Think for yourself, question authority.

Moreno · April 6, 2016, 11:27am

WW_III_ANGRY:

Uccisore:

WW_III_ANGRY:

Sure there are levels of uncertainty. I am not required to believe I know what you mean when discussing things, nor do I, nor should I.

The question is “believe” not “believe you know”. At every turn you are adding certainty to belief so you can keep on pretending you don’t have beliefs. You have been told innumerable times that certainty is not a component of belief. This is another of those things that leads to people calling you intellectually dishonest.

Sure - so it’s actually I don’t believe that I "have grasped the truth of your meaning through the words or expression others use " due to the complexities of language as I already explained elsewhere. I know that I don’t know. I am always agnostic about it. It is ingrained in my thought process. I am not shocked by believing I understood what you meant when you correct me on your meaning, or anyone else, because I don’t have that belief that I think my understanding of your meaning is true, or necessarily true. There is doubt, not belief.

So you walk around all day doubting all the communication you hear and read. You never simply believe Jimmy wanted you to check the figures on that file, you spend time doubting what you heard was what you heard and further what Jimmy meant.

You never believe that you have evaluated something well and trust your evaluation, but doubt your evaluations of your interpretations of what people say.

You doubt your own epistemology.

You doubt your own evaluation of your doubting. You considered, after reading Uccisore’s last post, if you really did always doubt, then decided that you did doubt, rather than believe, and then evaluated this evaluation, since you doubted that one also. After infinite time (or is it like the hare, simply infinite fractions of time that add up to one) you wrote your response to Uccisore and caught up with the tortoise.

If your wife asks for the salt, you actually ratiocinate before reaching for it, since she might have said ‘too much salt’ or ‘is that all?’

I cannot imagine what reading a newpaper would be like for you, always having to build from the bottom up again, since past evaluations of what Congress is and does, for example, that you made back then, may be incorrect. You cannot simply believe in your memory and past conclusions you made, you have to doubt these, each time a topic comes up, because those past evaluations you made may not have been as correct as they seemed, back then, or your memory has distorted them.

How do you find time for anything other then the mind bogglingly complex, endless process of reading even the first article?

Or is it that if once in your life you analyzed something, you know you did it write, and you can believe in your past analysis?

And just to be clear. There is what you know, which is correct, period, and everything else you doubt. Two immaculate categories, separare Boolean spheres, no overlap and no other categories.
I can see, given that, why it would be so hard to reevaluate what you have stated in the face of criticism.

WW_III_ANGRY · April 6, 2016, 1:21pm

I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time doubting what I heard - its just a natural frame of mind in which I do not take things for granted as truths, believe. I act on things knowing I may be wrong about my perception, or other intentions, etc.

I would say I know when I have evaluated something “well” (well to my standard of what well is I suppose) - and I know my evaluation. Until knowledge occurs I do have inherent doubt about my interpretations of people say.

I doubt everything I can, even knowledge. But knowledge I can’t get anywhere with doubting aside from say, other aspects of the thing I know. So, by doubting 1+1=2, I usually go into the absolute conditions of 1+1=2 and how that would be 1+1 =11 in binary, or so. But that’s not really what I mean in my mind by 1+1=2. I’ve come to bring up hypotheticals that 1+1=2 may not mean 1+1=2 in alternate realities with alternate rules of physics, and fathomed the implications.

Well, yes.

I never claimed I really did “always doubt”. I was a man of belief in my past. A man of religion. Now days, I am a man of doubt.

It’s not as intensive as that. Like I said it is ingrained in so much as it is second nature. She might say, for example “Can you pass the salt”. Well of course, yes I can pass the salt, anything else that you want to know what I can do? So of course there is a quick processing of things like metaphors, jokes, perhaps she’s asking for a salty tear from me. Conversation at our dinner table can be… interesting perhaps. Language can be very ambiguous.
http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190052

Well I don’t think its that bad. Take everything with a grain of salt

I know of my memory or have doubts of my memory. I don’t have to doubt it every time. Can memories not be knowledge?

It’s not that I have to verify everything. It’s just that I remain agnostic about it. I fathom the possibilities of if its true. Usually I end up researching things when I read articles afterwords.

I think that’s a very complex issue - so past methods that have been “proven”, such as math and logical conclusions aren’t necessarily doubted, because its knowledge. But the conclusions can be, regardless of the means. You’ll have to be specific I would say in your hypothetical.

There’s opinion, there’s unknown truths, there’s known truths, the rest is agnostic. Opinions are true to ones values, or they aren’t really an opinion.
Why should there be overlap, I’m still asking what the reason is for there to be belief as a necessary component of a human mind?

I find allusions to argument from incredulity in the criticism here, but no reasons why it must be the case that I have a belief.

“Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment.” Steve Albini

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” Bertrand Russell

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." Rene Descartes

Arminius · April 6, 2016, 11:15pm

This reminds me of the following:

What has always been a good method too is what the famous pied piper of Hameln stands for. So a ratcatcher just needs rats (they are currently almost everywhere and becoming more and more) and kids (they are currently becoming more and more in the so-called “Third World”). In this ILP example the “rats” stand for certain “arguments” and the “kids” for the “innocents” or “simpletons”. And what does the ratcatcher do? Or: What did the pied piper of Hameln do?

But there is certainly no ILP ratcatcher. No, no … Or? What do you think?

Arminius · April 6, 2016, 11:16pm

“Think for yourself, question authority.” Alright - but: said by whom?

WW_III_ANGRY:

Uccisore:

When you can’t get somebody to admit that they’d trust the word of a physicist on matters of physics over that of a little kid, then you’ve arrived at one of the limitations of arguing over the internet. A person never has to admit when they’re wrong if they never have to look you in the eye when they’re spouting preposterous nonsense. Maniacal Mongoose demonstrates another limitation- if you stick to your guns long enough, sooner or later somebody out there will wipe the drool off their chin long enough to mutter some agreement. Even Ecmandu threads will get some new guy stumbling in to say “That’s a good point, Ecmandu!” if they go on long enough.

I’m not saying to trust, that’s exactly what the traps people into thinking that someone is right because they are the authority. That is not correct reasoning and not how to operate. Trust no one, think for yourself, do not fall to the snake charmers, the authorities, etc, because they are “shiny”.

Said by the one who does not think for himself and not question authority.

Most of what you are saying is politically correct, so it is mostly what the political authority wants you to think and to say, just to not question the current authority.

Arminius · April 6, 2016, 11:17pm

WW_III_ANGRY:

Maniacal Mongoose:

WW,

=D> I commend you for your effort of going against the grain of ‘how knowledge is supposed to be acquired as well as leaving the door ajar on who’s authority it is based’ in your hypothetical. <— Even if that wasn’t your aim, it was big of you to trudge uphill none-the-less. Thanks WW! You made my day!

It’s 50%/50% either way, right or wrong. Say the 5 year old is psychic where as the physicist has only a house of cards built in mid-air (theories). That’s what could actually be the case based off WW’s hypothetical.

I tend to be a risk taker so I would go with the kid, even though it “seems” unbelievable that he could (let alone would) have the true, correct answer. Both the kid and the physicist would have to be tested via the appropriate line of questioning which does not exist in science today. Science is waiting for philosophy to expand it’s horizons.

Wrapping one’s logical head around such a foreign possibility shuts down rationality I fear. Does not compute Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

If philosophy refuses (kicking and screaming all the way) to acknowledge the possibilities, how is science ever going to progress?

Well thank you Mongoose - it was left open because it should be left open. It’s for the sake of intellectual “honesty” - not to be deceptive or to trick. If knowledge is, then how knowledge got there is irrelevant to it being knowledge, for the sake of it being knowledge. So you’re right, say the 5 year old is a psychic. Perhaps the child is a genius. Perhaps the physicist made a simple mistake, or miscommunicated something. Perhaps the physicist cheated through college. Perhaps the physicist is a sociopathic liar. Perhaps the child got lucky.

The point of this whole thread is that reason and logic, coupled with your values essentially are the authority, not people.

Are you one of the the new ratcatchers? Are you the modern pied piper of Hameln?

Arminius · April 6, 2016, 11:25pm

So you admit that you contradict yourself.

Thanks.

You mean: There is angriness, not fun.

Arminius · April 6, 2016, 11:28pm

Moreno:

WW_III_ANGRY:

Uccisore:

The question is “believe” not “believe you know”. At every turn you are adding certainty to belief so you can keep on pretending you don’t have beliefs. You have been told innumerable times that certainty is not a component of belief. This is another of those things that leads to people calling you intellectually dishonest.

Sure - so it’s actually I don’t believe that I "have grasped the truth of your meaning through the words or expression others use " due to the complexities of language as I already explained elsewhere. I know that I don’t know. I am always agnostic about it. It is ingrained in my thought process. I am not shocked by believing I understood what you meant when you correct me on your meaning, or anyone else, because I don’t have that belief that I think my understanding of your meaning is true, or necessarily true. There is doubt, not belief.

So you walk around all day doubting all the communication you hear and read. You never simply believe Jimmy wanted you to check the figures on that file, you spend time doubting what you heard was what you heard and further what Jimmy meant.

You never believe that you have evaluated something well and trust your evaluation, but doubt your evaluations of your interpretations of what people say.

You doubt your own epistemology.

Yes. Of course. Always having an epistemology and always being agnostic about it. Such an “epistemology” is no epistemology.

