Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

[jupiviv]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue

It can be coherently imagined. People do it all the time. Let's say someone tells you that A=A is not true. How would you prove him wrong? Another question is, how can A=A be known as a universal truth if there are so many things(eg., a chair) and people for whom it is not true?

[Cory Duchesne]

You know that you've experienced evidence (TV doc, wiki) of polar bears in the north pole.

OK, well, if you want to be all extreme about things, which it seems you do, then let's take it to the most extreme: do I really know that I've experienced evidence? What if I'm under mind control and have had false memories inserted?

You know that you've experienced the appearance of evidence, this is absolutely irrefutable. Whether or not that appearance will be valuable in the future is uncertain. With further data, new appearances modify or replace the old, but that does not invalidate the fact that prior to the new data, you had the appearance of evidence. There are always lots of "what ifs" in the realm of sensory experience, nothing of that nature can be certain, other than the fact that A = A, which is a deductive truth anyways.

Now, you can go on and believe in polar bears in the North Pole, but that's not necessary, and it's definitely not the truth. In fact, there is no truth in modeling (science) at all, facts about the world are useful constructs, or, just as often, masturbation.

Woah there Nellie! "Definitely not the truth"? How in the world do you justify that?

What is the North Pole? Where does it really begin and end? What is a polar bear? Where does it begin and end? Models are just models, sometimes useful, sometimes abused.

If there are indeed polar bears at the North Pole, then any belief to that effect is true. If the scientific models reflect reality perfectly accurately, then they are true.

Scientific models can never reflect reality perfectly accurately. They are always imperfect.

Deductive logic is the only real proof. If you can deduce it logically, then you have absolute proof, no need for belief. [...] You know only the appearances, and hence, really you know nothing at all. It's all guess work in the realm of the empirical.

Your use of "real" and "really" presumably connotes that only knowledge gained through pure deduction (particularly, abstract mathematical knowledge) or pure experience ("I know that I am experiencing a monitor screen in front of me right now") is valid. I would concur that it's the knowledge in which we can be most certain, but empirical knowledge is possible too; if we deny the possibility of empirical knowledge then we lose a great deal of meaning for the word "know". Knowing entails that what is known is true, and empirical facts can be true, and can be known.

Empirical facts can be known as they are: appearances. We know them as such, and nothing more. Science is a useful tradition, where appearances reoccur reliably and can be built upon to increase efficiency at producing predicted effects. But science does not reflect reality perfectly, it cannot. It only deals in approximations.

Laird: Do I merely believe that the car is going to slow down and stop, or do I know it?

Cory: If you're wise, you'll wait and see.

Very clever, but if you're trying to imply that beliefs are unnecessary in the world, then I disagree - at least if one wants to be active in the world: then, at the very least, implicit beliefs are inescapable.

Sure, in many instances I go ahead and have some beliefs for pragmatic reasons, or out of laziness, but they are not necessary for doing philosophy or science. Definitely helpful for being religious, though.

Laird: Perhaps we could try coming at it from this angle: hypothetically speaking, could the Totality as an entirety be other than it is right now, such that, for example, rather than reading my post at this instant of time, you are instead making a cup of tea, or, even more drastically, you never even existed?

Cory: You can't divide the totality up in parts like that and make contrasts without destroying it's totalness. You are comparing the finite with the finite.

You don't seem to have understood what I wrote. I wrote "as an entirety". That's the key phrase. I'm not destroying its totalness because any local changes would be reflected throughout the rest of the Totality, so that its causal integrity (which is what I think you mean by "totalness") was maintained. I only compared finite with finite as representatives of the respective (different) infinites to which they belong.

You spoke of the totality as it is right now which means you are misunderstanding the fact that the totality doesn't exist in time, the totality is all of time simultaneously. In other words, no time, no happenings, no contrast, no cause and effect, just an undivided continuum, a simultaneousness, an at-onceness, a timelessness. You can't speak of "happenings" when we speak of the totality.

[RobertGreenSky]

Laird is talking here about provisional assumptions, not beliefs. At least that is how a more conscious person operates - taking nothing for granted, thinking of the future in terms of proposals and tentative assumptions.

Belief represents the end of consciousness. A person with a belief is saying to the world that further than this he will not go.

