Guidance

[mikey]

@Reality Check

@mikey

I’m not sure I understand your logic here, RC.

First off, never have I said that “we cannot know the answers.” I’ve said that both viewpoints do not convince me.

Right. And I don’t believe that I wrote that YOU had written such a thing. Others in the thread, however, have.

Where?

@mikey

@Reality Check

Personally, I believe people are wrong when they say that we cannot “know” the answers to the questions that you are asking yourself today.

You are demonstrating that your perception tells you that agnosticism is wrong. Are you saying that you personally believe in an absolute truth? That’s like saying subjectivity is objectivity.

@Reality Check

Agnosticism proper is an epistemic stance, not a metaphysical one. It is to this form of agnosticism that my statement should be applied.

By “absolute truth” I mean in the “truth” of the existence of god(s), not in a general metaphysical sense.

@mikey

@Reality Check

The problem is, the answers we find may not be the answers that we had hoped to find. When that happens, I think it’s natural to pretend that “the answer just isn’t out there.”

You have created faulty logic here.
“Before Joe took his first bite of the apple, he didn’t know what it would taste like. He was hoping it would taste good. However, it actually tasted bad and he was severely dissapointed.”
Joe has come to the conclusion that apples taste bad. He didn’t throw up his arms afterwards and say “well, I’ll never know what apples taste like!”

@Reality Check

Your analogy is inapt. If Joe wants desperately to believe that apples “taste good” then after biting into his first apple and finding the taste disgusting, he probably wouldn’t surmise “All apples taste bad.” He would probably surmise “THIS apple tastes bad” and continue to taste other apples.

He may, that is true. Bad analogy
What I’m trying to demonstrate is that (I think) if one were to come to dissapointing conclusions then it would be unnatural to “pretend” that the “answer just isn’t out there.” Dissapointing conclusions are drawn out as firmly as fortuitous conclusions.

@mikey

@Reality Check

Well, the answer IS out there and often can be known. It’s just that the answer an individual hopes to find may not be out there because it’s not the correct answer. It’s usually not a case in which the answer is unavailable but a case in which the seeker simply cannot accept the truth.

Since you know that the “answer,” or, “truth” exists, please, enlighten me.

@Reality Check

Improve your attitude and perhaps I will.

Sorry about the enmity.
Hypothetically, you could lay it down for me. You could give me every subtle detail to how and why what you believe is true. I believe that what you believe could possibly be entirely true, that is a principle of agnosticism. But subjectivity, which I’m demonstrating now myself, makes it impossible to not be extremely skeptic of any “truth” you may conceive. When you say that you think that people who do not believe that we can know the “answer” are wrong, you are speaking of a certain aspect of agnosticism. This is Permanent Agnosticism in Principle, which means, to be put briefly, no matter how much evidence is lain out for either “side,” the answer cannot be known, and will never be. I tend to believe that there is an answer, though currently any evidence for each “side” is lacking for my standards. Which comes full circle into my own subjectivity. I feel it is necessary to question any strong assertion, even mine, but especially when individuals somehow “know” the “secret answer.”

@mikey

@Reality Check

Learn how to think critically

I’ll keep that in mind! =D>

@Reality Check

I hope you do. Most people (and perhaps I’m wrong but you certainly seem to be one of those people) believe that critical thinking is something that comes naturally to humans. This is utterly false. Critical thinking is largely an acquired skill not, like say, intelligence, an inherited one.

I agree with you here, I absolutely believe that critical thinking is a skill; the toughest skill to master, perhaps. I don’t know what I said to believe otherwise, it was not my intentions, whatever it may be.

[anon]

@mikey

I need guidance because I need to put my mind at ease. If anyone can think of any, what do you do to cope with something like this?

Obviously you have everything you need already. You are intelligent, you think for yourself, you care about things that matter, you don’t simply take things at face value. You seem to be saying your thoughts are tangled and that it isn’t the thoughts themselves that are troubling you but your overall relationship to your thoughts. You trust in your own intelligence, although you are highly aware that your intelligence can fool you. If I am not mistaken and this is in fact the case you might be interested in undertaking the discipline of shamatha meditation. Let me know if you would like more information.

