Philosophy VS Religion

[simonm]

Kedaman

Hmm, I might have to dismiss what you just said as biased opinion

Yes, please do

>Religous people Know the truth (even if they are wrong).

Doesn't that sound like a contradiction to you?

Well it sounds like a contradiction but when taken within the correct context, it isn't!

What I am talking about here is the way religous people see reality. Everything around them is illuminated by this wonderful glowing light which they recognise as the truth. It might not be the truth but it doesn't matter because to them, it is.

We look at them and think they hold a belief. They don't see it as a belief (because it is implicit in the world "belief" that it is just a particular view point) but see it as something they know with as much certainty as they know themselves.

Not at all. Philosophers deals ... without caring about a truth.

It seems to me that the above sentance is missing something out. Something that goes where I have added the ellispses and is required to make that sentance, make sense. What do philosophers deal with? The study of truth and the nature of truth is the study of the meta rules of reality itself. What else, if not that, do philosophers deal with?

I never said that philosophers cared about any particular truth, indeed, they must avoid becomming too attached to any truth to avoid blinding themselves to the possibility of other, perhaps conflicting truths.

[kedaman]

Simon

What I am talking about here is the way religous people see reality. Everything around them is illuminated by this wonderful glowing light which they recognise as the truth. It might not be the truth but it doesn't matter because to them, it is.

You are being biased I think To be religious you have only one criteria to fullfill, to believe in something.

We look at them and think they hold a belief. They don't see it as a belief (because it is implicit in the world "belief" that it is just a particular view point) but see it as something they know with as much certainty as they know themselves.

You just defined belief to me. To believe in something is to say that something is true.

It seems to me that the above sentance is missing something out. Something that goes where I have added the ellispses and is required to make that sentance, make sense. What do philosophers deal with? The study of truth and the nature of truth is the study of the meta rules of reality itself. What else, if not that, do philosophers deal with?

Philosophers are thinkers. To think is to be a philosopher.

[simonm]

Kedaman

To be religious you have only one criteria to fullfill, to believe in something.

I believe it is getting dark outside. Does that make me religous? I don't think so. Why is it getting dark? I believe that it is because the world has rotated such that my position on the surface (where I am located) is now facing away from the sun. I do not know it to be the truth because I would consider another explanation if one were offered (and it made more sense).

I would be religous if I knew why it was getting dark. Any other counter explanation would have to be flawed (I wouldn't even need to think about it) because I already know the truth. The error lies elsewhere. Either in the logic of those who are proposing the alternative explanation or in the evidence they are basing their logic on.

Do you not make a distinction between religous belief and proto belief? A religous belief is the truth because I KNOW IT TO BE SO. A proto belief is the truth because it offers the best explanation currently available. When a better explanation comes along, I will adopt that. The best explanation is the one that is most useful to me.

Philosophers are thinkers. To think is to be a philosopher.

I am thinking about what I am going to have for dinner tonight. Does that make me a philosopher?

[kedaman]

Originally posted by simonm
Kedaman
I believe it is getting dark outside. Does that make me religous? I don't think so. Why is it getting dark? I believe that it is because the world has rotated such that my position on the surface (where I am located) is now facing away from the sun. I do not know it to be the truth because I would consider another explanation if one were offered (and it made more sense).

Then you doubt your belief, you consider it might not be the correct explanation, but you consider there to be a correct explanation, which is the actual belief of your, which in turn makes you religious.

I would be religous if I knew why it was getting dark. Any other counter explanation would have to be flawed (I wouldn't even need to think about it) because I already know the truth.

That is another belief.

Do you not make a distinction between religous belief and proto belief? A religous belief is the truth because I KNOW IT TO BE SO. A proto belief is the truth because it offers the best explanation currently available. When a better explanation comes along, I will adopt that. The best explanation is the one that is most useful to me.

No, I think you are being unreasonable. To know something, to believe and to believe is all the same thing, you consider something to be true. This is all derived from the axiom truth.
I am amazed that you mentioned usefullness of an explanation here, since that's what i consider reasonable.
The error lies elsewhere. Either in the logic of those who are proposing the alternative explanation or in the evidence they are basing their logic on.

Do you not make a distinction between religous belief and proto belief? A religous belief is the truth because I KNOW IT TO BE SO. A proto belief is the truth because it offers the best explanation currently available. When a better explanation comes along, I will adopt that. The best explanation is the one that is most useful to me.

I am thinking about what I am going to have for dinner tonight. Does that make me a philosopher? [/QUOTE]

[Kzin]

Originally posted by kedaman

I don't believe in anything at all.

