Empiricism vs. Logic

[mikiel]

Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic.

This is obviously false, and I don't need to measure anything to be able to say that. How can you prove empirically that a thing is itself?

And how can you prove empirically that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic."

You're quick on the hair trigger here bud.
While I was editing in the missing "r"'s I added to the above as follows: ""Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world."
m

[Kevin Solway]

While I was editing in the missing "r"'s I added to the above as follows: "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

Let's assume that it has relevance to "the world" that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

So how do you prove empirically that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""?

Or does it not have relevance to "the world"?

[mikiel]

While I was editing in the missing "r"'s I added to the above as follows: "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

Let's assume that it has relevance to "the world" that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

So how do you prove empirically that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""?

Or does it not have relevance to "the world"?

Good grief! Your mind is so steeped in the inner world of solipsism/idealism (say logic without any credible input from perception) that you totally exclude the possibility that the world/cosmos is real independent of your (or anyone's) perception.

If you totally disavow the validity of all our senses, what could you possibly consider "proof" anyway?

An old fave in the argument against such idealism/solipsism is this:
If I punched you in the face a few times and you seemed to dislike it for some reason, I might ask why you were creating this absurd and painful situation. (Like stomping on your foot, in recent discussion here.) None of it, including me, my fist and your face... nor the pain of impact is "real", since none of it exists... all in your discorporate mind. So "why don't you stop creating it if you don't like it?" is the argument. So you close you eyes and concetrate to make "me" disappear. But then I kick you in the nuts and you fall down and groan in agony. (A bit moe extreme than denying whether you feel the stepping on your foot!) Why are you ceating this?

You may not know this, but your philosophy is considered pathological by the psychological community. Same pinciple as autism... living in your own little world of "my mind" in denial of the obvious reality of the world, cosmos, science, all common knowledge.

But maybe a community of solipsists can convince each other that this fantasic philosophy is true... like this website... (ignoring the obvious fallacy of any "other" as a reality or where "I" came from in any physical sense...there is no physical.)

I am calling you (and all solipsists denying "physical reality", the objectictive world/cosmos and all science) crazy. I invite others who still have common sense (and trust their senses to inform them of objective reality) to join in this discussion and expose the absudity of this,,, frankly... bullshit.
mikiel

[Matt Gregory]

mikiel wrote:

An old fave in the argument against such idealism/solipsism is this:
If I punched you in the face a few times and you seemed to dislike it for some reason, I might ask why you were creating this absurd and painful situation. (Like stomping on your foot, in recent discussion here.) None of it, including me, my fist and your face... nor the pain of impact is "real", since none of it exists... all in your discorporate mind. So "why don't you stop creating it if you don't like it?" is the argument. So you close you eyes and concetrate to make "me" disappear. But then I kick you in the nuts and you fall down and groan in agony. (A bit moe extreme than denying whether you feel the stepping on your foot!) Why are you ceating this?

You need to think about what creation is. The belief that something can be created out of nothing is false.

[divine focus]

Thus, propositions derived from reflective cognition are self-evident and have axiomatic status (cannot be denied without a performative contradiction).

I don't think propositions derived empirically by outer observation and hypothesizing have the same foundation. This type would always be contingent on previous empirical knowledge. And they couldn't be said to be true- they are only not yet proven false (by possible falsifying future experiences).

I agree. They would only be speculation and the forming of opinion. When there is inner observation, though, "outer" observation is naturally included.

How can you prove empirically that a thing is itself?

What would the need be to do such a thing? Your eyes can be trusted, as well as your ears and your hands. What could a thing be other than itself?

Your mind is so steeped in the inner world of solipsism/idealism (say logic without any credible input from perception) that you totally exclude the possibility that the world/cosmos is real independent of your (or anyone's) perception.

I can't speak for Kevin, but my take is one of a collective perception. The energy that makes up physical reality may be independent of perception, but the form and structure it takes as our universe is not. We create the universe in collective agreement, but we each agree individually to do so.

[Matt Gregory]

Your mind is so steeped in the inner world of solipsism/idealism (say logic without any credible input from perception) that you totally exclude the possibility that the world/cosmos is real independent of your (or anyone's) perception.

I can't speak for Kevin, but my take is one of a collective perception. The energy that makes up physical reality may be independent of perception, but the form and structure it takes as our universe is not. We create the universe in collective agreement, but we each agree individually to do so.

