I am going to keep this relatively short as it is quite late for me!
I could believe that I am “real” (as in a physical body in the universe).
To proof/believe this I think I would require the following conditions:
I can ensure that my senses (anything that connects the gap from thought to reality) are reliable.
I can ensure that once perceived or though, relevant memories are reliable.
I can ensure that I am not in a permanent state of hallucination.
However, I know that senses are not only subjective but can also be unreliable.
I am a great example by the way!
I am colour blind I am constantly tricked by my proposed physical body.
I also know that I love to missremember things.
This brings me to the conclusion that other then the thoughts that are actively thought about nothing is real(as in objectively existent)
Is this even relevant? Maybe?
I know that it’s hard to disprove this but I just don’t like this uncertainty.
Maybe my ex Lawyer Ethics Teacher is taking right now but how can I act like something is a fact If I can’t prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
Then you must begin with the experienced world.
Application of theories.
Subjectivity evaluates the precision of its perceptions by applying its awareness in the real world
A costly method.
Survival of the fittest in the contexts of ideas.
An evaluation of the consequences of your actions, relative to your expectations.
Adjust and try again.
To prevent such a costly method, you must observe others acting…and you must remain as objective as possible.
Skepticism is uncertainty…and uncertainty is part of existing.
All is in flux…no absolutes…no absolutes means no certainties.
All is evaluated and placed on a probability scale - truth range.
Methods of evaluating subjective perceptions of reality
1- application.
Juxtaposition of the consequences relative to expectations, indicating degree of error.
2- observation of others applying your theories.
3- a continuous comparison of your theories with the real world, establishing anchoring connections.
More connections indicates more accuracy.
No connections indicates severe error.
In nature, trial & error is the rule.
Natural selection.
The degree of your subjective errors determines the degree of negative consequences you will suffer.
Consciousness emerges to make this process more efficient, allowing the individual to adapt during his lifetime.
No certainty.
Anyone offering certainty, is… exploiting you.
Like flatterers.
always be weary of flatterers.
Objective existence is what we call ‘real’.
It is not static, but dynamic.
Perceiving patterns in reality, is a way of perceiving what is true for long periods of space/time.
For example…a man’s nature is expressed through his actions - his choices, judgments etc. - not what he says about himself, but what he does, despite himself.
Consistent repetitive behaviours reveal his true nature.
Appearances matter…they are not superficial as you were told.
But you must learn how to read appearances…how to interpret them beneath all the clothing and learned behaviors, concealing a man.
Determined past manifest presence… interpreted as appearance by conscious minds.
All interpretations are approximations.
No certainty…no god…no absolutes.
Kant’s noumenon is forever unknoawable…all we have are phenomena.
But from phenomena we can speculate about the noumena.
So, form physics, nature, we can speculate about metaphysics… without disconnecting ourselves from our starting point.
“Breach of etiquette” the moron says…
HA!!!
Does he not know that the only one who is ever banned from ILP is Satyr?
The moron has nothing to worry about…no need to preemptively excuse himself and then insult and abuse Satyr.
Nobody will make a fuss. Not when the devil is attacked.
Humans are creatures of order… they crave order…they hunger for certainty, finality…singularities, wholes. Complete satiation.
They crave absolutes, because their subjectivity fabricates them as a way of dealing with a fluctuating dynamic existence.
Oh ok, so I guess you don’t drive a car, or walk on stairs, or eat food right? Because your senses are unreliable, and without reliable senses how could you possibly drive a car without crashing, or walk on stairs without falling, or put things in your mouth that you reliably know are not inedible or poisonous?
Good thing you are a living example of the validity of your philosophy!
One last thing…
A prerequisite for successfully evaluating the degree of accuracy of your subjective perceptions and theories, is objectivity.
In platonic terms…a psyche not governed by pathos… but by reason.
Unfortunately, our new gourmand of fast-food philosophy, exhibits an impulsive nature, governed by ego and emotion…
It would explain why he is so interested in how to become more ‘certain.’
Perhaps the maitre d of our fast-philosophy franchise, Hamburgler, can give him a few pointers on not being a junky of American philosophical cuisine.
Simple minds don’t need to understand themselves or how their minds work.
A cow bull doesn’t know why it wants to but heads with another bull.
