitue for certainty - go with what seems most likely, just don’t let it rise to the level of certain - that way you can still function ( and adopt particular -isms) in spite of the generalized doubt which, as philosophers, we are all obligated to keep simmering on the back burners.

In my case, I call it “probability”, but it’s similar, I guess.

Also, I may have pretty strong certainty about very particular subject when it’s well delimited within certain perimeters/condition.
I mean, I can be nearly 100& sure that an aircraft will stall under certain condition, for example.
I know it as a theory, and and how I feel, and how to make it happen (for demonstration and training purpose), as well as how to recover.

And these practical well delimited certainty is good enough for operating in daily and even in rather unusual situation in life.
Often, people around me feel that I’m an authority in what I (professionally) do because I operate with high level of (but very well delimited and conditional) certainty.
I guess people doesn’t see much difference between unconditional certainty and conditional one.

And without any condition, I’m not sure about pretty much anything and I don’t know much. Probably I know nothing. And I don’t feel like making any assertion without specific condition (when I feel like to be more or less precise, especially).

your logics are not about certainty facts life

you as awareness constant reality is a certainty, take it to that level of depth to mean certainty fact, certainty is when it is not up to you and still a definitive existing fact constant, you can sleep you can go do whatever things still it is always that awareness you there that is nobody else and noone else either it is you the present certainty existing
that is how souls are and it is logical that from that present certainty something remain of its energy autoresources ways

see how the awareness that you are is not related to yourself genetics, that objective reality of the awareness is through a lot of different things existance life, genetics is one of them also your soul also the realities life positive and negative interactions with your body objective realiy existing, also that you can sense unknown powers conditionning moves life according to some means and expressions in minds ways to realize from knowing it from its aspiration to positive existance reality

they call it the observer as i saw it many places, but i would call it the true you present certainty existing because can be aware of everything there while free so stable constant there

now you must not confusing knowing nothing as an end with knowing about powerful forces ruling creations meaning to deal with you as an animal to kill and nothing else

you can know almost everything but not able to do a thing not because you dont know but simply because of evil certainty in powers forcing positive certainty to die

so certainty is existance but the issue is certainty life

if you choose to be of certainty fact, to be the body move of certainty you are as aware you would necessarly face the reality of certainty that stop to be only a fact

and here where you would experience something of absolute certainty truth, how by being self certainty become positive definitive existance reality, because of what certainty is always anything it comes out of to move being of certainty would lead to knowledge of certainty facts, and by knowing positive facts realities you would become necessarly more of that knowledge abstraction real to sense more adapted to objective reality life as positive existing reality with

but here where also you would face the fact of evil ruling objective reality life powers that you would experience attacking directly you as a certain reality to kill
and here you would know the justifications of evil that are all lies meaning to remain in your rights as existing true

and how certainty was paradoxally meant to evil life certainty and not to truth certainty life

so you would try to avoid that fact against you by being the less you can of yourself certainty out in its minimal rights that you cant do otherwise since you became existing real of exactly as you were aware of being a certainty fact, you cannot go back that is the proof of certainty life truth being positive always
it is all then about those powerful livings through certainty from eternity as conscious existance realtiies evil creations life, that you cant compete with and obviously enjoy their freedom existance by killing certainty truth life to be the living certainty in creations realities, and enjoy making up stories lives meaning their life as creators and powers upon eternal realities creations facts possibilities, but the worse is to face their love being of torturing true awareness to kill

it reveals the depth of their hate to absolute truths life, and surely for what with absolute they would loose their empires since what is absolutely mean anything objectively of same free value exist , truth would rule its own life and not any god

Nah,

I think I know pretty well what you’re talking about. I wrote this about a year ago:

Also, compare what you said and what I said to Bertrand Russell’s “The Value of Philosophy”:

It is that you are looking for certainty that there is uncertainty. Whether there is certainty or not is of no concern when the search is dropped. The search and uncertainty are linked. There is no such a thing as certainty. The more you look for it the farther away it gets. Trying to solve the burden is all you are interested in. But there is no burden there.

There is no relation between ourselves and the world we live in except that the world you experience is the one that is created by you. You are living in a world of your own. You have created a world of your own experiences and you are trying to project it onto the world. You have no way of experiencing the certainty of the world at all. You and I use the same words to describe things. So, we have to accept all these things as valid because they are workable. They help us to function in this world, to communicate only on that level intelligently.

It is a constant struggle on your part to experience certainty and to chase something that does not exist. That gives you the feeling that doing is all that is important for you. Not the actual achievement of that. You are moving farther and farther away from such a false goal. The more effort you put into it, the more you feel good. Trying to solve the problem is all that is important to you, but the certainty of the solutions is more interesting to you than the non existence of the problem. You are more interested in solutions than looking at the problem.