[Reality_Check]

@mikey

@Reality Check

Agnosticism proper is an epistemic stance, not a metaphysical one. It is to this form of agnosticism that my statement should be applied.

By “absolute truth” I mean in the “truth” of the existence of god(s), not in a general metaphysical sense.

I would have to know what you mean by “truth” to know what you mean by “the truth of the existence of god” and what is meant by “truth” is an epistemic question. I’m not trying to be difficult here it’s just that sometimes these kinds of discussions go on for pages and then it’s discovered that different definitions are being used for the same term. The concept of “truth” is kind of notorious for the different ways in which it is used.

@mikey

What I’m trying to demonstrate is that (I think) if one were to come to dissapointing conclusions then it would be unnatural to “pretend” that the “answer just isn’t out there.” Dissapointing conclusions are drawn out as firmly as fortuitous conclusions.

Well, then we disagree about this. I think it is entirely natural. It has been pretty well established by study after study that our tendency is to overrate evidence that agrees with our bias and to discount evidence that does not. This is one of the key ways in which science improves ordinary observation, i.e., by taking this tendency into account as much as possible.

We are very apt to take one confirming instance of a hypothesis that we want to believe as proof that the hypothesis is true and are just as apt to disregard disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance in coming to the conclusion that a hypothesis that we want to believe is true is actually false.

Quick example: You pray for an outcome that you want to occur and the outcome occurs. You are apt to count that as strong evidence that God answers prayers if you are biased toward the belief that God answers prayers. However, the nine other times that you pray for particular outcomes and those outcomes do not come about, you either ignore or rationalize their non-occurrence, but what you probably don’t do is to weight those disconfirming instances as heavily in your consideration of whether God answers prayer as you do the one confirming instance.

BTW, this isn’t to pick on the religious becaue it is not just the religious that do this. We ALL do this. We all exaggerate the importance of evidence that confirm our biases and discount or ignore evidence which does not.

@mikey

Hypothetically, you could lay it down for me. You could give me every subtle detail to how and why what you believe is true. I believe that what you believe could possibly be entirely true, that is a principle of agnosticism. But subjectivity, which I’m demonstrating now myself, makes it impossible to not be extremely skeptic of any “truth” you may conceive.

Again, this depends on what you mean by "truth.’

When you say that you think that people who do not believe that we can know the “answer” are wrong, you are speaking of a certain aspect of agnosticism. This is Permanent Agnosticism in Principle, which means, to be put briefly, no matter how much evidence is lain out for either “side,” the answer cannot be known, and will never be. I tend to believe that there is an answer, though currently any evidence for each “side” is lacking for my standards. Which comes full circle into my own subjectivity. I feel it is necessary to question any strong assertion, even mine, but especially when individuals somehow “know” the “secret answer.”

There is no “secret answer.” There are only answers which are more or less probably true and those answers aren’t secret. In my view, the problem with religious debate is that people demand absolutely certain answers to the questions raised in that debate when there are no absolutely certain answers concerning any question about the external world.

Why do we have to be absolutely certain that Allah doesn’t exist before we are justified to say “Allah doesn’t exist” when we don’t have to be absolutely certain about the nonexistence of anything else before we are justified to say that anything else (whatever it is – Zeus, the ether, Santa Claus, the efficacy of laetrile, etc.) doesn’t exist?

It’s not that atheists are saying Allah and other gods cannot exist. Of course, they can exist just like any other logically possible putative entity can exist. It’s just that we have absolutely no good reason to believe that they do exist and thus we say that they don’t exist just like we make the same claim about anything else that we believe to be nonexistent.

[mikey]

@anon

@mikey

I need guidance because I need to put my mind at ease. If anyone can think of any, what do you do to cope with something like this?

Obviously you have everything you need already. You are intelligent, you think for yourself, you care about things that matter, you don’t simply take things at face value. You seem to be saying your thoughts are tangled and that it isn’t the thoughts themselves that are troubling you but your overall relationship to your thoughts. You trust in your own intelligence, although you are highly aware that your intelligence can fool you. If I am not mistaken and this is in fact the case you might be interested in undertaking the discipline of shamatha meditation. Let me know if you would like more information.