-

David,


Of course sometimes we need to think out some of our problems but what has that to do with Laird's example? Does 'a more conscious person' worry for the solidity of a walkway? You know better. What then is the necessity for even implicit 'provisional assumptions' in walking or in adding 2 plus 2? One can walk down the street with no bother for any provisional assumptions, just as a horse or a baby wouldn't bother for them, and one can add (and subtract!) without concern for the correctness of the real numbers; let's all try adding 2 + 2 without worrying about the reasonableness of mathematics - was your answer 4?


Laird suggested the necessity for at least an implicit belief that a walkway would remain solid, yet why do we need it and how is it there can anyway be an implicit belief rather than an explicit one? You may substitute if you wish that we need an implicit provisional assumption about the solidity of the walkway rather than an explicit provisional assumption, but if we're observing solidity aren't we already drawing on at least one implicit antithesis and when in fact there are all kinds of conditions the walkway could be if our imaginations are in play, e.g, as above, liquid, gaseous, molten, etc. If there is really a mechanism at work here how does it satisfy itself quickly enough that we ever get anywhere? There is no need for an implicit belief or provisional assumption about mere walking and if it's explicit how could it ever be satisfied?


My real interest is arguing against belief. Whether they are big B Beliefs, as in God, or little b beliefs, as in the work of some imbecile philosopher, men need to be psychologically liberated from them. We have disagreed previously on the significance of thinking to human beings - you value it far more than do I - but I think you also see the danger of belief.

[RobertGreenSky]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue, therefore it cannot be "believed". It is either understood - or not; that's all.

What is incoherent to one is reasonable to another. Recalling a famous A = A, cogito, ergo sum*, Descartes was forced to turn to an undeceiving God to support the matter.


Recall also the Zhuangzi butterfly story in which the point is to undermine the supposed reasonableness of conclusions like A = A. Similarly Nagarjuna in Mulamadhyamakakarika 18:8, 'Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.' (- Stephen Batchelor online translation, http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/nagarju ... entre.html ) The certainty which does well for you, Dan, did not do well for those individuals and for their Buddhist and Daoist positions.



* '... an existence has been posited; it is not the existence of the object; it must be the existence of the subject. The reality of the existence is not in the first A or the second A, but in the simultaneous identity of the two. And so the proposition A = A is no other than the proposition “I am.” (Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Kevin's downloadable .pdf, p. 95)

[jupiviv]

'... an existence has been posited; it is not the existence of the object; it must be the existence of the subject. The reality of the existence is not in the first A or the second A, but in the simultaneous identity of the two. And so the proposition A = A is no other than the proposition “I am.” (Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Kevin's downloadable .pdf, p. 95)

Ah! A magnificent piece of reasoning! There is no way of finding fault with that, and it demonstrates his point perfectly.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Descartes was forced to turn to an undeceiving God to support the matter.

But how did Descartes define his God? If if he did that with his "most perfect being" *) one could argue this God, as absolute or infinite reality - "there is only God" - is indeed unavoidably essential to any A=A assertion.


*) based perhaps on Anselm's: "greatest possible object of thought". And "most perfect" for Descartes appears to be related to "most real" or therefore "most ultimate" or "most complete" which has to include "greatest possible". And being has no real other quality in the abstract than existence.

[RobertGreenSky]

'... an existence has been posited; it is not the existence of the object; it must be the existence of the subject. The reality of the existence is not in the first A or the second A, but in the simultaneous identity of the two. And so the proposition A = A is no other than the proposition “I am.” (Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Kevin's downloadable .pdf, p. 95)

Ah! A magnificent piece of reasoning! There is no way of finding fault with that, and it demonstrates his point perfectly.

Perhaps, but Weininger also wrote:

From the psychological point of view, the real meaning of the proposition of identity is not so difficult to interpret. It is clear that to be able to say A = A, to establish the permanence of the conception through the changes of experience, there must be something unchangeable, and this can be only the subject. Were I part of the stream of change I could not verify that the A had remained unchanged, had remained itself. Were I part of the change, I could not recognise the change. Fichte was right when he stated that the existence of the ego was to be found concealed in pure logic, inasmuch as the ego is the condition of intelligible existence.

- ibid, pp. 95-6

I don't want to rush to interpret Weininger but aren't we running into difficulties on a site supposedly drawing on various Daoist and Buddhist thinkers? What salvation can there be for an unchangeable subject? Wouldn't Weininger forever have been lost in samsara? He seems to be drawing a distinction between the ego or self and what it experiences when all of it is the same mental construction.

The thinker is the thought. We would like it to be different so that the thinker may explain the things to himself by means of the thought.

