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Author Topic:   Deism in the Dock
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 233 of 270 (416526)
08-16-2007 11:53 AM
Reply to: Message 208 by Modulous
08-15-2007 5:14 PM


Meaning in belief
Mod,
I usually agree spot-on with you, but this time I'm not feelin' it.
What difference can it make if an entity exists that we can have no way of being sure about any conclusions about it?
Since when was knowledge necessary for anything? Especially given that "KNOWLEDGE" (proper) doesn't seem to exist (e.g. certainty), then our "knowledge" really counts for very little in what we do. Except in philosophical debates.
I don't believe something until I see evidence for it. It's simple common sense.
With all due respect, this is hoity-toity bull. We all act in ways contrary to evidence. Not always, but we all do it.
But more strongly, to dismiss it as "simple common sense" just reeks of self-assured egoism. I know it's not what you mean to convey, but it's how it comes across to me, and I believe to anyone who has a differing viewpoint.
Individually observable evidence has it's place and time, but it's not the only thing. We make decisions off of other things all the time, such as social convention, the word of an "authority", and straight-up belief. And you know what? Each of those types of decision-making processes are important parts of all of our lives.
Empirical decision-making has a role as well, but to say it's the only thing we do, and that it's "common sense" to think otherwise, is flat-out wrong from my perspective.
Anyway, hope things are going well! Peace.
Ben

This message is a reply to:
 Message 208 by Modulous, posted 08-15-2007 5:14 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by Modulous, posted 08-16-2007 12:40 PM Ben! has replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 261 of 270 (416910)
08-18-2007 1:03 PM
Reply to: Message 234 by Modulous
08-16-2007 12:40 PM


Re: common sense
I don't follow - I'm just asking what difference it makes about postulating over an entity we can never make any sure conclusions about.
Clearly there's a huge behavioral difference between making such a postuation and not making such a postulation. Going back to your original post,
Is there a god? Who knows? Who cares?
Point is, knowledge has nothing to do with it. To ask "who knows" is to miss the point. Not everything is about knowledge. Who cares? You do. You do, because you asked and answered the question for yourself. I do, because I asked and answered the question. Only those who do not ask can not-care. And even most of those people care (because they believe).
Of course - but if an authority says something is true, and it is in principle possible for me to examine the evidence of it myself, or trust in many others to do critically examine the evidence - I can be more sure of the conclusions than if someone says they know it is true because it feels right or the voices in their head tell them it is right (revelation).
I disagree. Authority is usually held not by our knowledge of how good someone is, but by social status. The degree to which we believe an authority has little to do with their skill set and more to do with our comfort level. And it's like this from the start: our parents are our first authority.
We're social creatures much more than we are intellectual creatures, and we do more by feel than we do by pure intellect. I guess at some point I'll have to actually substantiate that.. but I hope that's not soon.
However, making decisions and believing something to be true are different things. The only decisions I am talking are about whether to believe something when time is not pressured and we can question some rules of thumb and explore the consequences of various beliefs and so on and so forth.
Right, I realize I was equating the two. The issue in questioning is not just time; we all fail to question many social practices that we simply don't even notice, no matter how much free time there is. There also has to be an impetus to asking.
Some of us have a natural impetus to ask; something inside of us asks "why". For you to say that it's common sense to be an empiricist about God, you're saying that
1. Almost everybody has an impetus to question God.
2. Almost everybody who has an impetus to question God would address such a question through empiricism.
I find neither of these to be true. #1 fails to be true for the same reason that most people don't quesiton social constructs--there's simply no reason to do so. #2 fails to be true because the majority of us are social creatures before we are intellectuals.
Let me state that more specifically: if there's no social context, we're unlikely to use our natural empiricism to address an issue. And for this, I can actually provide references. It has been experimentally shown that two logically identical problems will be approached (and answered) differently by people simply by adding or removing a social context. Buying a bridge from another has a strong social context, that would get us thinking more emprically (e.g. "yeah right buddy")
Questioning the existence of God is not something that has a social context in this same way. And you know what's the best proof of that? According to a real fast internet search, 85% of the world's people adhere to some sort of religion. According to you and me, 0% of them believe in God because of good empiricism (e.g. as far as I know, we both believe that the empirical facts can be explained without reference to any super-natural entity.)
It's not "common sense" to apply empiricism to God. I think the more interesting question is, why do you do it? What makes you different from other people such that you think it's the right way to address things.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 234 by Modulous, posted 08-16-2007 12:40 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 262 by Modulous, posted 08-18-2007 3:29 PM Ben! has replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 265 of 270 (417549)
08-21-2007 7:58 PM
Reply to: Message 262 by Modulous
08-18-2007 3:29 PM


