When I say folk knowledge I mean stuff like basic morality, shamanism, the european hate of wolves,. Seemingly faith-based beliefs held by the majority of people. Religion could be considered one of them. As many of you know, there are intelligent foundations upon which these beliefs are based. Most shaman herbs are still used by medicines (willow bark=aspirin, I think). Basic morality is essential for survival. Wolves stole european livestock.
However, the belief was not “Wolves kill our livestock and thus must themselves be killed or otherwised removed from human settlements.” It was “Wolves are evil”.
Either the first shepherd to develop an aversion to wolves thought the first (“Wolves kill our livestock…”) or the second (“Wolves are evil”). Assuming the former, we can see that somewhere the logical basis was forgotten.
Why?
(My theory: Because the second justification is simpler and achieves the same purpose, so it is inefficient to believe the first one.)
Logical or rational thinking is a relatively recent development in evolutionary terms. It builds upon superstitious (but still symbolic) type of thinking. It’s apparent when you consider the analogy of an individual - an infant is not born logical. Rationality is taught. Psychologists tell us that children have a “magical” type of consciousness that we out-grow and forget as we mature.
If we “grow out of it” then why do we find ourselves using it as a basis for life decisions throughout our lives… including the decision to the meaning of our lives themselves. Just as zeus stated religion is illogical thinking… its primitive. Faith in god is irrational… thats eactly why it is called faith. What I keep hearing is that rationality will not get us to the answer to life… that a leap must be made called faith. This doesn’t make any goddamn sense! But again, I guess thats why its called faith.
Not everyone outgrows the superstitious type of thinking, and indeed no-one is 100% rational. People who more or less attained rationality don’t discard magical thinking completely, but push it into the subconscious, from which it can sometimes resurface.
About “religion”, that word covers so much territories that I don’t think it’s always irrational. Yes, conventional faith-based religions tend to be irrational. But consider, for example, someone who believes in God but doesn’t take the bible literally - surely this person is more rational than someone who, say, thinks Adam and Eve were actual people.
why do we find ourselves using it as a basis for life decisions throughout our lives… including the decision to the meaning of our lives themselves.
that was rhetorical - srry if i made it seem otherwise.
More rational yes but not quite rational enough since God himself is acquired through irrational thought patterns. Now whether rationality and ultimate truth have anything to do with each other is the real question. Of course you are right humans are not 100% rational. Guess thats one of our many flaws.
Yeah it’s true that beliefs in a deity are generally irrational. But I like certain theories that distinguish between pre-rational superstition and post-rational spirituality. The latter is a mentality that transcends but still incorporates rationality, in the same way that a rational mentality transcends but still incorporates aspects of emotions and instincts.
Good point. My view is that rationality brings us closer to the ultimate truth than pre-rational thinking, but post-rational spirituality is closer still to that truth.
No, faith is by definition ‘other than rational’. It isn’t irrational unless one insists on dividing up all things into the rational and the irrational in some form of binary opposition.
I prefer the definition ‘Faith: n. That which requires no proof and offers no proof’ or something similar. Faith is great, because there’s literally nothing to legislate how it works. Indeed, you could see the whole religion vs. science ‘war’ (or whatever name you wish to slap on it) as being an argument about how we cannot properly define what faith is or or how it works.
Yes, superstition does indeed seem to arise from logical thought. My theory about why this happens is as follows.
General education is quite a new thing. For a long time, there was always (and, indeed, still is, if we look at the less-developped countries) a majority of people who worked in hands-on jobs (such as agriculture) to make a living. Since they had to spend their days working, they couldn’t spend their time thinking about things. Then, when the few people who were capable of thining about things which were not useful in the immediate context did think up something useful, such as a new medicine, and wanted the simpler folk to be able to use it, they couldn’t say why or how it actually works, since the people wouldn’t understand (imagine, say, explaining how a computer works to someone who has never heard of electricity). So, why does it work? Magic.
Another way to explain it would be simple imitation. History shows quite well that if a particular group does well, others will start imitating it. Of course, some will not, but most often those who choose to retain their old ways are conquered, and disappear.
So, when the folk in village A hear that the cattle in village B has a higher rate of survivability, they will seek to find how exactly the people of village B go about doing their… cattling? So, they see that the B-villagers drive away wolves. A dialogue follows:
“Hey, we should also drive off wolves!”
