ChaoticMindSays wrote: ↑September 21st, 2010, 4:45 pm
Alun said,
However, it remains that logical and empirical thinking are the only reliable ways of communicating without loss of information to subjective bias, which is what makes them so valuable.
Hmm.. I disagree with this statement. I know I am perfectly able to make decisions without using logical thinking, only, and without allowing my personal bias to effect said decision. I think there are serious problems with the whole... subjective/objective idea. It does not allow for a wide enough range of possibility, it is an either or system. It shouldn't be a either or system.
Has anyone here read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance? Or, Lila? By Pirsig.
I agree with this reasoning.
I noticed that many users on this forum hold a belief in
ontological realism which is based on the magical belief that reality is
really real. It is the belief that
objective reality is ultimately something
non-disputable within any context of thinking. In my opinion this is the root of the pertinacity of the problem.
An example (philosophy teacher):
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 26th, 2021, 11:29 am
First, why would "what causes reality to exist" be necessary for knowing whether there is reality? (Keeping in mind that by "reality" here we're referring to the objective world.)
Results of a 2020 PhilPapers Survey showed that 51.9% of academic philosophers believe in physicalism.
What Philosophers Believe: Results from the 2020 PhilPapers Survey
https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... =6&t=17640
An example (a philosophy teacher):
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 4:30 pmSo I'm a physicalist. I'm convinced that the mind is simply brain processes.
- Do you believe in intrinsic existence without mind?
- Do you believe that mind has a cause within the scope of physical reality?
Yes and yes. I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").
Some practical derivative reasoning examples:
GE Morton wrote: ↑November 12th, 2022, 2:06 pmThere is no need for it [the Universe] to have an origin. It may well be eternal:
"Something cannot come from nothing. Therefore something has always existed."
---Robert Nozick (which argument he attributes to his 9-year old daughter)
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑April 28th, 2021, 5:01 pmFor any given initial existent, either it "spontaneously appeared" or it always existed. Those are the only two options, and they're both counterintuitive. Nevertheless, there's no other choice.
Logical options. Either we're exhausting the logical possibilities or we're not. Again, if you can think of a third option, that's great, but you'd need to present what the third option would be.
At question would be how a philosophical 'option' (magically always existed or magically have sprung into existence) is possible in the first place. It is then seen that for any option to be possible an aspect is required that is not of a nature that allows a choice.
The problem is most prominently is visible in the Infinite Monkey Theorem that is seriously considered by many people today.
Infinite Monkey Theorem
https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... =1&t=16601
In many diverse cases - for example the idea that time must have had a beginning - the error is made
to exclude the observer from the consideration. Mathematical infinity is merely a
potential infinity which cannot logically be applicable to reality since it requires a
begin that is introduced by an observer.
An example:
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 18th, 2020, 8:32 am
The whole point is that if there's an infinite amount of time prior to Tn then we can't get to Tn because you can't complete an infinity of time prior to Tn. Why not? Because infinity isn't a quantity or amount we can ever reach or complete.
'To complete' implies a begin and what can explain a begin? It is the observer that logically introduces a begin in such a reasoning. The observer is completely excluded from the consideration.
A few days ago a user attempted to respond to my argument that the observer is mistakenly excluded from the consideration and then uses reasoning that exactly makes that mistake:
value wrote: ↑November 27th, 2022, 7:34 am
Consul wrote: ↑November 26th, 2022, 5:14 pm
Consul wrote: ↑November 26th, 2022, 5:06 pm
See: Countably infinite
This doesn't mean that if you started counting the members of a countably infinite set and lived forever, there would be some time in the future when you have counted all of its members.
You are making an example of the argument that I provided in my first post in this topic: the observer is erroneously excluded from the consideration.
How can it be said that 'objective reality' is really real in the face of the consideration that the
begin introduced by an observer is logically the begin of the world?
To repeat: at question would be how a logical 'option' (magically always existed or magically have sprung into existence) is possible in the first place. It is then seen that for any option to be possible an aspect is required that is not of a nature that allows a choice. This same problem is addressed by the consideration that people are mistakenly excluding the observer from consideration in logic and reasoning.