You have to remember that we can't be certain of what's out there causing our experiences. Anything you propose is going to be speculative, whether it's matter or energy or people or whatever. If you want to do science and predict things then speculation is necessary, but you'll never find ultimate knowledge by going that route. You have to take a different tack for it.

[divine focus]

You have to remember that we can't be certain of what's out there causing our experiences. Anything you propose is going to be speculative, whether it's matter or energy or people or whatever.

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience. You are choosing it. This may not be the "you" that you know yourself to be in your thoughts, but it is you, nonetheless. This I cannot explain to be satisfactory to you, but I can say I am not speculating.

[Kevin Solway]

If you totally disavow the validity of all our senses, what could you possibly consider "proof" anyway?

Purely logical proof is the only type of proof that is convincing to me. All other so-called "proofs" are only guesswork.

An old fave in the argument against such idealism/solipsism is this

I don't hold to the solipsistic ideas which you describe.

That is, I don't believe that everything is "in the mind" since the mind itself is caused by that which is not the mind.

I presume that you didn't answer my question because you can't. Doesn't that make you feel dissatisfied?

[Matt Gregory]

You have to remember that we can't be certain of what's out there causing our experiences. Anything you propose is going to be speculative, whether it's matter or energy or people or whatever.

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience. You are choosing it. This may not be the "you" that you know yourself to be in your thoughts, but it is you, nonetheless. This I cannot explain to be satisfactory to you, but I can say I am not speculating.

It all depends on how you define "you" doesn't it. But that's not what I was talking about. You were referring to energy and collective realities and so forth and that's all speculative.

[Kevin Solway]

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience.

This can only be true if by "you" you are refering to the Totality, since it is the ultimate cause of all experience.

You are choosing it.

The only problem is, the Totality doesn't "choose". So perhaps you are using poetic licence.

[divine focus]

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience.

This can only be true if by "you" you are refering to the Totality, since it is the ultimate cause of all experience.

Yes.

You are choosing it.

The only problem is, the Totality doesn't "choose". So perhaps you are using poetic licence.

No. There is will, therefore there is choice.

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience. You are choosing it. This may not be the "you" that you know yourself to be in your thoughts, but it is you, nonetheless. This I cannot explain to be satisfactory to you, but I can say I am not speculating.

It all depends on how you define "you" doesn't it. But that's not what I was talking about. You were referring to energy and collective realities and so forth and that's all speculative.

It is not. I can see all of this. Speculating would involve believing things willy-nilly. "This seems to be, so then maybe this follows." Or "this must be, since my 'logic' is undeniable." I am not seeking explanations but coming up with them spontaneously. They are revealed, so to speak, as my attention moves in these directions.

[Kevin Solway]

The only problem is, the Totality doesn't "choose". So perhaps you are using poetic licence.

No. There is will, therefore there is choice.

"Choice" is only possible when you don't know what the future holds. But the Totality "knows" what the future holds.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

miki,

I am calling you (and all solipsists denying "physical reality", the objectictive world/cosmos and all science) crazy. I invite others who still have common sense (and trust their senses to inform them of objective reality) to join in this discussion and expose the absudity of this,,, frankly... bullshit.

Here's the bullshit: you were backed into a corner, and to save face, you started calling Kevin pathologically crazy while asking for help, rather than conceding that the claim you made was ridiculous and indefensible. I don't think I need to embarrass you as completely as I did AJ by calling you out on every piece of reasoning in your post that is unsound, but Appeals to common sense are fallacious. In other words, this argument isn't going to work.

Either give Kevin the proof he asked for, or concede that you can't provide such a proof. Calling him names isn't going to cut it.

So, here: "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world."

How is that premise validated? Can it be validated?

[Sage]

Right on Trevor.
Empiricism claims that all knowledge is based on experience.
But then, the claim "all knowledge is based on experience" must itself be 1- absolutely true or 2- based on experience. If it is absolutely true, then the statement is contradictory. If it is based on experience, it is uncertain and contingent on future experience; there is always the possibility of a future experience that will falsify the statement.
Thus, empiricism does not disprove absolute truth and is very unstable as a basis for epistemology.

How can you prove empirically that a thing is itself?

What would the need be to do such a thing? Your eyes can be trusted, as well as your ears and your hands. What could a thing be other than itself?

But by using your senses alone, you cannot know anything with absolute certainty - you would only know that it is not yet false.

[Sapius]

The only problem is, the Totality doesn't "choose". So perhaps you are using poetic licence.

No. There is will, therefore there is choice.

"Choice" is only possible when you don't know what the future holds. But the Totality "knows" what the future holds.