- J. Krishnamurti

[RobertGreenSky]

Descartes was forced to turn to an undeceiving God to support the matter.

But how did Descartes define his God? If if he did that with his "most perfect being" *) one could argue this God, as absolute or infinite reality - "there is only God" - is indeed unavoidably essential to any A=A assertion. [...]

Diebert,


At Genius Forum absolute reality or 'ultimate reality' seems to be problematic since it is the province of only three individuals - I think that is part of the house philosophy, is it not?


Descartes relied on God to answer the problem of 'hyperbolic doubt' - a characteristic of thinking and which we might also label, a la Zen, 'the monkey chattering' - as mentioned in a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/ . The monkey chattering is Descartes, I would think, but he does get credit for modern philosophy.

[guest_of_logic]

guest_of_logic: It takes a while for a newcomer to understand what the house philosophers are saying here, because it's often framed in rather extreme language, such as that "the self does not exist", whereas, when you probe deeper, you find that for example Kevin acknowledges that the self actually does exist - he describes it as existing in a similar (abstract) way to that in which the number "one" exists -

David: More accurately, it is equivalent to the conception of 1+1=3. The "self" is a logically incoherent conception, after all.

Right! Into The Crucible with you and Kevin! We'll title the debate, "That the self is a logically incoherent conception". You can start. It's been too long since that forum has been used anyway.

Here is a perfect example of what is wrong with your entire thesis at the start of this thread, and your approach to wisdom in general. There is a strong boundary in your mind beyond which you are determined to never cross. It is a boundary which surrounds the soap-opera which comprises your life (which you love so much) and shuts out the machinary of the egotism which powers it at all. To cross this boundary is expressly forbidden in your mind, for it would mean bringing your entire soap-opera world tumbling down.

Your personal analysis is irrelevant to the substance of my essay. I presented several arguments and positions in that essay: feel free to tackle any one of them.

I'm reminded of a quote from Kierkegaard: "In his majesty God sets the pitch so high that if a person is unwilling to let go of his finite common sense, will not abandon flat, self-indulgent mediocrity - then what God calls help, salvation, grace etc, is the most biting irony."

The irony is that you seem to believe that that quote supports your position.

Horses can proceed without erecting beliefs about the safety of their journeys or thinking about them at all and which is a very good thing for horses since they don't have the time for beliefs.

Their beliefs are largely, like many of our beliefs, implicit. The mere smell of a predator might be enough to deter a horse from its journey - why? Because it implicitly believes that danger lies ahead.

Or, imagine a cat, meowing incessantly at its empty bowl - why does it do this? Because it implicitly believes that this increases the likelihood of its being fed.

in short, we need not worry about any of the damned near limitless perturbations we can invent instead of simply walking and without even thinking about it.

Indeed: we need not consciously think about these things because they are subconscious. Whoever said that a belief had to be explicitly conscious? I would suggest that most of the beliefs that we hold, we wouldn't even be aware of holding until actually thinking about them.

If beliefs are necessary to be active in the world then how do animals which we suppose do not engage in linear thinking even function?

Because mostly, their beliefs are implicit, as (I contend) are most of ours. I would also contend that the more complex an animal's mind, the more it is (for its own benefit) subject to beliefs. Complex minds construct models of reality so that they might more safely navigate that reality: these models form the basis of belief.

What is the human genetic necessity of belief?

The word "genetic" seems spurious there, but I already explained the human necessity of belief should one wish to be active in the world: one's actions are reliant on one's (implicit or otherwise) beliefs. If one believes that one will likely finish last in a certain competition, then one might not bother to enter the competition - that kind of thing.

Which particular beliefs are genetically necessary to life, and where might you find them functioning in the brain? Have scientists located them? Are scientists even looking for them? Why you could take that up and get yourself one of them there Noble Prizes.

Cute, but my above answers should suffice here.

Laird, how could a baby learn to walk when it couldn't form a belief about its walking?

It simply couldn't articulate its belief.

But do have fun with the 'house philosophy'.

Why, thank you, I shall.

Zhuangzi wrote, Chapter Two, 'Who knows an unspoken discrimination, an untold Way? It is this, if any is able to know it, which is called the Treasury of Heaven.'

How would you characterise, in a word, or a phrase, or a sentence or two, your general understanding of Eastern philosophy/religion, to which you often make reference and from whose historical exponents you often quote? You definitely don't seem to believe that it is reason-based, so, what, then?

