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[Scoops Novel]

Scriver, of course it does. I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experiences outside the norm when it comes to that.

[MrWiggles]

Bill Moher comes to mind. I dont have any direct experiences though.

[Moghjubar]

Hrmm, came across this today... the points seem topical (apologies if its been linked before in thread) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism

Has anyone read this?

[10ebbor10]

Hrmm, came across this today... the points seem topical (apologies if its been linked before in thread) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism

Has anyone read this?

I haven't, but from what I've seen, it certainly applies to  religious fractions.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, the "thought terminating cliche" thing certainly applies to some. "God works in mysterious ways" is a very well known one.

[Fenrir]

“We all assume an objective reality, therefore I can assume whatever I want,” is not valid reasoning, because, as I have said, we assume out of necessity, not because assumptions are good.

Necessity for what? If we accept the possibility of not living in an actual reality, you have no necessity of dealing with it.

Well, it is not necessary to assume that my reality is not illusory, but it is necessary to assume that this reality is consistent. It seems to me that nothing whatever could be done if I did not, and my mind is not capable of discarding this belief anyway. I expect gravity to still be functioning the same way tomorrow, and for no better reason than it has worked every day of my life, but I could never make myself believe otherwise. I might chant it to myself all I like, but I could not make myself expect so.

So, yes, we should not presume that what we see is not all a sophisticated simulation an therefore not “actual reality”, but we can not stop assuming that whatever this is will keep behaving consistently. That is the principle assumtion that we must necessarily make, simply because we can not make our brains do anything else.

And that first part is a strawman. No, justification for assuming whatever we want is not the point I'm making.

Perhaps it would have been more of flesh and less of straw if I had better put it. “We all assume an objective reality, therefore I can not be criticized for making more assumptions.”

Quite the opposite, actually. The point I'm making is by simply interacting with the world around you, you're just as guilty of a bullshit, baseless assumption as any religious person is. So please, keep off the high horse. That's all.

I am not sure that I deserved such an accusative response, and I am also offended by your speciesism and cultural ignorance—I never find myself on a high horse (except for that one time in Tijuana), as I trust you can understand how awkward it would be for one quadrupedal mammal to attempt riding another.

The point is, I may perhaps be guilty of “bullshit”, as you put it, but the religious person is guilty of MOAR bullshit. Not only does he presume that his God exists and all the other assumptions necessary to support his religion, but—even I were to assume that this is not all an illusion—he also makes all of my assumptions: there is a reality beyond himself, and this reality is consistent.

So, if you mean by “keep off the high horse” that I mate with horses, you are _^mostly wrong. If you mean that I would be a hypocrite to criticize someone for making a baseless assumption, you are wrong. If you mean that I should not sneer at religious people, you might have noticed that I was not doing that in the first place.

[Descan]

... Can I get a picture of that time in Tijuana?

[lemon10]

Shush you. We both know that him showing that picture is against the forum rules.

[kaijyuu]

I'm also interested in a picture

Well, it is not necessary to assume that my reality is not illusory, but it is necessary to assume that this reality is consistent. It seems to me that nothing whatever could be done if I did not, and my mind is not capable of discarding this belief anyway. I expect gravity to still be functioning the same way tomorrow, and for no better reason than it has worked every day of my life, but I could never make myself believe otherwise. I might chant it to myself all I like, but I could not make myself expect so.

So, yes, we should not presume that what we see is not all a sophisticated simulation an therefore not “actual reality”, but we can not stop assuming that whatever this is will keep behaving consistently. That is the principle assumtion that we must necessarily make, simply because we can not make our brains do anything else.

I'm pretty sure we could force ourselves; in fact, isn't dreaming exactly that? Kinda irrelevant I suppose though.

I've been thinking a bit about this recently, and I guess I'll go off on a tangent about it.

One of the arguments for empiricism is "we have no evidence of it being false!" I question whether it's theoretically possible to have any evidence like that, barring "waking up" out of it and seeing, much like we do with dreams. How would we differentiate a "glitch in the matrix" (which would be evidence that this world is fake) from standard laws of the universe? The universe acts quite unintuitively in its extremes, such as with quantum mechanics and relativity. We have situations where it's possible to get different results from an experiment with the exact same input (though we can determine the probability of each result). If there were a glitch, how would we know?

You say the universe acts "consistently." I suppose that's true. But it's also true of any simulation we make ourselves; Mario going into the minus world may be a glitch, but it can be experimentally shown as consistently happening every time with the correct input.

Perhaps it would have been more of flesh and less of straw if I had better put it. “We all assume an objective reality, therefore I can not be criticized for making more assumptions.”

We should look at this another way. Let's take the subjects at hand out of the picture for a moment, and just look at the logic.

- Conclusion A is built upon Premise X.
- Conclusion B is also built upon Premise X.
- Premise X is somehow faulty.

To criticize Conclusion B, attacking Premise X is probably a good idea. However, by doing so, Conclusion A is also undermined. So one cannot reject Conclusion B on the basis that Premise X is faulty while still supporting Conclusion A, when they're both built upon Premise X. Attempting to do so is blatant cognitive dissonance.

