Destroy My Belief System, Please!

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I was trying to help you express yourself clearly, Frank. I can't answer your question if I don't understand it. Nor can you understand the answer if you don't understand your own question...

Oh, I understand my questions, Olivier...and I suspect you understand them also. But you realize that you don't know much about REALITY either...but don't have the ethical wherewithal to acknowledge that. Too bad that.

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I understand my questions

I don't think so. You don't analyse your own questions at all, you just fire them without thinking.

In any case, how the heck would you know that "you understand your question" if by your own reckoning, you know nothing about reality???? Is your question not a part of reality???

Quote:

But you realize that you don't know much about REALITY either...but don't have the ethical wherewithal to acknowledge that.

Wrong guess Frank. I told you I knew a lot about reality. Why do you think this is inaccurate? Do you know better than I do about what I know and don't know? How come, if you know nothing about reality???

Your posts provide a constant flow of logical contradictions... Do you ever try and be logical, Frank?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

This used to be an interesting thread until you two decided to turn it into a dogfight.

0 Replies

@fresco,

This deserves repeating,

Quote:

And I am saying for the umpteenth time that the words "is" ,"know", "reality" and "truth" only have currency/meaning in contexts in which they can be tested. In short, you have been saying NOTHING AT ALL for all the years you have been spouting your mantra.

I got off frankie boy's merry-go-round some time ago, just because he says nothing with all those words. What's more perplexing is that he think he's the only one with the right answer! LOL

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Correction: I think "ultimate truth" means something. The final say. The true theory of everything. But the "final reality" means nothing to me.

Olivier sees the FINAL TRUTH as a matter of the "final say". I agree insofar as I see "truth" as a matter of propositions about the nature of reality (a matter of epistemology). But I also agree with Frank's perhaps excessively abstract notion of reality as "whatever is" (a matter of ontology). This applies both to the reality of what's in the kitchen (as I suggested somewhere else) and the ULTIMATE REALITY--what the final say would talk about, if it could.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Correction: I think "ultimate truth" means something. The final say. The true theory of everything. But the "final reality" means nothing to me.

Olivier sees the FINAL TRUTH as a matter of the "final say". I agree insofar as I see "truth" as a matter of propositions about the nature of reality (a matter of epistemology). But I also agree with Frank's perhaps excessively abstract notion of reality as "whatever is" (a matter of ontology). This applies both to the reality of what's in the kitchen (as I suggested somewhere else) and the ULTIMATE REALITY--what the final say would talk about, if it could.

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I see! And you suppose that because you say it is that way...all the rest of us have to fall into line and accept that it is so?

No. You don't see/can't see/ won't see! It should be obvious even to someone of even of limited ability that words are linguistic tokens whose meaning is embedded in the context of their usage. You are dogmatically blind to the fact that you are using the context of a belief system which assumes Kant's noumena (i.e. the idea of an inaccessible objective reality). It is blatantly a "God's eye view" which you then project (a la Freud) onto to anybody who has the brains to point it out.

Every student of linguistics comes across Chomsky's infamous "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Does this have meaning ? It is of course meaningless because of this particular juxtaposition of component words which in other contexts might have meaning. Your juxtaposition of words about "reality" is similarly meaningless because you both deny knowledge of the meaning of is-ness (reality) and simultaneously assert it by chanting the platitude "whatever is - IS".( a la Doris Day... que sera- SERA) That assertion constitutes a belief in Kant's noumena no matter how much you try to squirm out of it.

3 Replies

@fresco,

Wonderful!

1 Reply

@JLNobody,

Quote:

Olivier sees the FINAL TRUTH as a matter of the "final say". I agree insofar as I see "truth" as a matter of propositions about the nature of reality (a matter of epistemology). But I also agree with Frank's perhaps excessively abstract notion of reality as "whatever is" (a matter of ontology). This applies both to the reality of what's in the kitchen (as I suggested somewhere else) and the ULTIMATE REALITY--what the final say would talk about, if it could.

