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The nature of certainty...

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
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Sep 25, 2007
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philosophical realist, eh?

now i have to read the definition, blah.

the only philosophy terms i know are determinism, reductionism, and functionalism...all of which i align myself with. are those compatible with philosophical realism?

p.s. are you a philosophy major or something?

I'm not a philosophy major. I just like to understand why people think the way they do. Thankfully, just because you are a realist doesn't mean you are a Randist.

Do you believe humans should only be motivated by self interest? Do you believe that the individual is more important than society? Do you believe people can, simply by using reason, understand reality to the point that they can determine the ethical principles by which everyone should live?
 

redacted

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I'm not a philosophy major. I just like to understand why people think the way they do. Thankfully, just because you are a realist doesn't mean you are a Randist.

what does Randist mean? and what's your major? (looked at your profile; it says you're a college student).

Do you believe humans should only be motivated by self interest?

i don't know about whether or not they should be, but i believe that they are. even seemingly selfless acts can be explained as self-serving (i'm sure you've heard this argument before).

i would consider myself an extremely empathetic and self-sacrificing person, and i'm sure my friends would agree. but i can pinpoint self-serving reasons for everything i do. not all of those reasons are conscious, but they're there.

Do you believe that the individual is more important than society?

no.

Do you believe people can, simply by using reason, understand reality to the point that they can determine the ethical principles by which everyone should live?

hellz nah. no one person's opinion should hold any more weight than anyone else's. that being said, you can try to change someone else's opinion if you want. sometimes i'd say it's even your duty (whatever that really means) to try to change someone else's opinion.
 

Kiddo

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what does Randist mean? and what's your major? (looked at your profile; it says you're a college student).

A Randist is a person who has accepted the writings of Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) and her philosophy of reason which is called Objectivism. Her philosophy is derived from philosophical realism. It's also the most commonly accepted philosophy of INTJs.

I major in social work. It's one of the few generalists professions still in existence so I have a background in psychology, sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, biology, education, and communications. :D

i don't know about whether or not they should be, but i believe that they are. even seemingly selfless acts can be explained as self-serving (i'm sure you've heard this argument before).

i would consider myself an extremely empathetic and self-sacrificing person, and i'm sure my friends would agree. but i can pinpoint self-serving reasons for everything i do. not all of those reasons are conscious, but they're there.

no.

hellz nah. no one person's opinion should hold any more weight than anyone else's. that being said, you can try to change someone else's opinion if you want. sometimes i'd say it's even your duty (whatever that really means) to try to change someone else's opinion.

I get a strange feeling about you dissonance. It's almost like I have met you before. But your answers lead me to believe that you aren't a Randist, so I won't be forced by "duty" to try to change your mind. ;)
 

redacted

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I major in social work. It's one of the few generalists professions still in existence so I have a background in psychology, sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, biology, education, and communications. :D

that's cool. i'm a cognitive science major, which is somewhat similar. i take classes in these areas: psychology, neurobiology, computer science, philosophy, anthropology, and linguistics.

eh, maybe not that similar, heh.


I get a strange feeling about you dissonance. It's almost like I have met you before. But your answers lead me to believe that you aren't a Randist, so I won't be forced by "duty" to try to change your mind. ;)

well cool, seems we have reached some sort of consensus. see? told you i'm not INTJ :)
 

LunarMoon

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There are differing schools in terms of skepticism. There is the absolute skeptic, one who believes that no principle can be proven objectively, and the moderate skeptic, a person who simply argues that matters are to be questioned before being added to objective perceptions. The second of these is the more traditional and well known skeptic of which you have already mentioned. He or she is pragmatic and operates in a manner completely sensible with the world around them. The first however is an abstract entity that doesn’t even exist. He is a nihilist in the purest sense of the word and by even admitting to himself that he is indeed a skeptic, he violates the rules of absolute skepticism by admitting to a possible fact, “I am a skeptic”. But due to the fact that to even be a skeptic, one must admit to the objective fact that there are no objective facts, to be a true skeptic vacant of any assumptions is impossible; man is bound by a definitive mindset simply by existing in this world or more specifically simply by processing it. That is not to say that this is a bad thing, however. Without an acceptance of at least some definite facts it would be impossible to form an identity or even a sense of self to relate to others, the main form of thought that human beings uses to understand others in the first place (“What if I were in their shoes?”). So while their “ability to percieve the world through the eyes of their fellow humans” may be sharply diminished this would also be true if we were free of definite assumptions (“I am a person”, “I am an individual”, “There is actually something to understand about the self and others”). A complete erasing of certainty is neither desirable nor possible though its success would surely lead to Nirvana. A complete deletion of the ego, to accept not even the basic premises about the self or the world around the self as definite or provable, to exist in nothingness.