I would absolutely love some!

@Reality Check

I would have to know what you mean by “truth” to know what you mean by “the truth of the existence of god” and what is meant by “truth” is an epistemic question. I’m not trying to be difficult here it’s just that sometimes these kinds of discussions go on for pages and then it’s discovered that different definitions are being used for the same term. The concept of “truth” is kind of notorious for the different ways in which it is used.

Yeah, I don’t want it to go on forever. It would go even farther away from the initial post. I don’t know any other way to put it into words than, “the truth of the existence of god(s).” Right now, I don’t know any other way to describe it other than implying a different, epistemic question (I think).

@Reality Check

Well, then we disagree about this. I think it is entirely natural. It has been pretty well established by study after study that our tendency is to overrate evidence that agrees with our bias and to discount evidence that does not. This is one of the key ways in which science improves ordinary observation, i.e., by taking this tendency into account as much as possible.

We are very apt to take one confirming instance of a hypothesis that we want to believe as proof that the hypothesis is true and are just as apt to disregard disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance in coming to the conclusion that a hypothesis that we want to believe is true is actually false.

Quick example: You pray for an outcome that you want to occur and the outcome occurs. You are apt to count that as strong evidence that God answers prayers if you are biased toward the belief that God answers prayers. However, the nine other times that you pray for particular outcomes and those outcomes do not come about, you either ignore or rationalize their non-occurrence, but what you probably don’t do is to weight those disconfirming instances as heavily in your consideration of whether God answers prayer as you do the one confirming instance.

BTW, this isn’t to pick on the religious becaue it is not just the religious that do this. We ALL do this. We all exaggerate the importance of evidence that confirm our biases and discount or ignore evidence which does not.

Can you show me some of these studies?

@Reality Check

It’s not that atheists are saying Allah and other gods cannot exist. Of course, they can exist just like any other logically possible putative entity can exist. It’s just that we have absolutely no good reason to believe that they do exist and thus we say that they don’t exist just like we make the same claim about anything else that we believe to be nonexistent.

And that is my problem with atheism.

@Reality Check

There is no “secret answer.” There are only answers which are more or less probably true and those answers aren’t secret. In my view, the problem with religious debate is that people demand absolutely certain answers to the questions raised in that debate when there are no absolutely certain answers concerning any question about the external world.

“Secret answer” was to be put in a sarcastic tone
Absolute certain answers would depend on the individual’s standards of truth. Like I’ve said, either debate has not reached the standards for myself. Are you saying that your answer is more or less probably true?

@Reality Check

Improve your attitude and perhaps I will.

[anon]

@mikey

@anon

@mikey

I need guidance because I need to put my mind at ease. If anyone can think of any, what do you do to cope with something like this?

Obviously you have everything you need already. You are intelligent, you think for yourself, you care about things that matter, you don’t simply take things at face value. You seem to be saying your thoughts are tangled and that it isn’t the thoughts themselves that are troubling you but your overall relationship to your thoughts. You trust in your own intelligence, although you are highly aware that your intelligence can fool you. If I am not mistaken and this is in fact the case you might be interested in undertaking the discipline of shamatha meditation. Let me know if you would like more information.

I would absolutely love some!

There is good introduction here. There are many books available to get you started. I can personally recommend “Turning The Mind Into an Ally”. The Amazon link is here. These texts are very practically oriented, so don’t be turned off if some of the anecdotes seem simplistic. Also, you may try it for a little while and find you have questions or physical problems, etc. - it is a good idea to find someone you can meet with to help you. You could try seeing what organizations are in your area (internet, phone book, etc.). They will probably provide beginning instruction for free.

[mikey]

@anon

@mikey

@anon

@mikey

I need guidance because I need to put my mind at ease. If anyone can think of any, what do you do to cope with something like this?