Back to our situation, empiricism and <insert religion here> are both built upon... well nothing actually, except "because I wanna believe it." As such, attacking a religion on its unfalsifiability while supporting empiricism (which I should remind you all of science is based upon) despite its unfalsifiability is fallacious. You can't move the goalposts like that.

So, you either reject both or find different arguments against religion. I suggest the latter, as there are plenty of other arguments.

The point is, I may perhaps be guilty of “bullshit”, as you put it, but the religious person is guilty of MOAR bullshit. Not only does he presume that his God exists and all the other assumptions necessary to support his religion, but—even I were to assume that this is not all an illusion—he also makes all of my assumptions: there is a reality beyond himself, and this reality is consistent.

"My beliefs don't make sense, but his make even less sense!"

Well okay. I can't argue against that. But still, not the strongest argument

[Grek]

In the case of religion vs. empericism, the setup doesn't look like

1. Premise: An objective reality exists.
2. Therefore, from 1, Empericism.
3. Therefore, from 1, God.

but rather like:

1. Premise: An objective reality exists.
2. Therefore, from 1, Empericism.
3. Premise: The objective reality from 1 is divinely created.
4. Therefore, from 1 & 3, God.

or even

1a. Premise: An objective reality exists.
2a. Therefore, from 1, Empericism.

1b. Premise: The world is divinely created.
2b. Therefore, from 1b, God.

The point is that religion requires additional (or even merely alternative) assumptions that philosophical realism (and thus empericism) does not. Not only that, but those assumptions are different in both scale and in kind from the assumptions required by empericism. The arguments against religion attack those assumptions, not all assumptions required by religion and certainly not the ones shared with empericism.

[Criptfeind]

We should look at this another way. Let's take the subjects at hand out of the picture for a moment, and just look at the logic.

- Conclusion A is built upon Premise X.
- Conclusion B is also built upon Premise X.
- Premise X is somehow faulty.

To criticize Conclusion B, attacking Premise X is probably a good idea. However, by doing so, Conclusion A is also undermined. So one cannot reject Conclusion B on the basis that Premise X is faulty while still supporting Conclusion A, when they're both built upon Premise X. Attempting to do so is blatant cognitive dissonance.

I think this is ridiculous. And here is a a way of pointing out why.

- Conclusion A is built upon Premise X.
- Conclusion B is also built upon Premise X.
- Premise X is correct.

The differences come from the universe randomly realigning itself to change from moment to moment what is right, this is not something we remember because our memories also shift, but not our memories of our conclusions.


Five points to the first person who gets the point I am trying to make.

[Frumple]

"My beliefs don't make sense, but his make even less sense!"

Well okay. I can't argue against that. But still, not the strongest argument

It's a strong argument when there's not a choice of "makes sense"... just varying levels of not making sense.

If there's no good (not in the moral sense, here, but rather good as the desirable), then your best position is to maximally minimize the bad. Least of all possible evils, etc.

S'far as my personal metaphysical aesthetics go, that's the ideal. Occam's dingy (can't remember if it's the actual formulation of the Razor or something else the guy said, eh): Multiply our entities to the most minimal extent possible. Find the answer that is least bullshit, because you're not going to escape the bullshit

[kaijyuu]

@Grek
Let's dig a little deeper and see the common thread of both arguments.


1a. Premise: (conclusion has no supporting arguments and is unfalsifiable)
2a. Therefore, An objective reality exists.
3a. Therefore, Empericism.

1b. Premise: (conclusion has no supporting arguments and is unfalsifiable)
2b. Therefore, the world is divinely created.
3b. Therefore, God.


Point is, if you dig deep enough, they're both founded on nothing but straight, arbitrary, baseless belief. So pointing out that one is based upon straight, arbitrary, baseless belief undermines both, not just one. Attacking 1b also attacks 1a.

Five points to the first person who gets the point I am trying to make.

Chewbacca defense?


No really, I forget the technical name of this fallacy but I think this is the one you're accusing me of:

If not A, then not B.
If not A, then not C.

Therefore, if not B, then not C.

If that's your accusation, then it doesn't apply to me since I'm not making the fallacious conclusion (if not B then not C). My conclusion is "if not A, then not B nor C."

[Criptfeind]

Ahhhh ah hah. Okay. I was not aware the deal was the child's question here. I honestly did not expect that. Well then. Okay.

[kaijyuu]

I'll just write up another post since I think I know where the confusion's lying.


Unfalsifiable arguments are the "divide by 0" of logic. They mean literally whatever you want them to mean. However, that doesn't mean it's invalid; all our basic ideas stand on their own, and you can only dig so deep. No matter what you're arguing, if you dig to the bottom, you'll find a premise with zero supporting arguments. Our basic assumptions and instincts about life, the universe, and everything.

My argument here isn't that you should accept every single unfalsifiable idea. My argument is the fact that they're unfalsifiable is neither a supports nor undermines them. If you do a clean sweep of every unsupported argument and call it false, you just rejected all of reality. "I think therefore I am" is the only piece of knowledge generally accepted to be knowledge without any further support (and there are plenty of philosophers who argue against that too). You make assumptions, I make assumptions, we all do simply to function at all.

Pointing out that something is unfalsifiable is fine. It removes an argument's legitimacy if the person they're arguing against doesn't share the assumption. It calls into question the argument's legitimacy altogether. But it does NOT immediately prove it as wrong.