By the way, you’re correct in that logic can be incredibly restricting. Barring some very basic assumptions that we need to make to use it, the actual manner in which we go about logic is completely dependent on our perceptions. For example, in order to find that 1+1=2 in the first place, we must first understand that the variables we are working with are 1 and 1 as opposed to say, 1 and 2. This is a product of our perceptions and as our perceptions can be wrong, the product of this logic can be vastly disarrayed. A nihilist would just say that the workout of every logical problem is x+y=z since the variables they are working with cannot be definite.
 

Owl

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Damn you LunarMoon!

I just created an account here to reply to this thread, but you responded before I finished, and your response is my response--only better.

However, you wrote that logic can be restricting because our perceptions can be wrong. Can we trust none of our perceptions, or are some of our perceptions clearly true, accurate, necessary, etc.
 
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LunarMoon

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However, you wrote that logic can be restricting because our perceptions can be wrong. Can we trust none of our perceptions, or are some of our perceptions clearly true, accurate, necessary, etc.

If we were to bring complete distrust to our perceptions of the world than that would make us an absolute skeptic which is impossible. However, that does not bar us from reviewing our perceptions before accepting them into our picture of the world; that would make us a moderate skeptic. So while a large amount of what we percieve and interpret is very obviously wrong (no one is impervious to being incorrect or to being fooled) by reviewing our perceptions with a larger amount of information that may actually be right, it's at least possible to reduce the errors within our analysis to the point where it can be used. It's still notable, though that this is a double edged sword and that by collecting more information, it's also possible to collect an even larger amount of incorrect data. This risk can be lessened by gaining information through more objective methods such as rulers and graduated cylinders but there is still a margin of error. We may find an animal that looks like a pig, sounds like a pig, and from the data we've gathered, has the exact anatomical measurements expected of a pig. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a pig. It could just be a very large rat. ;)

-Jeering aside, this misidentification has happened more often then we'd like to admit within definite answer seeking fields such as science. Even into the 21st century, it's fairly common for an animal once thought to be a member of a new species to be re-categorized as an abnormal variation on an already known one.
 

Owl

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If we were to bring complete distrust to our perceptions of the world than that would make us an absolute skeptic which is impossible. However, that does not bar us from reviewing our perceptions before accepting them into our picture of the world; that would make us a moderate skeptic. So while a large amount of what we percieve and interpret is very obviously wrong (no one is impervious to being incorrect or to being fooled) by reviewing our perceptions with a larger amount of information that may actually be right, it's at least possible to reduce the errors within our analysis to the point where it can be used. It's still notable, though that this is a double edged sword and that by collecting more information, it's also possible to collect an even larger amount of incorrect data. This risk can be lessened by gaining information through more objective methods such as rulers and graduated cylinders but there is still a margin of error. We may find an animal that looks like a pig, sounds like a pig, and from the data we've gathered, has the exact anatomical measurements expected of a pig. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a pig. It could just be a very large rat. ;)

-Jeering aside, this misidentification has happened more often then we'd like to admit within definite answer seeking fields such as science. Even into the 21st century, it's fairly common for an animal once thought to be a member of a new species to be re-categorized as an abnormal variation on an already known one.

It is impossible to be an absolute skeptic because, "man is bound by a definitive mindset simply by existing in this world or more specifically simply by processing it." Agreed, but which assumption(s) are we justified in believing that enable us to deny the skeptic's claim that "the workout of every logical problem is x+y=z since the variables... cannot be definite[?]" What is the nature of justification for these assumptions?
 

LunarMoon

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It is impossible to be an absolute skeptic because, "man is bound by a definitive mindset simply by existing in this world or more specifically simply by processing it." Agreed, but which assumption(s) are we justified in believing that enable us to deny the skeptic's claim that "the workout of every logical problem is x+y=z since the variables... cannot be definite[?]" What is the nature of justification for these assumptions?
The funny thing is that in way, they're probably correct. Due to the fact that we must take in all information about the world through our own fallible perceptions it actually can be said that no variables within our logical problems are completely definite; there's always that quantity of misinformation that may exist within them. However, acting on this and actually withholding the creation of definite opinions, as an absolute skeptic would do, is not only impractical but as stated before, impossible. What I was trying to say in the previous post was that the most practical manner of dealing with these indefinite variables is to check over them with the most objective methods that we have at our disposal, rulers, graduated cylinders and other devices. This is what science attempts to do to reduce th margin of error, and even with several of these before mentioned methods, science is quite often wrong (or in the example I gave before, taxonomy). There is no complete justification; in many ways there's quite a bit of faith.
 
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