Using "poetic" licence, are we?

Without the will to be, in and off its dynamic nature, totality cannot be, which reflects in our will to survive, will to power, etc., and is not apart from totality itself.

Each choice/decision made by an individual is a choice/decision make by totality, and is in fact totality itself at work.

I can have a poetic license too.

[mikiel]

While I was editing in the missing "r"'s I added to the above as follows: "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

Let's assume that it has relevance to "the world" that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""

So how do you prove empirically that "Empiricism is the way to validate the premise in any and all logic which has any relevance to "the world.""?

Or does it not have relevance to "the world"?

And, you said: "I presume that you didn't answer my question because you can't. Doesn't that make you feel dissatisfied"

Ok, backing up here. Jeeze, I go away and there's a shark attack and feeding frenzie over me being stumped by your challenge, which I thought I answered in the subsequent post.

The key concept for empiricism is evidence gathered, by many means, about "the world", as above, which makes logic relevant to the world, and makes it worth our time... i.e., not just mental masturbation for its own sake.

So I said that if you disregard all evidence gathered empirically as a valid means of "validating" or proof, you've created a circular argument of exclusion, and you can spin your wheels all day without going anywhere. It's an insane challenge to say "A premise can not be validated by empirical evidence, because we can not trust our senses at all, nada."

I, for one trust my senses (now that they are not merely screening for relevance to "me and my purposes") as well as I trust my deductive reasoning. They work together in balance and harmony.

It's like a challenge, "Prove the sun actually exists without using any of your senses or the whole human history of observing the sun." This is literally non-sense. Throw out science as nonsense and you're left creating a little fantasy world in your mind. "Sun... what sun?"

So, you said: "I don't hold to the solipsistic ideas which you describe.

That is, I don't believe that everything is "in the mind" since the mind itself is caused by that which is not the mind."

And what is that, exacly, in your opinion?

Gnosis is knowing the One Omnipresent Consciousness is Creator of all, a very real cosmos, including our physical brains and metaphysical minds. But I'm guessing this is not what you mean.

Nuff for now.
mikiel

[mikiel]

Matt: "You need to think about what creation is. The belief that something can be created out of nothing is false."

First, I don't see the elevance of this statement to the argument against solipsism presented. In fact, I am arguing that my fist, the solipsist's face and the pain of impact are all very real, not "just in his mind"... ego, why not change your mind and create a new reality *out of nothing* if it hurts? My point exactly.

Actually, tho, you have almost quoted me verbatum from the "What is Time" thread, where I said that cosmologically speaking, something out of nothing is absurd. This in fact is one of the main arguments I've continually made for the oscillating, "Bang/Cunch" model of cosmos. If it all didn't implode after a gravitational reversal of the expansion phase, where did it all come from for the "Bang" in the first place?
No beginning, no ending. A contnual, eternal two-phaze cycling.

mikiel

[mikiel]

divine focus wrote:
"The energy that makes up physical reality may be independent of perception, but the form and structure it takes as our universe is not. We create the universe in collective agreement, but we each agree individually to do so."

Here's my take on that, shared here recently from my page "Conscious Unity: Contemplations on the One in All"
--------------
"Relative Reality is created by consensus among finite minds and hearts and lives in agreement about the world they share. Absolute Reality is created by the One in Whom we are all parts and participants.
Awakening is the quantum leap from relative to absolute."
-------------

Furter down the page is the contrast between belief and knowing:
-------------
"But beyond " Beliefs " is the epiphany… knowing directly the unity of all consciousness. This field is known by many names, but always it is realization that we are integral parts of the Greater Whole on whatever scale our hearts and minds and souls and Spirit can reach."
---------------

mikiel

[Sapius]

Mikiel;

Gnosis is knowing the One Omnipresent Consciousness is Creator of all, a very real cosmos, including our physical brains and metaphysical minds.

“One Omnipresent Consciousness”, cannot be the Creator of any thing at all, since it would necessary be dependant on all creation itself, meaning, Thing-NESS (not Things itself) has to also then be necessarily Omnipresent for consciousness to be or mean anything at all.

In my opinion it is the interdependent interactivity of Thing-ness itself, which is the self-creationary and destructive force infinitely omnipresent, which absolutely everything is ultimately interactively dependant on, in a yin/yang fashion. Even the knowing (Gnosis) itself is necessarily dependant on what it itself is not, hence not absolute in and off its-self either, but only comparatively, including against all other knowings.

Is it possible for OOC to be without Thing-Ness itself? Which of course is not it I take it.