Laird is talking here about provisional assumptions, not beliefs.

A rose by any other name...

You know that you've experienced the appearance of evidence, this is absolutely irrefutable.

Let's keep riding the extremist train, because we haven't gone far enough yet: you know only that you are experiencing the memory of the appearance of evidence. You don't know that that evidence ever actually appeared to you: it might be an implanted memory.

I wonder whether we can take this any further.

Cory: Now, you can go on and believe in polar bears in the North Pole, but that's not necessary, and it's definitely not the truth. In fact, there is no truth in modeling (science) at all, facts about the world are useful constructs, or, just as often, masturbation.

guest_of_logic: Woah there Nellie! "Definitely not the truth"? How in the world do you justify that?

Cory: What is the North Pole? Where does it really begin and end? What is a polar bear? Where does it begin and end? Models are just models, sometimes useful, sometimes abused.

A fuzzy boundary is a boundary nonetheless. You're playing games.

Scientific models can never reflect reality perfectly accurately. They are always imperfect.

And you know this exactly how?

Sure, in many instances I go ahead and have some beliefs for pragmatic reasons, or out of laziness, but they are not necessary for doing philosophy or science. Definitely helpful for being religious, though.

Glad we agree on the existence and sensibility of pragmatic beliefs. "Not necessary for doing science", though, I have a problem with: what about the provisional underlying beliefs of science that reality is consistent, and that results are replicable?

Laird: Perhaps we could try coming at it from this angle: hypothetically speaking, could the Totality as an entirety be other than it is right now, such that, for example, rather than reading my post at this instant of time, you are instead making a cup of tea, or, even more drastically, you never even existed?

Cory: You can't divide the totality up in parts like that and make contrasts without destroying it's totalness. You are comparing the finite with the finite.

Laird: You don't seem to have understood what I wrote. I wrote "as an entirety". That's the key phrase. I'm not destroying its totalness because any local changes would be reflected throughout the rest of the Totality, so that its causal integrity (which is what I think you mean by "totalness") was maintained. I only compared finite with finite as representatives of the respective (different) infinites to which they belong.

Cory: You spoke of the totality as it is right now which means you are misunderstanding the fact that the totality doesn't exist in time, the totality is all of time simultaneously. In other words, no time, no happenings, no contrast, no cause and effect, just an undivided continuum, a simultaneousness, an at-onceness, a timelessness. You can't speak of "happenings" when we speak of the totality.

All of these things are contained by/within the Totality. But taking your point about the Totality containing time, let me rephrase what I wrote then: "Perhaps we could try coming at it from this angle: hypothetically speaking, could the Totality as an entirety be other than it is-has-been-will-be, such that the contents of the present moment are different: so that, for example, rather than reading my post at this instant of time, you are instead making a cup of tea, or, even more drastically, you never even existed?"

If you still have a problem with that, then could you please make an effort to understand my essential point as well as merely criticising any minor problems with how I've framed that point?

[Kelly Jones]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue

It can be coherently imagined. People do it all the time.

Not coherently.

Let's say someone tells you that A=A is not true. How would you prove him wrong?

The person's statement is internally contradictory, so proves itself to be wrong. One can show them how, by explaining that A=A is a symbolic expression of an absolute law, meaning that any identity is what it is, such that, for this law to be untrue, any identity would not be what it is; since the denial that A=A is true, is asserting an identity, namely "A=A is not true" (identity: the untruthfulness of A=A), the person's statement is clearly internally contradictory and proven to be a false statement.

Another question is, how can A=A be known as a universal truth if there are so many things(eg., a chair) and people for whom it is not true?

It is true for all things, conscious and unconscious, but the unconscious don't know it because of their illogicality or a-logicality.


...

[skipair]

It's possible that we hallucinate everything, and that what we experience as A is actually B.

Um, no, that's not possible. You seem to be having a similar issue with A=A that Laird has always had. That things are hallucinations is actually totally irrelevant.

That sentence of mine was referring to a perspective "as if" it were objective, which I later explained is impossible. C'mon Dan. :)

As for the notion of having no explanation for why things are A and not B, I have no idea. Aside from causation, no one has any idea. That's the whole point!!!

I wonder why Laird is spending so much time trying to tear this point down instead of being open about his own views...

[David Quinn]

Laird is talking here about provisional assumptions, not beliefs. At least that is how a more conscious person operates - taking nothing for granted, thinking of the future in terms of proposals and tentative assumptions.