It doesn’t have to understand.
Like you, Hamburglar.
Your fast-food philosophy is all you can understand… and that’s good for you.
Awareness has a price.
R.D. was an exoteric writer. The whole God thing was just lip service to the backward spirit of the times.
The following is self-contradictory, by the way:
Blockquote
If we can’t be sure that mathematics—pure logic itself—is correct due to possible miscalculations or faulty memory, how can we be certain that anything is real?
Blockquote
Ultimately, we can at least confirm that something exists because thought itself is evidence of existence (Cogito, ergo sum).
If pure logic itself is incorrect, then there can be no reasoning like “X, therefore Y”. (This philosopheme then also applies to itself, though…)
Anyway, “why bother?” Well, you have to bother; you can’t not bother. Even just in order to kill yourself, you’d still have to bother. Even if you were to “try” to kill yourself by just not trying anymore, not moving anymore, people would come and keep you alive, at least until they’d moved you through the whole euthanasia trajectory (if that even exists in your country). And even more importantly, you yourself are a person: you yourself have all kinds of irrational life instincts. And the thing with the irrational is that you can’t reason it away.
I missed this because I was out of the country where internet wasn’t reliable, but I like your approach. Humanity needs its ability to doubt, which is metaphorically a ‘stepping back’ to ascertain whether something is indeed as we have assumed. We grow up surrounded by assumptions which we adopt until we discover that they are unreliable. Descartes himself presented a somewhat mechanical idea of the complexities of life, which doesn’t stand up to the observed reality of organic life. And as you suggest, his ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ is restrictive in many ways.
I have grown to regard the religious narratives as creative ways to explain certain things, but the way that they became exclusive and authoritative over scientific enquiry showed their limitations and their destructive potential. ‘God’ is, for me, a placeholder, a proxy, for the unspecified but suspected “ground of Being-Itself”, which has been the subject of religious enquiry all over the planet.
Indeed, the concept that ‘God’ could be a ‘being’ is ridiculous, rather than the ground of being, an excellent metaphor for what many people would call God, or the Mysterium Tremendum of Rudolf Otto. Albert Einstein is reported to have said: “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”
I think that the “subtle, intangible, and inexplicable” of Einstein is the answer to the question “Why bother?” The fact that in so much apparent chaos, we increasingly find order, even if it isn’t such that appeals to our sense of order, still appeals to our curiosity.
Taoism’s approach is especially interesting because it doesn’t impose order so much as it observes and harmonizes with it. The Tao Te Ching often speaks of the Way as something that cannot be grasped or controlled, yet it underlies all things. That idea resonates with Einstein’s sense of the “subtle, intangible, and inexplicable.” The difference, perhaps, is that modern science maps patterns without necessarily prescribing how to live by them, whereas ancient sages—whether Taoist, Stoic, or otherwise—sought to align human life with the deeper rhythms they perceived.
Only man can doubt his own senses.
Product of existential fatigue.
He must assume there’s a reality hidden from him. A reality that contradicts the one he can perceive.
But his senses were naturally selected because they sufficed.
What man perceives may not be the ‘real’ but an interpretation of it.
This is what many douchebags call “illusion,” insinuating that it is not what it appears to be, but it might be the opposite.
So, what appears to be different they want to believe is the same.
What appears to be a multiplicity is actually a singularity.
They project into their perceptions their psychological needs and find people that support their delusions, if they are willing to support theirs.
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, ‘You are not true.’
from R.Wilbur, “Epistemology” (1950)
I propose that it would not be unreasonable for you to conceptualize yourself as a biological organization, organism, and organ set, owing to the great complexity of which, “you as you” emerges from it, the person and the milk bar legend.
As the complexity and scale of the Milky Way far exceeds that of any human individual, you may enjoy building a bridge to God’s abode by conceptualizing God as the co-substantial, emergent Person of the multi-universe World, part of which includes your own body and mind. Just as you emerge out of the complexity and organisational secrets of the body, so too the tell-tale signs of a greater being emerge out of the intersecting multidimensional complexities on a far greater scale.
The leap in Descartes early works is done approximately this way, and it is not so laughable, after all, to lay in bed with eyes closed and look intently into yourself, only to discover God in that shimmering magic mirror of self.