Moreno:

You doubt your own evaluation of your doubting. You considered, after reading Uccisore’s last post, if you really did always doubt, then decided that you did doubt, rather than believe, and then evaluated this evaluation, since you doubted that one also. After infinite time (or is it like the hare, simply infinite fractions of time that add up to one) you wrote your response to Uccisore and caught up with the tortoise.

If your wife asks for the salt, you actually ratiocinate before reaching for it, since she might have said ‘too much salt’ or ‘is that all?’

I cannot imagine what reading a newpaper would be like for you, always having to build from the bottom up again, since past evaluations of what Congress is and does, for example, that you made back then, may be incorrect. You cannot simply believe in your memory and past conclusions you made, you have to doubt these, each time a topic comes up, because those past evaluations you made may not have been as correct as they seemed, back then, or your memory has distorted them.

How do you find time for anything other then the mind bogglingly complex, endless process of reading even the first article?

Or is it that if once in your life you analyzed something, you know you did it write, and you can believe in your past analysis?

And just to be clear. There is what you know, which is correct, period, and everything else you doubt. Two immaculate categories, separare Boolean spheres, no overlap and no other categories.
I can see, given that, why it would be so hard to reevaluate what you have stated in the face of criticism.

Maybe he is Sisyphus.

WW_III_ANGRY · April 7, 2016, 1:05am

Arminius:

WW_III_ANGRY:

Maniacal Mongoose:

WW,

=D> I commend you for your effort of going against the grain of ‘how knowledge is supposed to be acquired as well as leaving the door ajar on who’s authority it is based’ in your hypothetical. <— Even if that wasn’t your aim, it was big of you to trudge uphill none-the-less. Thanks WW! You made my day!

It’s 50%/50% either way, right or wrong. Say the 5 year old is psychic where as the physicist has only a house of cards built in mid-air (theories). That’s what could actually be the case based off WW’s hypothetical.

I tend to be a risk taker so I would go with the kid, even though it “seems” unbelievable that he could (let alone would) have the true, correct answer. Both the kid and the physicist would have to be tested via the appropriate line of questioning which does not exist in science today. Science is waiting for philosophy to expand it’s horizons.

Wrapping one’s logical head around such a foreign possibility shuts down rationality I fear. Does not compute Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

If philosophy refuses (kicking and screaming all the way) to acknowledge the possibilities, how is science ever going to progress?

Well thank you Mongoose - it was left open because it should be left open. It’s for the sake of intellectual “honesty” - not to be deceptive or to trick. If knowledge is, then how knowledge got there is irrelevant to it being knowledge, for the sake of it being knowledge. So you’re right, say the 5 year old is a psychic. Perhaps the child is a genius. Perhaps the physicist made a simple mistake, or miscommunicated something. Perhaps the physicist cheated through college. Perhaps the physicist is a sociopathic liar. Perhaps the child got lucky.

The point of this whole thread is that reason and logic, coupled with your values essentially are the authority, not people.

Are you one of the the new ratcatchers? Are you the modern pied piper of Hameln?

I suppose if you are the rat, then yes.

Uccisore · April 7, 2016, 3:17am

It’s a game. You sing the virtues of ‘thinking for yourself’ so that you’ve go a handy way to badger a group you don’t like that you can paint as stereotypically doing so. There isn’t any philosophy to be found on the threads that ANGRY created, not really. It’s just a series of tactical word placements to gain social advantage on an opposed group. I mean seriously - can you honestly say any thread he’s created (and I mean those few that we’ve debated on for so long, plus the new one) have contained any non-biographical information? They’re just complex ways of saying “I hate this” or “I’m great because this”.

Uccisore · April 7, 2016, 3:20am

If only you say the same thing ONE MORE TIME, in a slightly different configuration, his eyes will be opened, or he’ll be forced to admit the game he’s playing, and you’ll get that tantalizing return on your investment in this thread that always seems just out of reach.

It’s tempting, isn’t it?

We have to disavow ourselves of the notion that people disagree with us because they don’t understand, or that they want to understand.

Arminius · April 7, 2016, 3:15pm

Such people like certain ILP members can be successful, and the main reason why they can be successful is (a) that they merely have to repeat their texts again and again, (b) that they get attention (!).

Probably you remember the follwing conversation:

During my study at the university I have met many types of students who were back then exactly like the said certain ILP members are now. It is their ideological conceitedness that makes them so cocksure and ignorant, so that they do not only appear like stupid people but really are stupid people. You do not really have to care whether their incapacity is based on genetic defects or on ideological defects, because the effect is the same old stupidity as ever.

So we have two options of reacting to them legally:

Applying their methods too, especially by repeating our texts again and again.
Divesting them our attention by ignoring them (consequently, of course!).

Uccisore · April 7, 2016, 6:55pm

There’s an option 3, which I think is actually the most common option:
3.) Find a reason to interact with them that doesn’t turn on convincing them of anything, or their admitting that somebody else made a good point. I think this is where a lot of trolling on the internet comes from- it is decided that it is pointless to treat a person, or a class of people, or perhaps all people on the internet as rational agents, and so the troll speaks to them for their own amusement instead.

Arminius · April 8, 2016, 1:32am

The offer of my two legal options is based on the supposition that the common option - thus: your legal “option 3” - could perhaps be the legal “option 0”, because it is what we have been doing here for so long, although perhaps just not consequently and thus not effectively enough. … But, okay, let’s see.

[tab][/tab]

Arcturus_Descending · April 12, 2016, 2:16pm

phyllo,

Well, for one thing at least, take ilp for instance. There are people here, “minds” who are self-restrained and disciplined when it comes to knowing how to respond in threads, no matter what is thrown at them. They have learned how to regulate their own behavior as opposed to the behavior of another, by remaining on focus and rejecting the insults by staying on subject. Their minds are open to the other even if they do not agree with the other. They will draw them out, question them but even if their perspective is different there will be no insults coming from.

That is to me being knowledgeable and well practiced in the discipline of discussing philosophy and it’s quite observable. I admire that in these people. Perhaps it is in part because they are not phased by the insults and the underhanded ways people have to try to win an argument or if they are, they become like ducks shaking off the water. Many of those kinds of ducks which were here have flown away to other philsophy forums unfortunately. It is only about the philosophy to them.

phyllo · April 13, 2016, 7:07pm

Yeah, a place like ILP leads one to believe that philosophy requires no specialized knowledge or ability. Maybe it’s true for philosophy in general. I’m not sure at this point. There seem to be just as many examples of philosophy being useful as examples of philosophy being useless.

You might end up seeing clearly or you might end up in a fog.

WW_III_ANGRY · April 13, 2016, 7:16pm

Do not think for yourself, do not question authority. Assume that these “specialized” philosophers, with knowledge and skill that you do not possess, whomever they might be, just simply have it right. Obey, listen, nod your head, and hush. Conform to their words. Whichever regime, people, philosophers that you think holds the keys to this specialized knowledge and skill surely has done it all, the right way, the only way. Think like others, don’t question authority.

Uccisore · April 13, 2016, 8:11pm

That tends to happen in fields in which the consequences for being wrong are not immediately apparent. If you try to be a soldier or a firefighter without any specialized knowledge or ability, you just die or get somebody killed and that’s that. If you’re running any kind of business without specialized knowledge or ability, then you don’t make any money- there are explicit, mathematical ways in which your failure can be measured and shown to you.

In philosophy, if you enter into it with no specialized knowledge or ability, the consequences are social; all that can really happen to you is other philosophers roll their eyes, laugh, or refuse to engage you. Nobody obligates you to actually live by the crazy ideas you espouse, so other people’s reactions to you when you espouse them is really the only evaluation to be had.

One would expect, then, that bad philosophers would have as a cornerstone of their approach a justification for why the opinions of others don’t matter. It is a way of dispersing the only consequences for being bad at what they do.

phyllo · April 13, 2016, 8:23pm

There seem to be two possibilities :

you live the philosophy … in which case there are real consequences.
you talk about the philosophy … in which case the only consequences are some talk in response, which produces even more talk in response.

WW_III_ANGRY · April 14, 2016, 12:19am

In academic philosophy, lectures, courses - thinking and judging philosophy for yourself is promoted. Academia is actually more concerned with nurturing independent new thought on a level not seen in any other schooling. I have yet to see a philosophy teacher downright lecture class on the level that presented complex philosophies as right and wrong, from Plato to Russell. There is no science on the millions of pages of philosophies, books, academic or not, that is something to be taken as fact. That just doesn’t happen in philosophy - but it can be wrong, it can be logically invalid. Even if it is logically invalid as a whole, there might be aspects of it that can be put to use.

Professors do present their opinion on things of course, but they don’t present their opinion as fact, as science does. They ask for their students to explain things, to know what certain philosophers meant by what they stated, to argue for or against them, most of the time it doesn’t matter if its for or against. Philosophy is greatly about cogent arguments, thesis and logical possibilities. Yes it studies things that are essentially not scientifically rigorous - in so much that it deals a lot with the mind, how we perceive things, how we think about things. People think very differently from one person to the next. Also, a lot of philosophy is value based, in so much if you don’t find value in a certain philosophy, you don’t have to agree with it.

Uccisore · April 14, 2016, 4:22am

And even then, living your philosophy can only test a certain narrow range of ideas, and which ideas pass the test is going to be in some part determined by what kind of society you live in. I.E., if your Government really wants a certain bad philosophy to be the state ideology, they can protect people from the natural consequences of that bad philosophy, and create artificial consequences to others.