Obviously you have everything you need already. You are intelligent, you think for yourself, you care about things that matter, you don’t simply take things at face value. You seem to be saying your thoughts are tangled and that it isn’t the thoughts themselves that are troubling you but your overall relationship to your thoughts. You trust in your own intelligence, although you are highly aware that your intelligence can fool you. If I am not mistaken and this is in fact the case you might be interested in undertaking the discipline of shamatha meditation. Let me know if you would like more information.

I would absolutely love some!

There is good introduction here. There are many books available to get you started. I can personally recommend “Turning The Mind Into an Ally”. The Amazon link is here. These texts are very practically oriented, so don’t be turned off if some of the anecdotes seem simplistic. Also, you may try it for a little while and find you have questions or physical problems, etc. - it is a good idea to find someone you can meet with to help you. You could try seeing what organizations are in your area (internet, phone book, etc.). They will probably provide beginning instruction for free.

I really really appreciate your help, anon. =D> =D>

[Reality_Check]

@mikey

@Reality Check

Well, then we disagree about this. I think it is entirely natural. It has been pretty well established by study after study that our tendency is to overrate evidence that agrees with our bias and to discount evidence that does not. This is one of the key ways in which science improves ordinary observation, i.e., by taking this tendency into account as much as possible.

We are very apt to take one confirming instance of a hypothesis that we want to believe as proof that the hypothesis is true and are just as apt to disregard disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance in coming to the conclusion that a hypothesis that we want to believe is true is actually false.

Quick example: You pray for an outcome that you want to occur and the outcome occurs. You are apt to count that as strong evidence that God answers prayers if you are biased toward the belief that God answers prayers. However, the nine other times that you pray for particular outcomes and those outcomes do not come about, you either ignore or rationalize their non-occurrence, but what you probably don’t do is to weight those disconfirming instances as heavily in your consideration of whether God answers prayer as you do the one confirming instance.

BTW, this isn’t to pick on the religious becaue it is not just the religious that do this. We ALL do this. We all exaggerate the importance of evidence that confirm our biases and discount or ignore evidence which does not.

Can you show me some of these studies?

I don’t know how old you are but if you’ve never heard of confirmation bias I’ll guess that you haven’t sat through one college philosophy course yet. And again I’ll just mention, although you don’t seem to be particularly receptive to it, that the best place to start when considering philosophic questions is not by reading Sarte or Camus or anyone else like them, much less by reading Eastern philosophers. To do so is more apt than not to confuse matters even more (and not just to confuse matters for you specifically but anyone else, as well, who is just beginning to think about these questions).

The best place to start is to learn as much as you can about how to think critically and then to re-examine all the positions that you hold today with fresh, critical eyes.

In regard specifically to confirmation bias, you might start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

You’ll find plenty of studies of the phenomenon listed in the footnotes at the bottom of the article, if you’re really interested.

Another great, non-technical book on this kind of thing and related subjects is: How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life.

@mikey

@Reality Check

It’s not that atheists are saying Allah and other gods cannot exist. Of course, they can exist just like any other logically possible putative entity can exist. It’s just that we have absolutely no good reason to believe that they do exist and thus we say that they don’t exist just like we make the same claim about anything else that we believe to be nonexistent.

And that is my problem with atheism.

I don’t follow. What specifically is your problem with atheism? Do you mean to say that your problem with atheism is that atheism, rather than its saying that gods cannot exist, says only that gods don’t exist???

How is this a problem?

@mikey

@Reality Check

There is no “secret answer.” There are only answers which are more or less probably true and those answers aren’t secret. In my view, the problem with religious debate is that people demand absolutely certain answers to the questions raised in that debate when there are no absolutely certain answers concerning any question about the external world.

Absolute certain answers would depend on the individual’s standards of truth. Like I’ve said, either debate has not reached the standards for myself. Are you saying that your answer is more or less probably true?

I’m saying, again, that any answer given to any question about the world, including the question of the existence of gods in external reality, is only probably true.

I’m also saying that there’s nothing wrong with this, nothing to be particularly alarmed about. This is just how knowledge (ALL knowledge) about the external world is, i.e., it is knowledge that obtains only with some degree of certainty but never with absolute certainty.