I never talked about “certainty facts life”, nor I intended to.
So, I don’t know how you got the idea that I was talking about that “certainty facts life”.

I do not take the awareness as constant.
It changes the density, so to say, the spacial distribution in relation to the physical body, ans do on.
As such, I don’t agree with waht you said (if I interpreted what you wanted to say, well).

I think you are showing certainly very timely good stable constant example of what I talked about in OP, by using the “(over) assertion/affirmation” words such as “stable”, “constant”, “existing”, “certainty”, “true”, etc.
It might be the sign that you are very afraid of uncertainty and also you are very uncertain at the subconscious level.

The rest seems (loosely) some sort of religious moral preaching if I deciphered it well enough.
As such, it wasn’t very interesting to me.

I’d suggest you to do religious preaching in “Religious” section.

Thank you for providing somewhat good example (if one spends a bit of time and effort in reading and deciphering the post) of what I talked about “certainty” of religious person.

It seems like we share some perspectives.

Evolutionary, or by design, or otherwise, I do think we have the tendency to simplify, even at the cellular level (as we can see in optical neurons specialized for detecting straight and slat lines), and the very end of the simplification would be the certainty.

But in our thought, I think there are two sort of certainty as I indicated in the response to UglyPeopleFuckingAllOverTheWorld.

I mean, there is the (imagined) certainty of unlimited/unrestricted/unconditional/absolute nature that we tend to seek, which we (may) end up learning that it doesn’t exist (logically speaking).
On the other hand, there is the well delimited logical and conditional certainty that we can use and depend in our life.

In other words, it’s the lack of the understanding for the relative and thus conditional nature of logic (and our reasonable/rational) thought that propels us into the search for the unlimited/unconditional certainty (and/or any other absolute flavored affirmatives/positives such as “truth”), in my opinion.

Now, in addition to the two kinds of certainty I mentioned, there is another kind of certainty.
This is what I may call “insight” and it gives “absolute flavored sensation” of certainty, and it would prove itself to be logically coherent and certain in the logical and limited sense, as well, in multiple logical perspectives.
It is a sort of instant knowledge that withstand the logical examination and the challenge presented in various real life (and spiritual or mystical flavored phase), as far as I’ve observed.
But I guess this may belong to other threads as it requires practical and personal experiences and knowledge in different states awareness and other items that isn’t commonly understood by many people.

I guess I usually call the “frameworks” of yours as “perspectives” or “the focus of awareness” in some cases.
And there is no “right/wrong” in perspectives, although some perspectives may yield more practical/useful distinction/evaluation than others.

The “bending” of yours is most probably what I would term as “adopting a perspective”.
And open minded people can adopt any perspective and that allow them to understand wider range of ideas and concepts than narrow minded people whose range of perspective is pretty restricted due to cultural, religious, biological, and other conditioning.

Babies has limited perspectives and they are usually not very aware, either.
Kids are not so limited in adopting perspectives, other than the restriction imposed by the biological conditioning. But as they grow up, they get used to certain sets of perspectives often repeatedly presented and used, and these may sink into their mind as the subconscious limit of their perspectives.
Adults are usually even more limited than kids because they would have accepted and protect (sometime consciously but often subconsciously) some additional sets of perspective as if they are absolute/certain/etc to reduce the anxiety coming from the awareness of uncertainty they acqquired as they grow through adolecsent age.
In other words, adults are suppressing some questions they could not solve, and lying to themselves in a way.
This makes the adult world of religion, moral, ethic, and common sense pretty delusionary (and akin of mass hallucination and/or hypnotization).
Kids (at least some of them) detect this insane and stupid nature of adult world, and some revolt/react in various manner. But in turn, most of them also adopt and become the supporter and active or reluctant member of the insanity, later in their life.

I think this thread (among some others) shows one way of seeing this insanity:
The absurd emotionally irrational social order of things. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=170861&start=0

I’m not so sure if it’s a good idea to try to build the tolerance for that (and tolerance in general, to be exact).
I don’t recommend any kind of tolerance because I think the concept of “tolerance” is based of the prejudice and perspective that something is bad/negative, to begin with.
And we try to tolerate because we are kind, wise, etc, according to our desire to project and protect positive self image of ours.
It’s a kind of lie and it will result in greater desire to reject, to fight, to deny the matter because it is an act of suppressing the desire to reject/avoid negatively recognized things.

Personally, I think it’s more effective in the end if you tried to run away from the uncertainty and if you seeked the certainty (what ever it is) with more honesty and eagerness.
Naturally, it may (and I know it will) fail, if it’s done with necessary rigor. But your mind will be satisfied by the fact that it has done its job of seeking and obtained the result (of impossibility in obtaining it).
So, the mind knows to its deeper level that uncertainty is now normal and standard and thus it won’t even try to seek (imaginary) certainty, nor evaluate/recognize the uncertainty as something negative.
It means you (and/or your mind) is in peace with uncertainty without any superficial effort to tolerate something negatively recognized.