Do you really believe that Ked? Or do you just think that you don't believe in anything at all (which I think is much more likely)

[kedaman]

Originally posted by Kzin


Do you really believe that Ked? Or do you just think that you don't believe in anything at all (which I think is much more likely)

I'm confused, do i believe that i don't believe in anything at all?

If I refuse to accept the axiom truth, i declare myself as a non believer.

[simonm]

Kedaman

Then you doubt your belief, you consider it might not be the correct explanation, but you consider there to be a correct explanation, which is the actual belief of your, which in turn makes you religious.

Why do you make the leap of logic to assume that I believe there to be a correct explanation? I never said that. I said I will hold my current belief unitl a better one comes along. That belief will in turn be replaced by another and so on. There is no correct explanation.

No, I think you are being unreasonable. To know something, to believe and to believe is all the same thing, you consider something to be true. This is all derived from the axiom truth.

I think that you still haven't truly escaped your old way of thinking. You still see the world (even if you don't admit it to yourself) to exist objectively, and independant of yourself. Why can you not see the distinction between beliefs in truths that allow the possibility of other, conflicting truths and those that don't? It is you that insists there can only be one, consistant truth that precludes all others, not I.

[Kzin]

Originally posted by kedaman

I'm confused, do i believe that i don't believe in anything at all?

If I refuse to accept the axiom truth, i declare myself as a non believer.

No - you only believe that you've declared yourself a non believer in "anything at all". Big difference you know (or you think that you know - or maybe you think that you don't know)

Oh - and its only an unproven hypothesis - no worse - an unfounded belief - that you can choose to refuse to accept the axiom 'truth'.


(Kurt Gödel would be proud of this moment Ked )

[kedaman]

Kzin you are ultimately perverse

No - you only believe that you've declared yourself a non believer in "anything at all". Big difference you know (or you think that you know - or maybe you think that you don't know)

I define myself as myself, not someone else. I think therefore I am. My thoughts are not someone else's they are mine. This is not a statement, this is not a truth, this is a definitions I use for practical purposes. If you have other definitions of what belief stands for, then please explain.

Oh - and its only an unproven hypothesis - no worse - an unfounded belief - that you can choose to refuse to accept the axiom 'truth'.

"its", doesn't mean a **** to me you know, if you use it as a definition refering to truth.


Simon

Why do you make the leap of logic to assume that I believe there to be a correct explanation? I never said that.

You have said you believed in an objective reality, have you changed your mind?

I said I will hold my current belief unitl a better one comes along. That belief will in turn be replaced by another and so on. There is no correct explanation.

This suggests that you have.

I think that you still haven't truly escaped your old way of thinking. You still see the world (even if you don't admit it to yourself) to exist objectively, and independant of yourself. Why can you not see the distinction between beliefs in truths that allow the possibility of other, conflicting truths and those that don't? It is you that insists there can only be one, consistant truth that precludes all others, not I.

What do you mean by see? I practically define my world as me and information. I "see" an objective universe which is represented by this information.

Conflicting truths just don't apply logically, it doesn't mean that they cannot be axiomatic.

As I said, I do not insist truth.

[simonm]

Kedaman

I've finally concluded that I cannot grasp what you are talking about.

I practically define my world as me and information. I "see" an objective universe which is represented by this information.

You ARE the eternal solopsist. You have said to me many times before that the information is just part of you. Something you have created. Therefore there is nothing left in your universe other than you.

That's about as close as you can get to a pure solopsist.

[kedaman]

No way Simon

A pure solipsist believe in a truth, and he believes that the world is a projection of his mind.

I define for practical purposes, jumping over the truth part. I might as well think that you exist, because it's more convenient to do this conversation but this is all for the sake of information. Since I have defined you as contents of the information I recieve, you are practical value for me.

[kedaman]

Well, you were a bit too implicit with that smiley. I'm just curious where you got lost

[simonm]

I don't know where I get lost. Everytime I think I am close to understanding your theories, you tell me I have misunderstood. What you say just does not make sense to me.

I practically define my world as me and information. I "see" an objective universe which is represented by this information.

This just completely loses me. How can you "see" an objective universe? Surely, you can only see an objective universe, subjectively.

Are you saying that you perceive information that represents an objective universe or are you saying that you perceive an objective universe that is the source of the information?

[kedaman]

I don't know where I get lost. Everytime I think I am close to understanding your theories, you tell me I have misunderstood. What you say just does not make sense to me.