If you argue that we don’t “know” that the moon is largely composed of dust and rock just because we don’t know it with infallible, indubitable certainty or, say, that we don’t “know” that the earth is generally of a spherical shape just because we don’t know it with infallible, indubitable certainty or that we don’t “know” that Nessie is a myth and does not exist in external reality, then you are probably arguing that we cannot “know” anything whatsoever about the world. This would make you a radical or universal skeptic, a position that is very difficult to maintain practically.

If OTOH you agree that our knowledge about non-trivial, non-internal-cognitive events is always less than certain then you should apply that same standard to the question concerning the existences of gods.

[AbyssOfLife]

deleted

[Reality_Check]

@AbyssOfLife

@Reality Check

I don’t know how old you are but if you’ve never heard of confirmation bias I’ll guess that you haven’t sat through one college philosophy course yet. And again I’ll just mention, although you don’t seem to be particularly receptive to it, that the best place to start when considering philosophic questions is not by reading Sarte or Camus or anyone else like them, much less by reading Eastern philosophers. To do so is more apt than not to confuse matters even more (and not just to confuse matters for you specifically but anyone else, as well, who is just beginning to think about these questions).

The best place to start is to learn as much as you can about how to think critically and then to re-examine all the positions that you hold today with fresh, critical eyes.

In regard specifically to confirmation bias, you might start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

You’ll find plenty of studies of the phenomenon listed in the footnotes at the bottom of the article, if you’re really interested.

Another great, non-technical book on this kind of thing and related subjects is: How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

This is a great example of confirmation bias. Here he disregards Satre and Eastern philosophies and prescribes you to use Western philosophy schooling and techniques such as critical thinking.

He shows you how to use the tendency to search for and interpret your answers by this method. He is telling you to avoid information and interpretations which contradict his beliefs.

Not really. I said only that Western philosophy is probably the best place for someone who has been raised in the West (which I assume Mikey has) to START his philosophical journey. It’s comparatively easier to begin by studying the traditions that have shaped the outlook that we absorbed from our environment. I mean, it’s not as if we don’t have a theory of ethics or epistemology or metaphysics to begin with, even before we’ve ever heard the name Aristotle. On the contrary, we do have. It’s just that it is probably not an especially coherent or very well thought out one. It’s more or less one that we acquired by osmosis.

[mikey]

@Reality Check

@mikey

@Reality Check

Well, then we disagree about this. I think it is entirely natural. It has been pretty well established by study after study that our tendency is to overrate evidence that agrees with our bias and to discount evidence that does not. This is one of the key ways in which science improves ordinary observation, i.e., by taking this tendency into account as much as possible.

We are very apt to take one confirming instance of a hypothesis that we want to believe as proof that the hypothesis is true and are just as apt to disregard disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance after disconfirming instance in coming to the conclusion that a hypothesis that we want to believe is true is actually false.

Quick example: You pray for an outcome that you want to occur and the outcome occurs. You are apt to count that as strong evidence that God answers prayers if you are biased toward the belief that God answers prayers. However, the nine other times that you pray for particular outcomes and those outcomes do not come about, you either ignore or rationalize their non-occurrence, but what you probably don’t do is to weight those disconfirming instances as heavily in your consideration of whether God answers prayer as you do the one confirming instance.

BTW, this isn’t to pick on the religious becaue it is not just the religious that do this. We ALL do this. We all exaggerate the importance of evidence that confirm our biases and discount or ignore evidence which does not.

Can you show me some of these studies?

I don’t know how old you are but if you’ve never heard of confirmation bias I’ll guess that you haven’t sat through one college philosophy course yet. And again I’ll just mention, although you don’t seem to be particularly receptive to it, that the best place to start when considering philosophic questions is not by reading Sarte or Camus or anyone else like them, much less by reading Eastern philosophers. To do so is more apt than not to confuse matters even more (and not just to confuse matters for you specifically but anyone else, as well, who is just beginning to think about these questions).

The best place to start is to learn as much as you can about how to think critically and then to re-examine all the positions that you hold today with fresh, critical eyes.

