Is Belief (or Lack Thereof) a Choice?

[Nakosis]

Or that is unknown. I reject your hidden assumption for what knowledge is and use another. Go figure.

What assumption is that?

 

[Mock Turtle]

So stop targeting only religions.
Here is an example for 2 versions of science:
Science is verification and induction.
Science is not verification, but the ability to falsify and doesn't include induction.

And both are of course true and with proof.

I'm not simply targeting religions, but one has to have a base level of understanding to be functional in this world - if one doesn't want to fall prey to those who would want to delude one for whatever reasons. The things I have quoted are readily agreed as being factual (with limitations as to accuracy) by those open to the knowledge produced by science, and many of these will be religious too.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What assumption is that?

That you in the end can know what objective reality is, other that a cognitive abstract. Or you know what objective reality is other than different than your mind. It is the problem of what the thing is in itself other than being in itself.
We are playing metaphysics/ontology and you are in effect for that a gnostic and I am an agnostic.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not simply targeting religions, but one has to have a base level of understanding to be functional in this world - if one doesn't want to fall prey to those who would want to delude one for whatever reasons. The things I have quoted are readily agreed as being factual (with limitations as to accuracy) by those open to the knowledge produced by science, and many of these will be religious too.

Yeah, you take your philosophy as granted for knowledge.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Yeah, you take your philosophy as granted for knowledge.

I probably do, but most of us, including any with religious beliefs do so too. Perhaps we just disagree upon the amount.

 

[Nakosis]

That you in the end can know what objective reality is, other that a cognitive abstract. Or you know what objective reality is other than different than your mind. It is the problem of what the thing is in itself other than being in itself.
We are playing metaphysics/ontology and you are in effect for that a gnostic and I am an agnostic.

So are you saying that you can't know whether you are real or not?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I probably do, but most of us, including any with religious beliefs do so too. Perhaps we just disagree upon the amount.

No, in practice we are playing authority over what the world really is and what a good life is.
And for objective authority, religion is not the only way to claim that.

 

[Windwalker]

If you prefer to seek knowledge about the universe by consulting with poets, good luck with that.

If you prefer to seek knowledge of the self or the meaning of existence for you by consulting biologists, good luck with that.

Out of curiosity, what is it with this all one thing or all the other mentality? Why can't it be both? Why can't you look to science and the poets, or any number of multiple different ways of thinking about reality with? That's what I do, and I find life to have a lot more richness, fullness, and meaning that way. Myopic views don't really offer much in terms of balance. Tunnel vision is not a good recipe for living well, in my experience.

 

[Mock Turtle]

No, in practice we are playing authority over what the world really is and what a good life is.
And for objective authority, religion is not the only way to claim that.

Nope, just trying to detail the things that we all (should) accept - and often coming from science these days - unless one wants a ball and chain to carry around all one's life as to useless beliefs.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So are you saying that you can't know whether you are real or not?

Yes, for the idea of justified true beliefs that is only an idea not possible in practice. And that is not just limited to religion. It has generally been so since the start of philosophy and have so far never be done for in effect doing it as positive.
Hence I am a global negative skeptic for knowledge. You just believe that all other versions than yours are wrong. In effect I believe in one less than you for knowledge.
Not unlike, that you believe in one less version of God than a theistic. I just do that for knowledge.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Nope, just trying to detail the things that we all (should) accept - and often coming from science these days - unless one wants a ball and chain to carry around all one's life as to useless beliefs.

You have no evidence using science for what an useless belief is, because useless is not objective. You are doing ought again and not doing science.

 

[Mock Turtle]

You have no evidence using science for what an useless belief is, because useless is not objective. You are doing ought again and not doing science.

OK. This one of yours might be such.

 

[Windwalker]

Give proof that we share this base reality.

Let me show you how it works.
For example you will clam you know there is a we.
Then I ask how you know that you know. When I do that, we have left science and entered philosophy and the short answer is that nobody for the 2000+ years for recorded history has proven how somebody knows that they know.

The problem is this in part. You can't point to God, but that is the same for reality. You can't point to it.
You as an in effect naturalist believe that reality is natural. A theist believes it is from God. But neither of you can prove it.

So as a skeptic, I am just honest and admit I can't prove reality, but that I have faith in it so be real, orderly and knowable. I.e. I act as if reality is real, but I don't know that.
For you as an atheist in effect, I just let you be that as a non-belief and concentrate on your positive belief that you know what reality is.

So here it is for something I have not written, but is about science as you believe in it.
"... According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that cannot be tested by scientific processes;[43] that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as to the ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc suppositions."[44] Kuhn also claims that all science is based on assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions – a paradigm – comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation.[45] For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the "correct" paradigm, and there is no such thing as supernatural, i.e. anything above, beyond, or outside of nature. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality, including the human spirit.[46] ..."

Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That is it. Methodological naturalism is a belief system, that starts with the beliefs that the universe is real, orderly, knowable and natural. You would know that if you had learned to check your own beliefs and not just those of the religious people.
I were trained by your kind of in effect scientific skeptics to doubt any claim. I just then did something, you don't do. I doubted, if we know that reality is natural. And as it turns out, we don't.

I really wish we still had the 'winner' post emoticons. Your post here wins one. This is the foundation of my arguments against these myopic views of reality as "only physical" which itself is a non-physical assumption.

As human beings we don't see reality through only the eye of flesh, or understanding the material world. We also see through the eye of mind, or ideas and concepts. And we also see through the eye of spirit, or the heart, connection, grounding, a freedom of being.

All of these together is what makes us human. But this reductionist philosophical materialism, is a distorted view of reality, as much as any dogmatic religionist who thinks that only the 'heavenly' domain is true. It's just the same dogmatism with a different paradigm. It's just switching religions, switching what we believe in, not actually transforming our views.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK. This one of yours might be such.

Yes and so are you for that game. I just do it as I do it when we play is and when we play ought. You just do differently and depending on the subjective definition of reality, you are deluded or I am. But there is no objective evidence is either case. So big grin right back at you.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I really wish we still had the 'winner' post emoticons. Your post here wins one. This is the foundation of my arguments against these myopic views of reality as "only physical" which itself is a non-physical assumption.

As human beings we don't see reality through only the eye of flesh, or understanding the material world. We also see through the eye of mind, or ideas and concepts. And we also see through the eye of spirit, or the heart, connection, grounding, a freedom of being.

All of these together is what makes us human. But this reductionist philosophical materialism, is a distorted view of reality, as much as any dogmatic religionist who thinks that only the 'heavenly' domain is true. It's just the same dogmatism with a different paradigm. It's just switching religions, switching what we believe in, not actually transforming our views.

Yeah, but we still don't agree when we play morality and politics. Go figure.

 

[Nakosis]

Who may not Yes, for the idea of justified true beliefs that is only an idea not possible in practice. And that is not just limited to religion. It has generally been so since the start of philosophy and have so far never be done for in effect doing it as positive.

So, you can't know whether you are real or not. Got it.

Hence I am a global negative skeptic for knowledge.

Who may or may not be real. Then your negative skepticism may not be real. Your skepticism may be nothing which is pretending to be something.

You just believe that all other versions than yours are wrong. In effect I believe in one less than you for knowledge.

That is not true. Which maybe irrelevant since you are unsure about the reality of your thoughts.

Not unlike, that you believe in one less version of God than a theistic. I just do that for knowledge.

Knowledge of what. How can you have knowledge of anything if you can't know whether anything exists.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Yes and so are you for that game. I just do it as I do it when we play is and when we play ought. You just do differently and depending on the subjective definition of reality, you are deluded or I am. But there is no objective evidence is either case. So big grin right back at you.

Well I suspect I do know which beliefs will be in the rubbish bin of history at least.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So, you can't know whether you are real or not. Got it.



Who may or may not be real. Then your negative skepticism may not be real. Your skepticism may be nothing which is pretending to be something.




That is not true. Which maybe irrelevant since you are unsure about the reality of your thoughts.



Knowledge of what. How can you have knowledge of anything if you can't know whether anything exists.

I don't have to have knowledge, because if you have it and I don't, then since it seems that we are both here, that is all I need.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well I suspect I do know which beliefs will be in the rubbish bin of history at least.

Yeah, the problem is that could be so for both for us, unless you know the future.

 

[Windwalker]

Yes, for the idea of justified true beliefs that is only an idea not possible in practice. And that is not just limited to religion. It has generally been so since the start of philosophy and have so far never be done for in effect doing it as positive.
Hence I am a global negative skeptic for knowledge. You just believe that all other versions than yours are wrong. In effect I believe in one less than you for knowledge.
Not unlike, that you believe in one less version of God than a theistic. I just do that for knowledge.

2nd tier aperspectival? You sound like an Integralist. You may not be familiar with the terms, but I recognize this. All 1st tier views see their view as the correct view, and all other views other than its own as wrong. Hence, the mythic view of reality was wrong, and the rationalist view of reality is right. The mythic view sees the rationalist view as wrong, and themselves right.

But 2nd tier sees that "everyone has a piece of the truth", and that all 1st tier views are 'true but partial'. Each has function, each contributes, and higher levels 'transcend and include' the previous levels before them, bring forward the important lessons or perspectives learned, while discarding the bits that no longer serve or remain functional in the new level. And so forth. Sound familiar?