Belief represents the end of consciousness. A person with a belief is saying to the world that further than this he will not go.

Of course sometimes we need to think out some of our problems but what has that to do with Laird's example? Does 'a more conscious person' worry for the solidity of a walkway? You know better. What then is the necessity for even implicit 'provisional assumptions' in walking or in adding 2 plus 2?

The body/brain would be paralyzed with uncertainty and indecision, otherwise. Even when it comes to the simplest, most routine tasks, the body/brain assumes that the world will continue to behave in the same way as before. This assumption is always in play (except when consciously challanged). The body/brain only becomes conscious of the existence of this assumption when it thinks about it or has cause to doubt it.

Creating assumptions about how the world will behave in the future, both in the very next moment and in the long-term, simplifies things for the organism and frees up its mind to focus on other more pressing matters. It's a convenience and a necessity. But this doesn't mean that the organism has to go that extra step and believe in these assumptions.

My real interest is arguing against belief.

Of course. We can agree here. Away with all beliefs! They do nothing but prevent people from developing and progressing.

-


[Edit: "(except when consciously challanged)" has been added - DQ]

[Kelly Jones]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue, therefore it cannot be "believed". It is either understood - or not; that's all.

What is incoherent to one is reasonable to another. Recalling a famous A = A, cogito, ergo sum*, Descartes was forced to turn to an undeceiving God to support the matter.

* '... an existence has been posited; it is not the existence of the object; it must be the existence of the subject. The reality of the existence is not in the first A or the second A, but in the simultaneous identity of the two. And so the proposition A = A is no other than the proposition “I am.” (Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Kevin's downloadable .pdf, p. 95)

Firstly, you don't understand the nature of the law of identity yet.

A=A is not a proposition, it is a law underlying every concept, every logical proposition, and the syllogistic form. Syllogisms aren't "A=A"'s, and don't attempt to be.

Secondly, Descartes' proposition was "cogito", which was wrong. It should have simply been "cogitans" or the like. He made the assumption that the presence of thoughts necessitated a self. Invoking an external authority to endorse his proposition, because of his lack of faith in reason, is Pythonesque.

Thirdly and lastly, Weininger is not supporting the view of self that Descartes was proposing. He is subjecting the very identity and meaning of self to Reality: to what is. In other words, the true self has the same identity as Reality. This is why David said earlier that there is no self.

Recall also the Zhuangzi butterfly story in which the point is to undermine the supposed reasonableness of conclusions like A = A.

Here again you show a basic misunderstanding of the law of identity. It is not a conclusion. It underlies all logical conclusions.

Similarly Nagarjuna in Mulamadhyamakakarika 18:8, 'Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.' (- Stephen Batchelor online translation, http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/nagarju ... entre.html ) The certainty which does well for you, Dan, did not do well for those individuals and for their Buddhist and Daoist positions.

Nagarjuna would be pointing to the nature of Reality, there. He was saying something very certain about it, which was verbally pointing to the truth that one cannot give a dualistic identity to Reality. He was actually relying on A=A in order to say this.

This is basically the syllogism he uses:

Every identity (every "A") is marked out as itself, by contrast to what it is not.
All identities make up the Totality of identities, there being no identity it is not.
Therefore, the Totality is without an identity, including the identity of having contrast to every identity (this also reveals the basic identity of every "A").


...

[David Quinn]

guest_of_logic: It takes a while for a newcomer to understand what the house philosophers are saying here, because it's often framed in rather extreme language, such as that "the self does not exist", whereas, when you probe deeper, you find that for example Kevin acknowledges that the self actually does exist - he describes it as existing in a similar (abstract) way to that in which the number "one" exists -

David: More accurately, it is equivalent to the conception of 1+1=3. The "self" is a logically incoherent conception, after all.

Right! Into The Crucible with you and Kevin! We'll title the debate, "That the self is a logically incoherent conception". You can start. It's been too long since that forum has been used anyway.

I doubt that it would much of a debate.

Laird is talking here about provisional assumptions, not beliefs.

A rose by any other name...

A belief involves a personal investment, such that one comes to emotionally depend on the belief being true, which in turn leads to the habitual distortion of new information and the unrelenting blocking out of all alternative points of view. It is a form of close-mindedness.

By contrast, an assumption is simply a practical convenience. It involves no personal investment and can be instantly discarded at any time. Assumptions form part of the natural flow of the sane, open-minded individual.

