Atheism, Agnosticism, Politics and Religion

That last post went over my head, fresco. Could you back up and illuminate my darkened mind?

I think he's saying that in the condition of infinity, there is no center of the universe, and as humans who are finite, we can only observe snap shots of truth, but never find it in it's untimate form. How's that Fresco?

Actually, the "ultimate form" is what each of us perceive it to be - for what it's worth. c.i.

New thread on speech-gate:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9525&highlight=

Lola - good interpretation !

In an interactionist view of "knowledge" where the observer and the observed are two sides of the same coin, there can never be a "full description" of the coin. The observation of "the coin" is itself subject to a secondary observation problem...etc (See "second order cybernetics" for a formal approach to this).

To flesh this out a little consider an anthropologist who adopts an "ethnocentric approach" in order to "explain" (=predict) the practices of another culture. He attempts to put on their "cultural spectacles" in order to appreciate their "observation needs". ..and "we" who are outside the scenario observe that the anthropogist himself "affects" his objects of observation i.e. WE consider that his findings are not "accurate" or "truthful",.... and so on, for he who observes US observing, who questions OUR "accuracy. ..etc. (Theists at this juncture attempt the escape of putting "He" instead of "he" !) Physicists of course are all well aware of these "Heisenberg" type limits to observation and "truth".

Ah, now I get it. The Heisenberg principle, of course.

Fresco

By any reasonable understanding of the word "know" -- there is nothing you are saying or presenting to this group taht indicates your comment "there is no Ultimate Truth" is anything but a guess.

THERE VERY WELL MAY BE AN ULTIMATE TRUTH.

truth
Fresco, I appreciate your interactionist perspective mainly because it transcends the false issue of objectivism vs subjectivism. We MUST acknowledge that objectivists are not all wrong and that subjectivists have some truth on their side as well. The world "out there" is essentially, in itself meaningless to us , i.e, we cannot take it into account/respond to it until we have interpreted it, and this "subjective" process of interpretation cannot occur in a vacuum (unless we are talking about pure fantasy) without reference to the objective stimuli to which it ascribes meaning.

Re: truth


well known zen koans speak of trying to see one's own face, or mind.

With an interesting article which touches directly upon the original topic at hand, I direct your attention to this:

Why Liberals Are No Fun

July 20, 2003

Despite their domination of the entertainment industry,
liberals barely have a foothold in talk TV and radio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/arts/20RICH.html?ex=1059700503&ei=1&en=051acf3736dd3118

Don't let the title put you off reading it: it is a worthwhile read.

It's gotta be a Frank Rich piece, Sumac? (I won't open the link because my paper will come in tomorrow and I don't want to spoil it!)

JLN

We normally operate in "closed sytems" where the words "truth" and "right" are relative to achieving a particular goal. Common goals lead to consensus and the concept of a "stable" objective reality. However in matters of "the purpose of existence" which religion attempts to deal with, we have an open system where there is no consensus and ordinary logic with its "truth values" breaks down. I'm with Pontius Pilate on this one when he asked "what is truth". (and thanks for the ethnocentricity point).

Frank,

As I have stated before, this meta-logical argument transcends your catch-all "guesswork" clause. However if you would like a more entertaining demolitian job try Dawkins (a Devil's Chaplain) where he would have agnostics justifying the possibility of the existence of interstellar teapots !

Yes, Tartarin, I believe that it was. Has some really interesting ideas in there, whoever it was.

truth
Fresco, I'm a bit dull today, not sure what your last statement means, but let me try. "truth" and "right" refer to statements pursuing goals; they pertain to "arguments" fundamentally pragmatic in nature. And they relate to common social values which assume an objective reality of fixed or absolute truths. Ergo, truth statements pretend to reflect this objective reality. Yet "purpose of existence" issues do not rest on consensual values and ideas (except for what the various churches provide). Note that "true believers"--members--of these churches do not admit to anxieties regarding the purpose of their existence: church doctrine answers and supposedly resolves such questions and anxieties.
What do you mean, however, when you characterize the two enterprises i.e., finding truth/rightness and purpose, as closed and open systems? Are you suggesting that one enterprise rests on a fixed consensual platform while the other does not?