[tek0]

logical means nanotech and it's pirated concepts..

sexy this is\



http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/82327

[Matt Gregory]

I am not speculating when I say you are "causing" your experience. You are choosing it. This may not be the "you" that you know yourself to be in your thoughts, but it is you, nonetheless. This I cannot explain to be satisfactory to you, but I can say I am not speculating.

It all depends on how you define "you" doesn't it. But that's not what I was talking about. You were referring to energy and collective realities and so forth and that's all speculative.

It is not. I can see all of this. Speculating would involve believing things willy-nilly. "This seems to be, so then maybe this follows." Or "this must be, since my 'logic' is undeniable." I am not seeking explanations but coming up with them spontaneously. They are revealed, so to speak, as my attention moves in these directions.

You wrote:

The energy that makes up physical reality may be independent of perception, but the form and structure it takes as our universe is not. We create the universe in collective agreement, but we each agree individually to do so.

You're saying that physical reality is made up of energy, you're entertaining that this energy could be independent of perception, and you're talking about a collective agreement. These things are all speculative. All we can say for certain about what makes up physical reality is nonphysical reality. All we can say for certain about what is independent of perception is unperceived reality. We can't be certain of any collective agreement because we can't be certain about any physical object, including another person.

[Matt Gregory]

Matt: "You need to think about what creation is. The belief that something can be created out of nothing is false."

First, I don't see the elevance of this statement to the argument against solipsism presented. In fact, I am arguing that my fist, the solipsist's face and the pain of impact are all very real, not "just in his mind"... ego, why not change your mind and create a new reality *out of nothing* if it hurts? My point exactly.

Actually, tho, you have almost quoted me verbatum from the "What is Time" thread, where I said that cosmologically speaking, something out of nothing is absurd. This in fact is one of the main arguments I've continually made for the oscillating, "Bang/Cunch" model of cosmos. If it all didn't implode after a gravitational reversal of the expansion phase, where did it all come from for the "Bang" in the first place?
No beginning, no ending. A contnual, eternal two-phaze cycling.

Well, a lot of people say they don't believe in something, they can apply that lack of belief in an isolated area, but they haven't for whatever reason applied it to their knowledge universally. If your argument depends on a belief that didn't come from your opponent, what else can I assume but that it came from you in the form of a belief that you've never examined and naturally assumed, as anyone in that situation would, that everybody holds it.

That argument you gave against the statement that things are created in the mind assumes that the mind can create something out of nothing, which the statement doesn't imply. The only thing it says is that the mind is one cause out of many, not that the mind is the only cause.

[Matt Gregory]

Here's my take on that, shared here recently from my page "Conscious Unity: Contemplations on the One in All"
--------------
"Relative Reality is created by consensus among finite minds and hearts and lives in agreement about the world they share. Absolute Reality is created by the One in Whom we are all parts and participants.
Awakening is the quantum leap from relative to absolute."

A web page you mean? Where is it? I missed it.

[Kevin Solway]

which I thought I answered in the subsequent post.

Which subsequent post? I note that you still haven't come close to answering my question. This means that your idea is either wrong, or is not relevant to the world.

And what is that, exacly, in your opinion?

I call it "that which is not the mind".

[mikiel]

Mikiel;

Gnosis is knowing the One Omnipresent Consciousness is Creator of all, a very real cosmos, including our physical brains and metaphysical minds.

“One Omnipresent Consciousness”, cannot be the Creator of any thing at all, since it would necessary be dependant on all creation itself, meaning, Thing-NESS (not Things itself) has to also then be necessarily Omnipresent for consciousness to be or mean anything at all.

In my opinion it is the interdependent interactivity of Thing-ness itself, which is the self-creationary and destructive force infinitely omnipresent, which absolutely everything is ultimately interactively dependant on, in a yin/yang fashion. Even the knowing (Gnosis) itself is necessarily dependant on what it itself is not, hence not absolute in and off its-self either, but only comparatively, including against all other knowings.

Is it possible for OOC to be without Thing-Ness itself? Which of course is not it I take it.

Realizing that all manifestaion ("Thing-ness) is "the body" of One Omnipresent Consciousness, is enlightenment, often, these days called non-dual awareness, merely the negative way to say "conscious unity", the title of my website.
So both the transcendental OOC and the physical cosmos are real, simultaneous and interdepentent. "Which came first?" is a question generated by the linear mind, which believes, erroneously in beginnings and endings.... the "chicken or the egg" question/fallacy.

mikiel