Can you neither believe nor disbelieve...

Re: Can you neither believe nor disbelieve...

Sign Related 2 wrote:

that there is a computer screen you're looking at upon reading this?

BELIEVING THIS IS ACCEPTANCE OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

NOT BELIEVING THIS IS DENIAL OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

2 B OR NOT 2 B

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Re: Can you neither believe nor disbelieve...
SR 2

I believe there is a computer screen I am looking when reading and answer. Why? Because I'm looking at it. Because it is part of my experience conditions as I conceive them.

But, if your question meant "is there a computer screen?" the problem is different. But my answer would be the same. Yes, because I see it, because I use it, because it is part of my experience.

Third possibility: is there a computer screen when nobody is in the room?
My answer: I dont know.

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I provisionally accept that I am looking at a computer screen, but it is possible that I dreaming, hallucinating, looking at hologram of a computer screen, or seeing a random pattern of emitted electrons that closely matches a previously stored pattern in my brain labeled "computer screen." And of course there is the ever-popular brain-in-a-vat theory where some entity of unknown origin and intent feeds me electrical impulses to make me think I am seeing a computer screen.

For all practical purposes, my guess is that millions of years of evolution have enabled my brain to produce a reasonable facsimile of what really exists outside of my mind. Yes, it assigns "colors" to photon frequencies, "music" to harmonic oscillations of air molecules, and "happiness" to a particular level of biochemicals in my brain, but its ability to perceive the world in a meaningful way does not change the fact that Reality is still the fundamental source of its perceptions.

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Deep subject.

Now wondering if not only my screen is real, but also my keyboard, my fingers on the keyboard, and even the desk upon which all of it sits.

I'm going back to bed!

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I have 'hard evidence' that i am looking at an actual computer screen;
I pinched it, and it screamed!

[now if i can just get it to pinch me.........]

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Re: Can you neither believe nor disbelieve...

-I-1-2-No-U- wrote:

Sign Related 2 wrote:
that there is a computer screen you're looking at upon reading this?

BELIEVING THIS IS ACCEPTANCE OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

NOT BELIEVING THIS IS DENIAL OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

2 B OR NOT 2 B

Is there something wrong with your computer Caps Lock button...or do you just like to shout?

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Terry: Very well put.

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Similar to the concept of 'free will', while it may be of some 'entertaining' interest to consider the possibility; endless worrying about whether one is making a complete fool of oneself by being 'taken in' by the alternative is meaningless, and it really makes more sense to go on assuming that reality is reality, until extensively demonstrated otherwise!

[it really doesn't matter!]

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Re: Can you neither believe nor disbelieve...

Frank Apisa wrote:

-I-1-2-No-U- wrote:
Sign Related 2 wrote:
that there is a computer screen you're looking at upon reading this?

BELIEVING THIS IS ACCEPTANCE OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

NOT BELIEVING THIS IS DENIAL OF THE REALITY THAT ONE EXPERIENCES

2 B OR NOT 2 B

Is there something wrong with your computer Caps Lock button...or do you just like to shout?

yes, No, MAYBE

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Hmmm.. A lively mix of madness and... madness. Our senses do not lie. They tell us what they believe is truth. So yes, it is a computerscreen, and no it is not.

Yes, because I sense it.

No, because I all I see is plastic and minerals and fluids, plus some magic i don't understand. Come to think of it, "computer screen" is more of an idea than an actual object.

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Cyracuz
All those "plastic and minerals and fluids and magic" were systematically organized in a wole system with a finality. This finality is what we call a computer screen.

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I think the answer is in the question.

Belief is the operative word. I see the screen and have no choice but to believe it is there.

Let's pose this question the opposite way - You see the screen in front of you (that is not up for debate). Now, can you really NOT believe it is not there?

Can you by some magik of the will volit yourself to believe that the screen is not there? I don't think that the will is that strong. You can say that you have just willed it to go away. But when you open your eyes you have no choice to 'believe' that it is still there.

Now - that is a seperate question from if you have any other evidence to make a 'factual' statment that the screen is there. (generally this has to be independently verified to be accpeted as a fact - and we don't have, in the scenario posed, two people thinking that the screen is there)

It is also a seperate question as to whether a person has 'faith' that it is still there. Belief, knowledge, and faith are three seperate things.

So, as your question is currently posed I belief it is self referentially incoherent to say that "I don't believe that I see a screen in front of me right now." You have just stated that you believe it is still there. The question really is - do I know it is there?

TTF

p.s. I think the majority of the posters above answered the question as if it was posed 'I KNOW that there is a computer screen in front of me right now."

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We have to believe or disbelieve. If we don't then we are simply ignorant of it, or that we are dead or irrational.

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Ray - I think you are talking about faith and not belief. You have no choice but to believe - you can choose not to have faith in that belief - but once you are exposed to it - you have no choice but to belief you saw it.

Ignorance is lack of belief - the totality of the lack of knowledge.

Opinion - may or may not be correct knowledge.

Knowledge - is what is - completely.

TTF

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thethinkfactory wrote:

Ray - I think you are talking about faith and not belief. You have no choice but to believe - you can choose not to have faith in that belief - but once you are exposed to it - you have no choice but to belief you saw it.

Ignorance is lack of belief - the totality of the lack of knowledge.

Opinion - may or may not be correct knowledge.

Knowledge - is what is - completely.

TTF

If humans had any sense at all...they would do away with that word "believe" and all its dirivitives.

I have a lack of belief...and I am not ignorant.

Beliefs are guesses that are being disguised by the use of the word "belief." I don't do that disguising. If I am offering a guess...I identify it as a guess.

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Frank:

What you spell out is faith. Belief is not faith. Belief is when you open your eyes, see something in front of you, you must belief that you see it. You can accent to that belief or even seek to measure it and eventually call that belief knowledge.

I am attempting to define belief as seperate from faith.

As far as faith being a guess - you and I have gone 12 rounds on this - and I respect your position - and as you know don't agree.

TTF

P.S. You are up early this morning - can't sleep or do you have an early tee time? Wink

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thethinkfactory wrote:

Frank:

What you spell out is faith. Belief is not faith. Belief is when you open your eyes, see something in front of you, you must belief that you see it. You can accent to that belief or even seek to measure it and eventually call that belief knowledge.

I am attempting to define belief as seperate from faith.

As far as faith being a guess - you and I have gone 12 rounds on this - and I respect your position - and as you know don't agree.

Well...I enjoy discussing these things with you because you are always a courteous opponent...and you somehow manage not to plug into my little excesses.

Lemme say this:

In my opinion, a belief IS a guess about the unknown.

"Faith", in my opinion, IS insisting that the guess (belief) is correct.

Think about that for a bit.

Here is a taste of my reasoning:

Some people (theists) aver that they "believe in God"...and have faith.

As I see it, the "belief" is a guess that there is a God. The "faith" is the insistence that the "belief" (or guess) is correct.

Normally one would not say: I "believe" 2 + 2 = 4!

That has to do with "knowing" (albeit the purists among us would argue that nothing can truly be know).

Quote:

P.S. You are up early this morning - can't sleep or do you have an early tee time?

No golf today...but getting up at 4:30 is a tough habit to break...both for me and Sparky, our cat!!!

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I hear your Frank. In my use of syntax Faith is the accenting that the experience a person has leads them to claim as inductive knowledge God as existing.

True - deductive 'knowledge' that thier is God is dogma and hardheadedness pure and simple.

I am a faithful person but I don't insist there is a God.

TF

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