Reality is of course classically defined as "what exists, what is the case". There's no problem there. The problem I see is in confusing reality and truth. Truth is about having a symbolic representation of reality that matches. It requires much much more than reality.

While reality exists by definition, the possibility of a "final truth", an insuperable truth, a true theory of everything, is far from proven. Maybe it just cannot be reached.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

If "reality" is defined pragmatically as "the arena for testing truth" rather than nebulously as "what exists",
and
if we agree with Kant that such an arena is ultimately inaccessible ,
then
surely it follows that phrase "ultimate truth" is meaningless except in a religious context.

3 Replies

@fresco,

From MPOV, even in a religious context, the meaning is a subjective one. That's the reason why humans believe in so many different religions.

0 Replies

@fresco,

From MPOV, even in a religious context, the meaning is a subjective one. That's the reason why humans believe in so many different religions.

0 Replies

@fresco,

Reality exists independently of truth. It existed before any man was ever born and able to speak the truth (or not). Confusing those two concepts is not useful.

I can understand the concept of "ultimate truth", and thus disagree that it is meaningless. The concept means something. The "ultimate truth" may not necessarily exists or might never exist though...

3 Replies

@Olivier5,

Quote:

Reality exists independently of truth.

That's a mouthful, and spot on! Human thinking on most things perceived are subjective to the individual - even on topics such as evolution and religion.

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@Olivier5,

Okay, I don't want to go round in circles with you about "naive realism" and "existence". Given the fact that all individuals and all species appear to see the world differently, I would merely ask the question "whose reality existed before that of cognate beings ?" and I defy you or anybody else to answer this, without postulating a "God's Eye View", which is the equivalent of advocating an anthropomorphic "divinity" per se..

Thinkers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but "the ultimate". Wink

3 Replies

@fresco,

I believe there are cognate animals. As far as the human species is concerned, language developed slowly. Even the first English dictionary was a conglomeration of foreign words used in literature, and the contributors were from many lands.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Well on the basis of Maturana's definition of "cognition" as "the general life process", all life is "cognate" !

1 Reply

@fresco,

I can buy that! Mr. Green

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
I understand my questions

I don't think so. You don't analyse your own questions at all, you just fire them without thinking.

In any case, how the heck would you know that "you understand your question" if by your own reckoning, you know nothing about reality???? Is your question not a part of reality???

I understand my questions. You almost certainly understand them also.

Play games as much as you want...it is a delight to see you squirm.

So...is there a god?

Quote:

Quote:
But you realize that you don't know much about REALITY either...but don't have the ethical wherewithal to acknowledge that.

Wrong guess Frank. I told you I knew a lot about reality. Why do you think this is inaccurate?

Ahhh...more game playing.

Your responses neglected the possibility that all of what we sense...is nothing more than an illusion.

Like I said...I was expecting you to be a serious person. Not sure why I was expecting that, but hope springs eternal.

Do I exist?

Quote:

Do you know better than I do about what I know and don't know? How come, if you know nothing about reality???

Perhaps I do. You seem to be kidding yourself about what you know.

If this thing we call "the universe" came into existence rather than always existed...

...was there anything before the universe came into existence?

Quote:

Your posts provide a constant flow of logical contradictions... Do you ever try and be logical, Frank?

I am almost always logical, Olivier. But you seem to have trouble recognizing logical thought...which might account for your not realizing it.

And I apparently am an unscratchable itch for you.

I probably shouldn't, but I'm kinda getting a kick out of that!

Are there no gods?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

This deserves repeating,
Quote:
And I am saying for the umpteenth time that the words "is" ,"know", "reality" and "truth" only have currency/meaning in contexts in which they can be tested. In short, you have been saying NOTHING AT ALL for all the years you have been spouting your mantra.

I got off frankie boy's merry-go-round some time ago, just because he says nothing with all those words. What's more perplexing is that he think he's the only one with the right answer! LOL

Yeah, you got off the merry-go-round...like flies no longer like horse dung!

When you gonna come back on to tell me you are ignoring me?

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/laughing/crying-with-laughter.gif

0 Replies

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