“Why on earth?”
“They do it, and they’re better off than we are.”
“What does it help?”
“Well, what do you drive away?”
“Evil spirits.”
“So, if they drive away wolves, wolves must be evil spirits.”
And history witnesses another triumph of logic and rationality.
First off, someoneisatthedoor, great, what is that a .gif? Defining moment in an defining film.
Secondly on :
Is it not necessary to divide things into some sort of binary opposition? It is that on/off, 0/1, true/false thinking that forms the basis of all thought. Even though the subject of the inherent duality of man can be brought up and the idea that there are always shades of grey… “shades of grey” is just a human expression for a series of 1’s and 0’s so complex that the human mind can no longer concieve their existence’s and interrelationships that it just decides to name it a shade of grey or define this incomprehensible 0/1 series into one big 0 and 1 - thus duality. Without that definitive premise of true or false, logical thought would not exist. In essence you are saying “[Faith] isn’t irrational unless one insists [on being rational… about faith]” While it could be said that by me saying that “faith is irrational” my thoughts are being entangled in the very same kind of illogical larger dualities I have brought up. EX. Faith isn’t rational ergo it must be irrational. The real proof of faith’s irrationality lies in that over all of these millenia of man not one of us has been able to simplify faith into its seperate 1/0 arguments. This is because faith itself is irrational.
I do like your second definition better:
Faith: n. That which requires no proof and offers no proof
The personification gives a sort of mysticism about the concept. Faith is something that tends to be infallible and slippery when we put it under definition. It has greatened many lives and made many people happier for having it. The problem with faith when were looking for truth however is that its indefinable characteristics promote thinking thats counter-intuitive to thoughts that create truths. Truths are absolute because they are created by rational thinking which inherently promotes truths. Faith does just the opposite by promoting a place for in-betweeners to lie in their indecisivness. One could spend a lifetime there and many do. This definition offers hope and makes me feel good in that deep inside place but the very wording personifies faith as this abstract being-concept which requires nothing substantial of you and yet offers you nothing substantial in return.
I think we’ve got an interesting string going on the nature of faith and rationale so anyone want to join in, by all means…
Oskari V. got it. The others either didn’t understand what I was asking of them or didn’t really 'frickin care.
All that’s really needed to scare off wolves is to know how to scare off wolves and that scaring off wolves will make you happier. Without the first you wouldn’t know how and without the second you wouldn’t see the point. But why do humans feel a need to go further? How is it beneficial to know how much happier you’ll be if you scare them off or how scaring them off makes you happier? Why would a human want to know anymore than the two datas fundamental to the action?
Siatd, riddance, and Rocky, your conversation needs a new thread. Not that I don’t like you stealing mine, but your topic is one so large that it is now officialy a subtopic, to be discussed in a different thread. Bring me your conclusions when you’re done.
Those are some very good questions. Let’s formulate a theory, shall we?
First, we notice that quite a few people do not feel the urge to “go further”. That is, after all, why the explanation “wolves are evil” was good enough for so long. Even nowadays, it is quite easy to find people who are not the least bit interested in, say, how the car they are driving, or the computer they are using, works, as long as it does.
So, what would be the difference between those who do feel the need to investigate these questions, and those who don’t? First of all, we notice that those people who work all day long are seldom concerned about how things work. Asking “why” is more a quality of those with time to spend. But not all of them ask the question, either. I’ll use the example of myself, and my younger brother. My brother spends his days mostly watching television, or playing games, or something along those lines, while I just sort of sit around the house, doing nothing much. Of us two, I am the one that likes to think about “why”.
So, what defines if someone is interested in “why”? I am quite convinced that the answer is quite simple: boredom. Think about it. If one is doing something, one is not thinking. At least, not very much. While one is not doing anything, thought has free reign, and thus ends up wondering such interesting questions as “why are we better off by driving off the wolves?” and “why did the apple fall on my head?”
I don’t think its necessarily boredom that creates the inquisitive mind. It is physical idleness. Idleness creates boredom and inquisition. That is why the inactivity of melancholy is so fruitful to introspection.
The reason we feel a need to go further is because our physical body has ceased to do its output and in effect the brain’s processing on that output is redirected to more mental output. Dreams do the same by increasing mental output (mostly in the unconscious) from a lack of physical brain processes. I think what the real question zeus is asking here is not why we ask why? but why we need a “why?” Is it beneficial to have a “why?” I guess the answer to that depends on if you find an answer for your “why?” If you do then of course you were right in asking and now you find your life more enriched. If you don’t then I dunno. That is of course where all three of us are right now. we ask "why?’ but we also have to suffer in the black pool of unknowing. So it all comes back to suffering and desire. What your really asking by “is it beneficial?” is “why do we have to suffer”. Every religion has their own answer for that. I dunno what the answer to that one is. I guess only someone who consideres thmselves enlightened would but then what does that mean to us. Is enlightenment romantic? I hope to God that it isnt but I’ve been let down plenty enough before to anticipate that it might be.
I am not certain that it is correct to call not knowing, aka ignorance, suffering; it depends more on the individual whether ignorance is positive or negative. Lack of ignorance can be a source of more suffering than ignorance: I would, at least, I belive so, suffer more from having a “final truth” imposed on myself than from simple ignorance.
And, ignorance is the only way to find something out. One must, before he is capable of understanding “why”, accept that one does not know it right now. That might be the step from belief to thoughtful understanding of things. In ancient times, if a person would wonder why lightning struck, he could go to ask from the priest, and (after a suitable sacrifice) would receive a long and illustrative tale of the gods’ current love affairs, vendettas and the like. But once one accepts that he does not know, a logical step is that others may not know, either.
It seems to me that is where the foundation of thought is, and the end of “folk knowledge” and belief. Ignorance, and, following its acceptance, doubt, give root to criticism, and thus to the better understanding of why something can or cannot be held true. And with this, philosophy is created.
True, so your saying that “folk knowledge” or “ignorance” is necessary as an intermediary between the time of realizing “the dillema” and the time of knowing the purpose of “the dillema”. But near the end:
You mean to say that the awareness of ignorance is the beginning of logical thought and thus hopefully enlightenment? That given in that light the “not knowing” of the universe is not necessarily suffering just another stepping stone on the way across the river? It is a long goddamn step though. Many people spend their whole lives on that step and I would consider that suffering.
Yes, it is my point exactly to say that “awareness of ignorance is the beginning of logical thought”. Consider, if you will, the man held as the first true philosopher. Socrates is quoted as saying that the only knowledge one can ever aspire to is growing awareness of one’s own ignorance. His views infuriated the society in which he lived, and resulted in a death sentence. But had he not chosen to take the step, to show those who listened to him that there are countless things of which we have only ignorance, he began the process which led to humanity slowly understanding that the world may be explained by something else than “God/gods/the ancestors/whatever did it”. To one who realizes the importance of ignorance, it loses all power to inflict suffering. To reach wisdom, awareness of ignorance is required.
After all, when watching a stage magician, is it better to say that “He used magic” than “I don’t know how he did it”?
logic is a recent development on a world wide scale …for the last 2000 logic has been crushed by the religious …and given us evil wolves
evil simply means very bad …when u say somthing is evil …u know it is worse than bad … u see … the shepard probably thought both ;ie those wolves killed our livestock …they are evil creatures
over the millenia …religious lack of knowledge about the true nature of things and the rapid destruction of those who talked logic left us with our folk knowledge …wich nowdays itself is being forgotten … ironically enough …gl
i myself am amaizsed at how irrational people on this forum can be; It’s a philosophy forum yet 70% of the people here are irrational. I thought philosophy was supposed to be based on rationality.
My explination is that philosophy is misunderstood by the religious as being “sacred” and, well, “religious”. They confuse it with theology so they come here to talk about god and creationism;
I was affraid of this as i stated in my very first post on this forum when i said that i “hoped” i wasn’t going to find a bunch of religious people here talking about how much they love god;
I promise you there is a large number of religious people here who have never in their life read 1 single book on philosophy; i see that in the way they construct their arguments.
For some reason they think philosophy is just chatting/talking without getting anywhere.
Well THEY’RE WRONG; philosophy is about knowledge !! and about moving human kind forward !
There only way this problem can be solved is if a private (invite only) forum is created for those who deserve it. There really should be a couple of trials before someone would be allowed in there.
I hope a moderator here will pick up on this sugestion and do something with it.