The value of Truth
Mod,
I'm still not sure why we're not on the same page, and I'm afraid at this point I'm going to be reiterating what I've said before. If that's the case, I'm not sure how to communicate better...
What I was trying to communicate was the futility of asking the question - there is no answer which we can have confidence in. If the answer is yes or no - it makes no difference to our lives.
Assuming I remember the question (does God exist?), then I still disagree. You say there's no answer which we can have confidence in, but ... I feel you're conflating "empirical confidence" with the actual feeling of confidence. Lots of people HAVE confidence, regardless of the state of empiricism with regards to God. People DO answer the question, regardless of their ability to back it up with syllogistic reasoning or empirical facts.
Point is, in our social structure, the answer yes or no DOES make a difference to each of our lives. There is scientific futility in asking the question, but not social, philosophical, or personal.
I think I get what you were trying to say, I just disagree with taking such a narrow, empirically-minded approach under which your comment makes sense. And I feel that it is exactly that approach which is the basis for what I disagreed with throughout your original post, which is why I even addressed this thing first comment.
You're disagreeing with the statement that I can be more sure of the conclusions if I can in principle examine all the reasoning and evidence behind the conclusion, than if I can't?
I'm not sure how to address this. It's an empirical question. My point is, appeals to authority do little for me. Half the time the "authorities" ARE the people who, unknowningly or not, are blowing hot air up my skirt.
The degree to which some people believe an authority has little to do with their skill set. I am not a child, and I don't believe anymore anything that my parents say (I frequently disbelieve them in fact) just because they say it. There is good reason to believe what my parents said when I was a child - for better or worse they managed to survive in the world long enough to have kids. There is evidence of the success of their wisdom in the fact that I exist.
If you believe this is evidence in favor of people being fit to either live or find truth, then what of the fact that a purported 85% of the living population believes in things unsubstantiated by empiricism? In that case, they all have evidence of the success of their wisdom as well.
I am talking about confidence in knowledge and we cannot have confidence in our feelings, since they frequently lead is to erroneous conclusions. It is because we are social animals are flawed intellectually that we should not rely on our feelings to reach final conclusions regarding the world.
And what I am saying is that your conclusion is stated too broadly. It's important in immediate social contexts, ones in which we live our lives. But it's not important for us to be right with regards to high-level philosophical questions such as whether God exists, if there are 22 dimensions or 4, and whether time began from a singularity or from the first mover.
What makes you think that being right in these contexts has any positive or negative impact in any single being's ability to survive, proliferate, and be happy?
What has it to do with ME? What is the effect on me if I am wrong about these high-level philosophical things? So what if I am duped about it?
The issue in questioning is not just time; we all fail to question many social practices that we simply don't even notice
Agreed. This is not a good thing, though
I disagree. Vehemently. Social practices play critical roles in our lives. If everybody questioned them, we'd lose coordination within our society. We'd fracture into smaller groups with a lot of inter-group transfer. Our societies can maintain questioning by individuals, but in all simulations I've talked through, cannot overcome questioning on a global level.
Your philosophy may tell you this is a "bad" thing, but the fact that it IS needs to be understood. Social practices play important roles in bonding human societies.
Actually I said we should be empiricists about any statements about reality.
It may have been what you said, but it is not what I saw implicit in your comments. You suggest that any question which is not about reality has no purpose even in being asked. THAT does not jive with your statement, which itself says nothing about questions that have nothing to do reality.
The questions are not purposeless, and while they are not about reality, their personal answers impact reality. There is a purpose in asking and answering them.
I am saying that it is common sense to not believe people's claims just because people make them. The point I was making was that people only selectively apply common sense notions such as this and when they fail to do so - they are opening themselves up to believing false things (such as that guy really does own a bridge and is stupid enough to sell it for a small amount to a random stranger).
And again, I believe you're speaking too generally. Only in situations with social context is it common sense to apply this type of reasoning. And the consequence of failing to apply this reasoning in non-social contexts is lacking. In fact, I'm trying to suggest that social custom and social bonding are much more important than "being right" about these non-immediate, philosophical, quesitons-without-social-context.
Being right is not as important as you think. There are situations where YOU being right matters, and many situations where you're better off not even bothering to find out.
The reason is is that I do not want to believe things which are untrue. If I do - I open myself up to being manipulated or conned. I open myself up to believing in Santa and fairies and djinn and domovoi, I open myself to wasting my life worried about things that aren't real.
I'd rather not just let social or parental pressures tell me how the world is. Those kind of things are events dictated by the chance circumstance of birth - since the way reality is does not depend on where you were born and to who, this does not seem a good way to decide what reality is like.
Mod, I completely understand the feeling. Completely. I am suggesting--no, I am telling you, this is nothing more than a feeling. Just as the feeling that meaning comes from Ultimate Truth--belief in God--is what matters in life, and that by missing that, your life is a waste.
Meaning we define for ourselves.
One last thing.
I open myself to wasting my life worried about things that aren't real.
What is the cost of a search for Truth? What things do you miss out on by trying so hard to discover the things which have empirical evidence to be real?
What is happiness? Will searching for and finding answers to these questions bring you to it or create it?
Again, my clear, simple answer is, no. It will never be Answers that deliver happiness, only the satiation of your drive to find them.
Sorry for the long, long post, and for probable obtuseness. I'm afraid that it might be hard to connect what I say here to the discussion we're having. Here's to hoping that you'll find those connections through what I've written. I'm doing my best... but if not, let me know if those connections are not clear enough, and I will try to make them more explicit and cut away the obfusicating extra material.
Peace,
Ben

This message is a reply to:
 Message 262 by Modulous, posted 08-18-2007 3:29 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 266 by Modulous, posted 08-23-2007 1:17 PM Ben! has not replied

  
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