-

[Dan Rowden]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue

It can be coherently imagined.

No, it absolutely cannot. Any person must necessarily use it to construct any such imagining. Even illogical thoughts are built on A=A. It doesn't matter that people don't understand. Their imaginings are necessarily incoherent. But then, of course, even incoherence is built out of A=A.

Let's say someone tells you that A=A is not true. How would you prove him wrong?

By showing him that his statement is necessarily built on A=A. If he can't grasp that, then that's really his problem.

Another question is, how can A=A be known as a universal truth if there are so many things(eg., a chair) and people for whom it is not true?

Is gravity untrue because some people don't grasp it?

[Dan Rowden]

@Dan Rowden, why do you think that A=A is not a belief? What proof can you give for the truth of A=A?

It's impossible to coherently imagine A=A to be untrue, therefore it cannot be "believed". It is either understood - or not; that's all.

What is incoherent to one is reasonable to another. 18:8, 'Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.' (- Stephen Batchelor online translation, http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/nagarju ... entre.html ) The certainty which does well for you, Dan, did not do well for those individuals and for their Buddhist and Daoist positions.

Stephen's quote has nothing to do with A=A. It pertains (holds) in any possible metaphysic or ontology.

[David Quinn]

Another question is, how can A=A be known as a universal truth if there are so many things(eg., a chair) and people for whom it is not true?

Is gravity untrue because some people don't grasp it?

A=A is universally true because it is necessarily true for all things, including chairs and people, even though many people don't understand or accept it.

-

[Dan Rowden]

[begin]possibly needless pedantry

Actually, there's no such thing as a person that doesn't accept A=A. What such a person is rejecting cannot be A=A, because if that is actually grasped (and therefore actually the thing in question), it must necessarily be accepted.

[end]possibly needless pedantry

[David Quinn]

Agreed, although I wouldn't call it pedantry. It is actually a crucial point which goes to the heart of what makes it beyond question.

-

[David Quinn]

Given what I've written above about the unsoundness of claiming with certainty that reality is wholly deterministic, I don't accept that the first argument (determinism invalidating the imputation of personal responsibility) is definitively sound. Even assuming a deterministic universe, though, this argument only goes so far: it only deals with emotions that are based upon the false imputation of responsibility - a prime example being pride. It doesn't deal with one of the emotions that gets criticised a lot (most?) by the house philosophers: happiness. It is not necessarily the case that happiness is based upon any imputation of personal responsibility at all - happiness can arise simply from the appreciation of pleasant surroundings or a pleasing thought.

Nothing ever "arises simply", particularly within the human mind. How easily you reveal yourself, Laird.

Here is a perfect example of what is wrong with your entire thesis at the start of this thread, and your approach to wisdom in general. There is a strong boundary in your mind beyond which you are determined to never cross. It is a boundary which surrounds the soap-opera which comprises your life (which you love so much) and shuts out the machinary of the egotism which powers it at all. To cross this boundary is expressly forbidden in your mind, for it would mean bringing your entire soap-opera world tumbling down.

Your personal analysis is irrelevant to the substance of my essay. I presented several arguments and positions in that essay: feel free to tackle any one of them.

You still don't get it. It is impossible to discuss any of this with you because of this limitation. All deeper explanation of the emotions, together with the egotism underlying them, is automatically shut out of your mind as a matter of course. This has the effect of making your essays very shallow and your approach to the whole matter very feeble, bordering on the comical.

There is no point in throwing detailed critiques at us if you're not going to tackle this barrier in your mind. It's a waste of everyone's time.

-

[RobertGreenSky]

[I hate longass {longarse} posts.]

'Horses can proceed without erecting beliefs about the safety of their journeys or thinking about them at all and which is a very good thing for horses since they don't have the time for beliefs.' - Larkin


'Their beliefs are largely, like many of our beliefs, implicit. The mere smell of a predator might be enough to deter a horse from its journey - why? Because it implicitly believes that danger lies ahead.