Having said that, the desire for the positives and certainty is deep rooted in us, in our logical mind, in our emotional computation mechanism, and in our physical senses and even other areas that it takes lots of seeking employing all these parts to satisfy and finish with the desire/rendency to seek it.
In other words, it’s not very easy and I haven’t met many people who is on the way or who has done some or more of the endeavor.

I’d say the shortest way to the honest uncertain state (if one desire it, somehow) is to seek the certainty and moreover to examine all certainty within ourselves with great care and rigor without settling with anything that would cast slightest doubt.
It’s being very honest to our question, the sense of contradiction, and the feelings and emotions.
And it feels good to have one or more of (imagined) certainty broken away and gone.

I was somehow pretty glad when I lost the notion (or the certainty around the notion) of number and numbering/counting, a few years ago. I lost any remaining interest in math, too.
And it happened when I got curious about how we count, identify things and imagine that they are identical to certain degree. And I understood that it was (another) one of “virtual” recognition and the certainty I once felt about number and counting was suddenly gone.
In retrospect, there is nothing special in this, as it’s normal that all our recognition is “virtual” in nature, but after all years I have already been aware of relativity of notions/logic and the virtual nature of many things, there remained the sense of certainty around numbers and counting.
And I guess there are yet other imaginary certainties like this I’m still operating and trapped with.
Maybe it’s some sense of “existence”, "awareness’, or the notion of logic, and so on. I’ll see.

Personally, I don’t like to use the word “Philosophy”, “Philosophize”, etc, so much.
It’s because the word is loaded with lots of notions that it tends to creates too much associative ripples (the trains and chains of thought or just imaginations that is evoked nearly automatically in association with the input or the words, especially among people who isn’t very aware/logical).

And I don’t think Russel followed and practiced in accordance with his own definition of the value of “philosophy” because he seems to be pretty sure of many things without due reserve and conditions that might/ought to be accompanied (in his thought expressed in here and other pieces).
In other words, I don’t think Russel reduced the “arrogance” he talks about in himself, much.
Maybe he did a lot more than common people, though.

I’m not sure if you are addressing me when you say “you”, here.
If you are addressing me, I don’t think you followed my perspectives, very well.

I’m saying that we would have the Logical certainty (and thus well delimited and conditional one) of general uncertainty if we seek certainty of unlimited/unrestricted/absolute nature with enough precision and rigor.
(Also, I would say that we may have the certainty in connection with what I call “insight” about the uncertainty and any other matter, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it in this thread because it require specialized experiences and knowledge to understand.)

Not in the perspective I presented.
The search isn’t “dropped” and forgot, at least not instantly.
It might be forgotten after a while, though.
Although it may depend on each person, there will be the phase in which the person will retain the sense of certainty (coming from the certainty of logical and conditional nature) about the lack of generic and unrestricted/unconditional certainty once sought, in my observation and opinion.

I think you are over simplifying is your expression, to my personal taste, as if it were told by a religious/spiritual person trying to persuade herself/himself.

For example, I may say that (complementing the lack of precision, in parentheses):
The search (for the certainty) and (the resulting sense of) uncertainty (when the search is done in well logical/ration manner with enough precision).
There is no such thing as (general/absolute/unconditional) certainty (many people seem to search).
The more you look for it, the farther it gets (in the sense that it gets clearer that it’s a imaginary and not logical in nature).
Trying to solve the burden (from the uneasiness related to the sense of uncertainty) is all you are interested in.
But there is no (more) burden there (when you’ve done the search and you get the sense of logical and/or insightful certainty that the general uncertainty is the nature of our basic logical state because it’s operate upon arbitrary perspectives and it’s relative to in the nature).

I guess I understand what you want to say, to some degree.

I don’t think we (finichedman and nah, as well as people in general) use the same word (in same manner).
I don’t know why you think we (who ever it is) “have to” accept something. I don’t think it’s a very logical/reasonable statement. May be it’s not well said, or it can be the expression of your hope/fear.

In communication, if we want to do it well, I think it’s better to think that people are using words in different manner, and take this into consideration in choosing the terms and interpreting them.
And I think the world is pretty dysfunctional because too many people ignore the differences in the connotation and interpretation of words to mean underlying concept/emotion/sense.

I think you are getting (more) into “preacher” mode, so to say, in this part and lost the track of perspectives I presented.

I also detect the sense of certainty (and not the logical one) in you writing, more and more toward the end of your post, as what you write has less and less of reasoning and more of definitive assertions.
I would even say that you are probably often writing your post in the mental mode similar to that of religious person with the kind of (self asserted and not really logical) certainty.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle