Three Paths to Truth

[size=150]…Dedicated to Maia,[/size]

Three Paths to Truth v1.0

Rare is the man who makes Truth into his first Virtue. An entire lifespan is spent acquiring, knowing, and spreading truths. These are truisms and facts taken as common sense by the global public. These are spread throughout school systems and religions, and traditionally inherited by the minds of children. However few except the wisest comprehend the sacrificed time and effort involved. Great feats of intellect create the smallest things: Ideas. Apprehending truth requires great feats of patience, thought, rationalization, and conflict. One man’s truth is pitted against another man. A lifetime of accumulated metaphysical beliefs and presumptions, often contradicts the experiences and conclusions of others. For example:

Some men claim Truth is subjective;
Some men claim Truth is objective.

Regardless there exists three primary and popular routes toward the Virtue of Truth. There is philosophy and its method of doubt. There is science and its method of test. There is religion and its method of faith. Each path is separate, distinct, and viable. Each road can achieve much truth. But if a man travels one road and takes no other then his conception of truth becomes limited in scope. A philosopher will take his singular and specialized perspective as truth while blindly rejecting others. The scientist and religioso will commit the same error. None will open their minds to the others; and one will accuse another of deficiency and ineptitude. However a well-rounded intellect and truly wise individual, must include each road into his adventure toward and assessment of Truth.

Philosophy, Method of Doubt

Philosophy attempts to destroy all truths and traditions. It deconstructs dogma and tears apart presumptions. Philosophy eliminates unnecessary premises. It attempts to hone all focus of thought into a true premise. The ultimate, absolute, and perfect premise of philosophers is an axiom: universal maxims. Philosophy requires an automatic agreement. Philosophy requires a compulsive premise. For example: you read and understand English. This premise is implied by the act of writing and transmitting information by the language itself. If a person did not read and understand English then this information would not become read and understood. Therein the premise becomes necessitated by implied interactions. Reading and writing presumes a shared language or conceptual understanding.

The deepest philosophical doubts lead to the most truthful types of philosophical insight: Cogito Ergo Sum. I think therefore I am. I am conscious therefore I exist as a thinking thing. Across the ages and æons, the greatest philosophers of human history continue to doubt, and therefore reduce, wisdom into smaller and smaller packets of information. Such information represents seemingly self-evident truisms to all. Truism: All organisms with nervous systems embody degrees of consciousness. And consciousness becomes self-aware of its own existence. Therefore organisms can experience life as an aspect of existence. But what is existence without perception and sensibility, except objectivity? This questioning leads to philosophical materialism. Matter and mass exist with or without consciousness and subjective existence. Therefore masses exist as material objects and as a conceptual objectivity.

Can philosophy doubt this? Can philosophy doubt that mass and matter exist? Can philosophy doubt conscious experience?

The greatest feats of philosophy include the greatest feats of doubt. The end of Philosophy is Cynicism, Solipsism, and Nihilism. All of these ends are forms of Reductionism: the reduction and reducing of information by the method of doubt into the “smallest” possible unit. This unit embodies itself as a logical premise and metaphysical belief. It is an idea or meme. All people presume things to become true or false by actualization of thought and belief. These memetic objects of philosophical value represent the premises of humanity.

Science, Method of Test

Science values results. Because results can become measured, recorded, and tracked over time. Mixing science and philosophy produces the ideology of Empiricism. An Empiricist is a man who values both philosophy and science together. Such an empiricist will claim that “a scientific theory is never 100% true”. Science produces results and facts. But we can never hold these results and facts as Truth. Because the empiricist still retains his philosophical doubt as a form of hesitation. He lacks faith, unlike the religious. Results and facts are probabilities to the empiricist, not possibilities. No probability is ever 0% or 100%. However the religioso will represent scientific theories as absolute truth. Mixing science and religion produces the ideology of Intelligent Design. A Creationist is a man who values both religion and science together. The Big Bang Theory is absolute truth to the Creationist, as both a commonly held physical fact about the universe, and as a divinely inspired creative act by God.

But pure science only focuses on methodology, mathematics, and physics. The scientist neither doubts the results of his experiments nor regards his conclusions as Truth. The scientist values data. Information is his Truth. Evidence reveals information. Therefore the scientist produces evidence through experimentation in order to produce and reproduce information. Information neither can become denied nor absolutely believed by people. Because information represents a core aspect of consciousness. This is sense-data: the relationship between an a priori perspective and its a posterori perceptions. A person experiences the world through the medium of sensory information and processes this information into a vivid interpretation. Self-evident experiences are meshed together and merged with artistic interpretations.

Thus science suffers from dialectics. The mathematics of physical sciences must become converted into common languages, without becoming an expressive and emotional poetry. Science must retain the guise of hard-logic, rationality, and non emotive reactions. An emotional scientist is a biased scientist: corrupted, flawed, wrong, erroneous, untrustworthy, outcast by peer review. And peer review is critical for scientists. Because scientific agreements do not revolve around premises as is practiced in philosophy. Scientific agreements revolve around the rigorousness and repetitiveness of measured experiments and results. Peer review and scientific consensus revolves around acceptable and unacceptable information, and the deriving of such information.

The more often and widely performed an experiment becomes, the more its data becomes repeatable, and the more its evidence becomes reproduced by scientific experts and authorities across the world. This scientific consensus and peer review convenes to judge scientific truisms upon their worthiness, to apply to traditional logical axioms as well as popular, contemporary scientific theories.

Religion, Method of Faith

Religion is the most popular and “easiest” path toward Truth. At least it seems easy at first. The spiritually ignorant people of human history retain a common misconception about faith. Truth can become apprehended by just belief alone. This is an error. Faith is a transcendental thought-practice. Religion does not confine itself to beliefs alone; but instead religions necessarily include pre-meditative practices of concentration and comprehension. This is known as ritualism. The Christian religion practices the ritual of prayer. Pagan religious practices include meditations, divination, seance, blood sacrifice and/or other traditions. The Religious acquire their truths by attempting to merge faith and rituals together into one. Religiosos connect belief with realization. Religious realizations are known as epiphanies, revelations, awakenings, enlightenment, and miracles. These visions can become transcribed as Prophesy. A prophet is the highest order in religious societies. A prophetic man successfully merges the world of ideals with the world of reality.

He reverts pluralism into monism. Word is bound to action. This leads to the prescriptive concept of Command.

The religious mindset is typified by his faith in divinity. This divinity can become represented by a deity and deism. Or this divinity can become represented by humanistic Virtues. Paganism is the religious ideology of Virtues. Deism and belief in any Gods, or the abrahamic god, is unnecessary to proper pagans. Many paganistic cults and sub-cultures even directly link their Virtues with a deity. This leads to the concept of polytheism and anthropomorphic deism. Gods are given humanistic or animalistic caricatures. Meanwhile depicting such deities in Christianity is blasphemy. In Islam such depictions are issued a death sentence for blasphemy. Thus some religions promote the depiction of Gods and idolization of deities; the pop-religions of abrahamism demote depictions and idolization. Judaism, the most conservative sect and partition of abrahamism outright rejects idol-worship. Meanwhile shamanism, the most conservative sect and partition of paganism necessarily includes idol-worship, in the form of Totems.

Faith is belief; Doubt is disbelief or unbelief. Thus religion and philosophy stand very opposed to one-another. However both are necessary. Religious people attain positive traits which philosophical people neglect or reject. There are alternative forms of philosophical and religious nihilism. There is a philosophical disbelief and doubting of everything. There is a religious belief and faith in nothing. Nihilism appears at both ends of the spectrum as an absolutism. Philosophers and religiosos tend to meet in the absolution of their ideals. Because both the philosopher and religioso is fighting to defend their own “reality”. But both are approaching this reality or Truth from different directions. Thus philosophy and religion, including science too, can work toward the same goal/ideal, but from different beginnings and values.

The most worthy religious practice is to rend ideality into reality. A prophet idealizes the world and owns it. From this sense of ownership he applies the ideals against the resistance of the world. And he makes the ideal into the real. He converts dreams into reality. He creates a vision and destroys this vision by its realization. Then the cycle begins anew. Dreams are conjured. Then dreams are realized or forgotten.

Religion is this practice, ritualized by traditions, producing different societies from culture to culture.

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[size=150]…this response isn’t really dedicated to anyone in particular, I mean I could dedicate it to someone, but I don’t know what possible reason there would be for my doing so. Honestly, I don’t recall a post having ever been dedicated to someone before, but I digress being that this is in large font and is taking up too much time and space as it is, I mean I actually wrote a thoughtful critical responce, why would I let it get buried underneath such a long prelude?[/size]

I didn’t read much of the religious part, but over all I thought it was very good. I would argue that solipsism couldn’t be an end to philosophy, because I doubt anyone can rest easy with that idea for long if they continue to think about it. Solipsism requires much faith in the idea of the self. I can see nihilism, the belief in no belief, or cynicism, sort of like nihilism, but rather than believing that truth isn’t to be found then moving on with that note of accomplishment, cynicism is simple believing that truth isn’t obvious nor is it worth searching for. But, my definition of cynicism may need work. Nihilism on the other hand may seem to be an end to philosophy, but one can spend years trying to fully express integrate the idea into one’s mind, as well as spending years trying to explain it.

 Stuart: I agree, totally, that nihilism is above cynicism, however nihilism need not stop on that level. And philosophy, yes, philosophy will not allow it.  The reasoning is kind of like this.: there are three things: ideals, real things and process. Now philosophy may change to what it is dressed up to be. And may have a definitional problem, but, even if it defies definition, and ceases to have any other function than a mode of integrating ideas, correlating them, corresponding them, it by virtue of what they are , it still  draws ideas into itself.

Science, religion, are specialties. They can not do ontology, metaphysics, by definition. They can allude to them, but their aim is the opposite, that is to explore their meaning, by way of comparison, of approximation, by measurement. Religion and science by analysis, change the point of view, but they can’t adapt to each other, their exclusivity prevents it.

Philosophy can, on the other hand, incorporate both: science and religion. Religion tries to overcome these definitional problems by creating pseudo science : scientology, science of the mind, etc, and science too, can appeal if not directly to a philosophical, nominalism, it runs into trouble early on in defining light for instance as both substance and energy. The photon is such a strange hybrid of a creature.

If nihilism corresponds to the growth of science, and we will in some unforeseeable future recognize the limits of science, the threshold, the critical point, where the entailed undefined energy will eclipse itself, by perhaps the highest form of energy there is, then that which is beyond that limit, will have to be posited, as unanalyzable. This too will be drawn into the folds of the process called philosophy, and here nihilism will again, as process, be replaced by other limits. This will bring religion into the centerfold of philosophy, the same process, but a new definition.

To reason otherwise is to assume the seemingly impossible: an infinite growth of science to an absolute realization, where science as philosophy, can create itself. In other words, science will not only realize the highest aims of nature, to analyze and try to duplicate natural processes, but to transvalue and recreate nature by it’s very tools. It may, if we were to look at it this way, cause itself to become a singularity, and cause itself to come into being with a bang, and evolve itself over and over again. It’s self realization would also be it’s self re-creation. In this scenario, man as scientist would become a singular god.

  The new religion, science, maybe is starting to believe it's own limitlessness, and it's quite possible that very high stages of development will entail biofeedback systems to de-integrate any difference between religion and philosophy and science, but even in that case, it will be a new metaphysics of incorporation, rather than of differentiation into known from yet unknown elements.  There comes a point where the limits of entropy will counterdict life as a viable process, and then chaos, redundancy will again overcome itself.  

A good example is a not too distant event, but crucial, where the horizon was thought of as a limit from where on, there would be an infinite drop. As the horizon is approached, (and it never is) it keeps receding. This analogy of limits shows how limits are effects of space. We never can reach them, because they are always receding. Appearant limits are different from real ones, and reality here seems to show an example of a limitless scenario. We are not limited by the scenario, but only by our perception of them. Perception is limited, and can’t ever overcome the illusion of limits, because they are imbedded in the present illusions, mirages, which tell us the objectivity of science, reaching for those very limits.
Thus far, such a demonstration is nowhere near, and we must be satisfied for a limited role of science, sharing a role with religion.

The idea of limits (Leibnitz) was a reaction to seeing the world as a sphere, and Nietzche’s Eternal Recurrance, as way to deal with the limitless, in terms of the function(x), where (x) is the role understanding plays in(to?) It. That is why, I am a Christian.

Christianity fixes eternity, as jesus said, believing is the key to eternal life. This is, the Golden eternity.
It’s all imminance. Parmenidies, plato were right.
This is the crown of evolution, all the forces conspire to have a goal: Legitimacy, so that the work will be done.

=D>

obe, I’ve always had to wonder, let me say it sat with me the thought, the thought that I could come to a better understanding of nihilism. I who the term that I juts learned yesterday. I knew about the term nihilate for a couple years already, perhaps that gave me an immediate bais as to what nihilism meant. But, I wonder, and I’ve heard d63 imply this recently, are nihilist really those who often vocus solely on science? I have say, 5-10 posts in the science forum. It seems there is a discrepancy there. Let me say that I think that moving south or is it west from the use of the term nihilism would be fine. It doesn’t have nice ring to it anyway. But, what about the meaning, whatever that is, I’m not moving away from that. Ahhh… did you add more to your last post? You speak of Christianity, like Bobgo maybe, what do you think of his recent posts, in a way that speaks to me more. I was a Christian, those ideas resonated with me, well maybe you know the rest. I just reread your post, I got more this time. Might nihilism really correspond to the growth of science? What does the younger people ahve to say about this, or mor eimportantly what will those born today have to sya about this? Virtual reality is to home computers as 1990 is to 2013. But, as an existentialist I abhore virtual reality. But, two issues, one those born today, won’t know what it is to have a project entirely unassociated with VR and two it takes one a while to understand how their project affects them. But, to me they will seem to live in a projectless world. The question is, will they imbrace virtual reality and find a project within it or will they abhor it so much, perhaps without even knowing why, if they haven’t studied existentialism?

Where are the limits in virtual reality, would controlling nature beyond creating a safe place to ‘plug in’ to virtual reality be any longer a goal? I enjoy doing yard work, because it needs to be done, no virtual reality yard work needs to be doen unless the virtual realityer is being fooled. Look, fooling aside virtual reality will make one a God, but with what purpose? Hmmm…I don’t like where this is going… people acustomed to the idea virtual reality aren’t going to isolate themselves from the rest of the world/virtual reality world of people and start a genesis, being God over AI ‘programs’. And then of course that thought leads to a distrubing implication about the ‘real’ world, talk about stacking paper cups! How many layers of reality can we have, and can it circle!!! Do you know what I’m saying, perhaps you or others have mentioned this idea before and it went over me, I don’t how it would happen but it could circle, if you are a God in your won virtual reality, could you affect your ‘real’ reality from the bttom down, circling back up to the top down to you??? How does all this realte to what you’ve been saying about limits, how much of your words were the inspiration for this thought of mine?

But, we’re supposedly talking about closed universes/ virtual reality universes, where ech one contains one solipsistic person and millions of figments of his imagination, but they don’t have to be closed and there are many others. And furthermore they don’t have to be inpressive graphical based virtual realitys.

I may have so little conscious comprension of what you say and so little to say in return, but I learn much from you, I wish I had all of your posts in book form, I’d rather read a book than a screen, perhaps I should print them to make studying them easier.

  I think Stuart, and not in jest, and in all fairness, your response points literally to the kind of chaos, which is present in the void-you call virtual reality.  It literally resonates your apparent need to come across with the genuine thoughts you imply.

I too am an existentialist, but of the humanistic sort, and I find an absolutely valueless world to be unacceptable to next generations. They may require value, and it was not my intention to convey to you the view, that a virtual world was to be excluded from that value. Philosophy has to account for it, but in a way, that it’s methodology can be understood.

The chaos you desribe is exactly that, brought about a vacuous state. Where do we go from here , and how will this emerging new world order be defined.

It’s very much in line with Your existential project.

This is very poetic and idyllic, but please show me from this forum where philosophy preceeds sciens.

At the same time, why are there so little demand for philosophers if they can, as you say, make up so many truths. We are in the midst of a finacial crisis, why don’t you just make a thread about it and make this forum solve it? We have AIDS, wars, terrorism, multiresistent bacteria, high divorce rate, etc, why don’t we just solve the worlds problems?

 Doubting is correlational to consciousness. It's not what precedes what, as soon as there is perception whether it be from the point of view of a yet to be evolved organism, or a readily created man, the limits of en(inn)volvement are determined by limits of their very participation in their environment.  The limits instantly produce awareness of limits, and a doubt of a holistic participation.  Doubt precedes knowledge of limits.  All experience and science has this built in doubt as to limits in the ability to know.  The function of science therefore is the recognition of general rules described as approaching their limits.  The fact that science is able to infinitely reduce the difference toward its holistic integration, is irrelevant. The fact is the limit can never be reached, by definition and demonstration.

 Therefore the two processes are coincidentally necessary and finding cures to the world's woes does not solve the basic processes of underlying trends toward disintegration.


 Therefore consciousness and it's negation are coincidentally, linked.    /or

What the heck are you talking about?

Can philosophy doubt conscious experience was the question and You implied that the question was irrelevant because it's a useless question.  Scientism deals with "real" problems facing the world today, hence philosophy is irrelevant was Your conclusion.

Not necessarily so. In the blog on Kant and hegel the question is if there is any linkage between the transcendental intuitions of space and time. Again Your answer is irrelevance.

If irrelevance implies that there may not be a pre supposition of time over space, then it may be that there is none.  Space, through  the Kantian intuition may not form over time generalized concepts of understanding through time, because time, is a transcendental intuition, vis it transcends. 

I think( if I mix forums, or refer to the Kant Hegel forum) the man’s question was if the two intuitions can be linked. Humean took a deferred non comittal position.

I would think linkage of any intuition can be done ex post facto, why not? Are they in fact linked?

The known as it arises out of the unknown consciousness is always spatially limited by space, and time. The awareness of that limitation arises as soon as we become aware of it. As a matter of fact, recognition of objects are possible because of containment by their perimeters, their limited extensions. The awareness of time succeeds this. How? The sundial was the earliest measure of time, and was perceived as seeing the object’s shadow changing positions. There is a relation where the limit of the object’ shadow i appearantly moves. That was conceived as the movement of time.

However, the earliest limits to objects were realized at the point of their containment- where the objects ceased to extend, and the environment was seen as containing it. The environment became the limit of the extension of the object. This limit was at first seen as absolute, as in the notion, that if we walk toward the horizon, the field ends at the horizon, and then that’s the end, where we drop off.

 But later limit became a function of how fast we can travel, and became a function of the time it takes to approach the limit. At this juncture function and time and space was developed by Leibnitz and Newton.  As the relationship became known, the conscious awareness of it became more widely known.  This made possible the linkage, which initially was seen not as movement (in time). But just a shadow of a stick in different positions.

Then tell me where all this has any relevance in real life, other than entertain mind games for philosophers.

Or in other words, what you are saying are selfimposed imaginary limits, that doesn’t really relate to modern science.

But thanks for lengthy answer.

 Modern science too,has limits.  It too has the same problem of integrating the many applications of scientific discovery.  One was the notion of what would happen if computer science could evolve to the level where human beings could be developed with feelings.  This seems like a winner because if so, then married men could buy a perfect proto female, (secretly of course) hide it away, and need not upon discovery fear the vengeance of a wife, who would realize it's not really a "real" female.  And if need be, it could be disassembled just the same

But kidding aside, openness is a good policy, and not wanting to create confusion here, there is a third path to truth. And if there is none, then by the time we reach those limits, the greatest invention of them all will have to be discovered, otherwise we may not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of science.

You are dodgeing the question posed, please answer.

 Looking at it from the other end, ithe answer seems allusive.  The problem with self realization is that only the adept can realize Nirvana. It may take countless reincarnations, and there is perhaps not that much time.

So what you are basicly saying, is that you don’t have any answers, only points towards nirvana for answer, great.

No, Dru,I have no answer. But some are here to hold a few beacons so as to announce a coming. It is inevitable that such will take place where certain thresholds are reached, a correction of sorts. What sort of correction remains to be seen. We certainly cannot do it scientifically. And we can not en-masse reach Nirvana, either, time is not on our side. It has to come from the Third Path.

This may come from a perfect simulation, but One which incorporates science, and one where science can, on it’s part incorporate It. A sort of Mobious strip like eternally reversible existential project, unified in one field.

Will the world order find such a perfect, new, super simulation? Because that’s what it needs .

Dear obe, this stuff is like hundrets of years old, and yet no one has come up with any thing solid? That’s really …uhmmm, how shall i put it, hmm?

Well, i’m sure you know what i’m getting at.