JLN

Exactly ! Religion attempts closure by placing an arbitrary ceiling on enquiry to calm fears of "infinity" and our own "insignificance".
(An interesting perceptual phenomenon - the moon illusion - where the moon looks bigger at the horizon than the zenith - is by analogy "evidence" of this wired in tendency to shut out infinity this time in a visual sense) And using Godels proof loosely, we cannot in a closed system define "truth" of its axioms by internal reference.

An alternative approach to meta-logic is to be found in Piagets genetic epistemology which attempts to describe the psychological development of "logical thought" as an adult trait. This analysis based on an assimilation-accommodation argument cannot itself use "logic" but instead relies on structural coherence. The adaptation process between "organism" and "world" involves a two way mutual structuring with "reality" lying at the interface between
the two. i.e. "The world is like it is because we are like we are - and vice versa" is a snapshot of a relatively stable stage (schema)within our epistemological development either as particular individuals or as societies in general. This latter point is developed by Kuhn in his concept of shifting scientific paradigms (Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

Now of course we are skirting the ineffable here and kuvasz's citation of zen koans heralds our location, but it is only from such metaphorical heights that we can fully appreciate the arbitrary nature of the boundaries of "truth" and "falsity" within the landscape below. Like farmers we erect fences to partition the world for particular purposes. Observation is goal directed. Different purposes lead to disagreements over the legitimacy of fences ,between different groups of "farmers" and uneasy co-existence (the Wild West!).

The agnostic position is unassailable.

If Dawkins were a member of this forum -- and presented that stale old baloney -- I'd make minced meat of him.

You wanna give it a shot?

truth
Wow, we used to be such pussy cats. Now the abuzzers look like wimps.

Frank



I think the "interstellar teapots" were coined by Bertrand Russell who made a good living from such "baloney"! His mincemeat dealer was in fact Wittgenstein who took took logic and language to the cleaners (and hence is one of my good guys !) . I note that you do not comment on my own semantic analysis of "truth" and logic" other than to state (your opinion ? ) that my usage of "know" is "unreasonable". But thats an appeal to consensus, Frank, which is the essence of my case! Your "unassailable" fortress has shallow foundations !

For your information this is the challenge that Dawkins issues to agnostics:

"If religious arguments are actually better than Russell's teapot, let us hear the case. Otherwise let those who call themselves agnostic with respect to religion add they are equally agnostic about orbiting teapots...We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further".(Italics mine)

You might like to pursue that challenge on another thread.

I don't like the term, "brights" to represent people who recognize the obvious functionality of natural selection within the biological process of evolution.

A better term for people who recognize what's going on around them would probably be "observant", or "aware".

I suspect that the fundamental recognition of biological evolution (if not the component pieces of the process) has been around for a long time. If you went back in time and told an American Indian that all life is related and that traits are passed on from father to son, and that if something failed to reproduce that it's heritage would be lost... I bet the indian would give you a dope slap, and look at you like you had just told him that rain is wet.

It doesn't take Darwin to tell me that things have evolved. I can see that just by looking around. And the obvious potency of Natural Selection within the system is something which shouldn't have taken until the last century to write down, except that public pressure from people who lived in fear of anything which might conflict with their preconceived notions of how they wanted things to be, probably kept most people from expressing these ideas.

Well the time for that nonsense should be long gone by now.

Merely looking at the life around us is sufficient to recognize that things are related and that life has evolved from common ancestry. The mechanism of natural selection is only one of the various aspects of the process, but it's a no-brainer: You don't have to be *bright* to see it, you just have to be *willing* to see it.

Best Regards,

Am enjoying this discussion immensely, and particularly the back-and-forth between JL and Fresco.

We always appear to be looking for an answer, for who's right. That, I think, is where the problem lies. Fresco concurs with JL, writing: "Religion attempts closure by placing an arbitrary ceiling on enquiry to qualm fears of 'infinity' and our own 'insignificance'."

In my view, anything short of tabula rasa and ongoing inquiry is "closure." We either accept our own, individual forms of closure, or we are willing (eager, in my case) to accept a permanent state of inquiry. All mutability; all questions.

There's an interesting little (animated) film, Linklater's latest, called "Waking Life." A long discussion about... life... the dream state vs. "reality." Various animators were involved, but a single visual style prevails -- constant movement and change and shifts of light and shadow.

The sad truth is that so many miss out on awareness, willingness to see... to watch.

Rosborne's post is wonderful.