While our discussion seems to use clear English, it is ambigous in many ways, we do implications all the time and a lot of information gets filtered out this way. The solution would be explicit definitions. If you look up any word in a dictionary you recieve several definitions, if you use the word you are suggesting an ambiguety, If your sentence doesn't give the correct impression of it's usage, then there's bound to be misunderstandings. For instance "see" i interpreted as "interpret", which is a transformation of information(in your world), or in my world which is completely functional, evaluation. However we use the same abstraction layer so we "see" things the same way.

Imagine a camera, the projected image being your conscious mind, in the figure below A. This is what you "see", what has been interpreted. B is the ocular of the camera, the abstraction layer towards our unconscious(me) our reality(you). C is outside you, or considering the blackbox analogy, inside. Your model of the system C is a reality, while mine is a set of unconscious information.

-|---------A--|-
  \          /
   \        /
    \      /
     \    /
      \  /
 ______\/_______B
       /\
      /  \
     /    \
    /      \
   /        \
  /          \
 /            \
************C***

You assume that the transformation of yours gives you a subjective perspective, of C with an error factor caused at the transformation at B, but you have no verifification of what happens at B which in turn makes it impossible to verify C. You find it though convenient to assume C exist and that you get a slightly different view of it.

I assume that C is information, which can by layer B evaluate to A, A is so to speak a different datatype than C. This datatype I can call my interpretation, what i see, the vision of an objective universe. C however is of datatype information and is not made of the complexity of A.

I hope this analogy would help somewhat, at least if you understand polymorphism

[simonm]

Kedaman

Whilst it now seems clear to me taht you have a fairly good understanding of my notion of the relationship between reality and consiousness, I am still struggling to understand yours.

Your model of the system C is a reality, while mine is a set of unconscious information.

This, to me, points to the solopsist view in that your image (A) of reality is merely a projection of information from your subconsious (c).

[kedaman]

This, to me, points to the solopsist view in that your image (A) of reality is merely a projection of information from your subconsious (c).

That is correct under the assumption that there are no other A and B's. However I do not make this assumption. I am openminded to the fact that you have a consciousness as well

[simonm]

So you're saying that it is possible that many people may be living in isolated, self contained universes.

Is there any possibility of interaction between these universes?

[kedaman]

YES

But don't call it solipsism, because it's definitely not!!

[simonm]

Kedaman

OK, I won't call you a solopsist but so far, it doesn't seem all that different.

If you acknowlege the possibility of other individual universes, and that they might interact (presumably by exchanging information), how do you distinguish between information that comes from your subconsious and information that comes from someone else?

[kedaman]

Simon

Originally posted by simonm
Kedaman

OK, I won't call you a solopsist but so far, it doesn't seem all that different.

If you acknowlege the possibility of other individual universes, and that they might interact (presumably by exchanging information), how do you distinguish between information that comes from your subconsious and information that comes from someone else?

More like a pool of common information, while to suggest some sort of representation of dimensions, information that is more or less close to and private to individuals, rahter than cells of universes interconnected in a LAN with low bandwidth. But that's all relics of thinking of an objective universe.

I think it is more close to an ideal objective universe, you can derive your vision from mine, without affecting any results.

Again relics from objective-universe-thinking: I think lots of my closest information is private, while thought of your ideas comes from you. As it seems logical and practical, I can adopt this further in the theorem hierarchy.

[thinktank]

Simon it's not solopsism. It's solipsism.

[Kzin]

Originally posted by kedaman
Kzin you are ultimately perverse


I define myself as myself, not someone else. I think therefore I am. My thoughts are not someone else's they are mine. This is not a statement, this is not a truth, this is a definitions I use for practical purposes. If you have other definitions of what belief stands for, then please explain.

"its", doesn't mean a **** to me you know, if you use it as a definition refering to truth.

Hang on - you are saying that your thought processes are determined by your own internal beliefs without reference to external 'truths' or 'objective knowledge'?? I hate to say this but that's nothing new! - join the crowd man

[kedaman]

internal beliefs, external truths... you confuse me Kzin

[Kzin]

Originally posted by kedaman
internal beliefs, external truths... you confuse me Kzin

'truths' in quotes Kedaman!

think about it . . .

. . . I've gotta go eat some pizza now

[kedaman]

Originally posted by Kzin
. . . I've gotta go eat some pizza now

Yep, that would be nice since i'm starving here

[Kzin]

. . my pizza-over-IP driver isn't working at present - I'll reboot in Linux and see if I can send it that way . .

[kedaman]

I forgot to buy pizza