In regard specifically to confirmation bias, you might start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

You’ll find plenty of studies of the phenomenon listed in the footnotes at the bottom of the article, if you’re really interested.

Another great, non-technical book on this kind of thing and related subjects is: How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life.

[/quote]
I haven’t started my second year of college yet, but in my first I only took introduction to philosophy. My teacher (to my knowledge) didn’t mention anything about confirmation bias. I really appreciate the links. Learning more about epistemology will probably make my thoughts more clear to myself.

@mikey

@Reality Check

It’s not that atheists are saying Allah and other gods cannot exist. Of course, they can exist just like any other logically possible putative entity can exist. It’s just that we have absolutely no good reason to believe that they do exist and thus we say that they don’t exist just like we make the same claim about anything else that we believe to be nonexistent.

And that is my problem with atheism.

@Reality Check

I don’t follow. What specifically is your problem with atheism? Do you mean to say that your problem with atheism is that atheism, rather than its saying that gods cannot exist, says only that gods don’t exist???

How is this a problem?

My problem with atheism is more or less what you said yourself:

@Reality Check

It’s just that we have absolutely no good reason to believe that they do exist and thus we say that they don’t exist

Not particulary picking on atheism, but I find it a problem when it seems that something with “lack of evidence” means it should be instantly regarded as non-existant.

@mikey

@Reality Check

There is no “secret answer.” There are only answers which are more or less probably true and those answers aren’t secret. In my view, the problem with religious debate is that people demand absolutely certain answers to the questions raised in that debate when there are no absolutely certain answers concerning any question about the external world.

Absolute certain answers would depend on the individual’s standards of truth. Like I’ve said, either debate has not reached the standards for myself. Are you saying that your answer is more or less probably true?

@Reality Check

I’m saying, again, that any answer given to any question about the world, including the question of the existence of gods in external reality, is only probably true.

I’m also saying that there’s nothing wrong with this, nothing to be particularly alarmed about. This is just how knowledge (ALL knowledge) about the external world is, i.e., it is knowledge that obtains only with some degree of certainty but never with absolute certainty.

If you argue that we don’t “know” that the moon is largely composed of dust and rock just because we don’t know it with infallible, indubitable certainty or, say, that we don’t “know” that the earth is generally of a spherical shape just because we don’t know it with infallible, indubitable certainty or that we don’t “know” that Nessie is a myth and does not exist in external reality, then you are probably arguing that we cannot “know” anything whatsoever about the world. This would make you a radical or universal skeptic, a position that is very difficult to maintain practically.

If OTOH you agree that our knowledge about non-trivial, non-internal-cognitive events is always less than certain then you should apply that same standard to the question concerning the existences of gods.

I can definately see what you mean, here. It makes much sense to me. Maybe that’s why I feel insane, maybe my thoughts are impratical because I may be a universal skeptic. Thoughts?

[mikey]

I really appreciate the links

[mikey]

You are right about confirmation bias. But can this apply to everyone?

[mikey]

These are two parts in which I need more clarification:

@Reality Check

The problem is, the answers we find may not be the answers that we had hoped to find. When that happens, I think it’s natural to pretend that “the answer just isn’t out there.”

In the case of a confirmation bias, why would one think, “the answer cannot be known,” when they have already conceived (or “chose”) their position?

I also don’t know how it gets from this:

@Reality Check

Well, the answer IS out there and often can be known. It’s just that the answer an individual hopes to find may not be out there because it’s not the correct answer. It’s usually not a case in which the answer is unavailable but a case in which the seeker simply cannot accept the truth.

To this:

@Reality Check

I’m saying, again, that any answer given to any question about the world, including the question of the existence of gods in external reality, is only probably true.

I’m also saying that there’s nothing wrong with this, nothing to be particularly alarmed about. This is just how knowledge (ALL knowledge) about the external world is, i.e., it is knowledge that obtains only with some degree of certainty but never with absolute certainty.

Is there a contradiction here, or do you mean the “correct answer” actually is only to a certain degree of accuracy?

(Sorry about all the posts)