Or, imagine a cat, meowing incessantly at its empty bowl - why does it do this? Because it implicitly believes that this increases the likelihood of its being fed.' - Shaw

You should support with veterinary (and pediatric) science your assertions that instinctual behavior in horses and cats (and children) actually represent the kinds of adult human mentation you suggest they do - you're anthropomorphizing! While horses might react adversely and instinctually to a large cat or to a snake encountered on a journey, horses don't refuse journeys before the fact because they have beliefs about the outcome. Cats meowing because they are hungry are having an instinctual reaction. They are not meowing because they think, like Christians, that making noise will get them something - kittens mewed for food! Similarly, babies have no beliefs about their mother's tits and they too cry from instinct. Fantasizing about unconscious mentation is a cheap way out of responsibility in an argument and fantasizing is all it is.


'

"Laird, how could a baby learn to walk when it couldn't form a belief about its walking?" - Larkin.


"It simply couldn't articulate its belief." - Shaw

Not only are you an expert on the animal unconscious now you've set yourself up as an expert on pediatric psychology, pretending to know the unconscious content of infants. You're arguing that like adults babies must have implicit beliefs about walking in order to walk. Must they have implicit beliefs about shitting in order to soil their diapers? I googled 'babies beliefs' but returns were 'Beliefs About Babies'; 'The Beliefs of the Baby Boomer', etc., and I could find nothing about beliefs, implicit or otherwise, held by babies themselves. Why don't you ask a few and see what kinds of responses you get - I'm sure your interpretations would be enlightening: someone who can interpret horse and cat behavior as you do would hardly be fazed by infantile speech.

Zhuangzi wrote, Chapter Two, 'Who knows an unspoken discrimination, an untold Way? It is this, if any is able to know it, which is called the Treasury of Heaven.' - Larkin


How would you characterise, in a word, or a phrase, or a sentence or two, your general understanding of Eastern philosophy/religion, to which you often make reference and from whose historical exponents you often quote? You definitely don't seem to believe that it is reason-based, so, what, then? - Shaw

Even the entirety, a whole two sentences, would be wasted time trying to encapsulate what I and others here have been dealing with for years. If you want a clue, the first of Tao te Ching is often translated, 'The way that can be told is not the eternal Way' - Zhuangzi referred to 'an untold Way'. See a relationship? And now you're free to pursue the matter or not, but do consider that if you don't already have at least some acquaintance with the material then your criticisms of the house philosophy might be at least a tad hollow.

[RobertGreenSky]

The body/brain would be paralyzed with uncertainty and indecision, otherwise. Even when it comes to the simplest, most routine tasks, the body/brain assumes that the world will continue to behave in the same way as before. This assumption is always in play. The body/brain only becomes conscious of the existence of this assumption when it thinks about it or has cause to doubt it.

Creating assumptions about how the world will behave in the future, both in the very next moment and in the long-term, simplifies things for the organism and frees up its mind to focus on other more pressing matters. It's a convenience and necessity. But this doesn't mean that the organism has to go that extra step and believe in these assumptions.

- David

Adding 2 + 2 is the 'simplest, most routine task' and no consideration for the state of the world or the future state of the world, or for the accuracy of mathematics, need go into it. Perhaps we are disagreeing about how much planning might be necessary and which of course would depend upon who we are. Some people are 'planners', which perhaps you are moreso than I, others are more spontaneous in nature, but all must plan from time to time. None however need subject themselves to having beliefs about the world.

[Dan Rowden]

I think there's a distinction to be made between belief and prediction based on heuristic dynamics. When I cross a busy street I do not so much "believe" that I'll be safe as predict it based on experience.

I do not "believe" the road won't suddenly open up and swallow me because I've never thought about it because I've never had any experience that has caused me to consider the possibility.

Now that I have considered it: do I believe that it won't, or do I predict it? And more to the point: will I ever cross a fucking street again? :)

[David Quinn]

Adding 2 + 2 is the 'simplest, most routine task' and no consideration for the state of the world or the future state of the world, or for the accuracy of mathematics, need go into it.

The very motivation to add 2 and 2 together as an academic exercise implies an assumption that the world will be relatively unchanged in the next few moments. It assumes, for example, that one is not in immediate danger.

Any matter to do with the empirical world - past, present or future - is inherently uncertain and therefore necessitates the utilization of assumptions. Even spontaneous people happily swanning about in the present moment are utilizing assumptions. Only the dead cease making assumptions.

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[Dan Rowden]

Yes, that the world will even exist in the next moment to accommodate your swanning is an implicit assumption that is made. It may not be conscious, but it's there in every act - I'm assuming that cream bun I'm about to spontaneously scoff will be there when I grab for it. The real point and question, perhaps, is whether one need be egotistically attached to the content and products of these necessary assumptions.