Too Many Extremes in Disbelief

[mikkel_the_dane]

News of the well known.
But as long as you accept it correct to call
him a charlatan.
And that you choose to believe the
" good faith" bit.

Do you believe Brigham Young and
David Karesh acted in good faith or is it
a special deal for paul.

I wouldn't rule it out, just as for conmen, we have those and then honest conmen.
So yes, both types exist.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes, the science overwhelmingly demonstrates humans are only intermittently rational.

We didn’t evolve to be dispassionate arbiters of objective truth and evolved many cognitive processes that actively work against this end.

Agreed. Now, the question is whether this tendency should be embraced or fought against. Should we *strive* for rationality or should be revel in our irrationality? Apolonian or Dionysian?

As I see it, neither is the answer. We should strive to be rational in our search for truth and revel in the irrationality when doing art, love, or play (not to mention many other times). Rationality is difficult, but it can be learned. Letting go is also difficult, but it can be enjoyed. Both are aspects of a full human being as I see it.

 

[Polymath257]

We didn't evolve to do mathematics or science, either. Nevertheless people are able to learn those skills. The same goes for rationality and critical thinking. Nobody does it all the time and for everything but we can aspire to be as rational as possible.

It always amuses me when someone claims that logic gives the 'laws of thought'. Anyone who has taught logic knows that the vast majority of people don't think logically. Even at graduate level mathematics, it is very, very common for basic logical errors to be made. But, with training and dedication, it is possible to learn how to give an honest proof in math and, much harder, to find errors in the proofs of others.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Agreed. Now, the question is whether this tendency should be embraced or fought against. Should we *strive* for rationality or should be revel in our irrationality? Apolonian or Dionysian?

As I see it, neither is the answer. We should strive to be rational in our search for truth and revel in the irrationality when doing art, love, or play (not to mention many other times). Rationality is difficult, but it can be learned. Letting go is also difficult, but it can be enjoyed. Both are aspects of a full human being as I see it.

Well, I see you left out useful and morality in a sense. Are these rational or irrational and if one or the other how?

 

[Polymath257]

Well, I see you left out useful and morality in a sense. Are these rational or irrational and if one or the other how?

Morality tends to be a mixture: the goals are usually irrational, but the methods after setting the goals try to be rational. Utility is a judgement call. it again is dependent on the goals.

Choosing fundamental goals or axioms cannot be fully rational (that's what it means to be fundamental or an axiom). But we can strive to be rational after the goals are set or the axioms chosen.

 

[Ostronomos]

I do not accept that reality is the set of all things that exist.

To me, this seems like you're equivocating the objects in the set with the very concept of the set itself. I don't think it's illogical to make a distinction between those.

You are missing some steps here. Most sets are not both the subset and the powerset of itself. In fact, that is ordinarily counter to set theory.

It sounds to me like you're adopting the language of Christopher Langan, but Langan has been criticized by mathematicians on a number of occasions precisely due to his misuse of set theory in his arguments for CTMU.

Langan frequently uses technical language in idiosyncratic ways, which means his writings are outright false on the face of them but, once you dig deeper, they're fractally wrong because his persuasive definitions rely heavily on equivocating unrelated concepts between different fields of study.

Don't listen to the guy. He's fallen into what's known as the "intelligence trap." He's too emotionally committed to recognize the errors in his logic, but you might not be yet. Treat him as a cautionary tale. You're smarter than this.

"Reality" and "exists" are not interchangeable. One is a noun and the other is a verb. "Reality" and "existence" are also not quite interchangeable. Fictional narratives and simulations exist, but they are not real. Likewise, the past is real, but it does not exist.

Neither are "material" and "physical" interchangeable. Gravity is physical, but it is immaterial, for example. Concepts emerge from material neuronal activity, but they themselves are usually treated as non-physical.

I might accept "physical" and "real" as synonyms, though.

That sounds like the Ganzfeld Effect. It's been used by mystics for thousands of years to have supposed dialogues with spirits. I have a tome of ancient Greco-Roman Necromancy that uses the same trick to summon shades of the dead in dimly lit caves.

If you're suggestible, sleep deprived, and hungry, then the effect can be quite dramatic. Summonings in grimoiric tradition often advised fasting and an entire night of prayer before evoking spirits for this reason. Mages figured out that it could reliably produce mystical experiences and believed it was a form of magic.

It's not. It's just a way of tricking the pattern-recognition part of our brains.

Did God speak to you? That would be a more interesting point of discussion. And I don't mean speaking to you in your head as a mental voice, because that's fairly easy to trigger. The tulpa community and many chaos magick practices with thoughtforms have that down to almost a science now. I mean, did God make audible noise that you heard with your ears?

If not, then your experience means basically nothing.

Oh wow, I was right about Langan. I hadn't read this part yet when I wrote my earlier response. I was going to get all of my ideas out as they came to me and then revise them after re-reading your post in full.

I guess that entire portion of my reply can remain intact, then. Suffice to say

I'm not about to pick apart your materialist beliefs. But I will say that seeing as how materialism is false and the material world in in actuality, an illusion, I would suggest you seek the truth rather than what your five senses tell you. I would suggest you go with the 6th, something I am familiar with.

And I do not suggest you try to persuade me otherwise.

P.S. Scientists are only now beginning to scratch the surface of consciousness. E.g. Hameroff and Penrose. I once asked my father while we were building a deck in the backyard, "do you think consciousness continues after death?" While we now know the answer, like Langan and I, there are still some who do not and others who are violently opposed to the idea.

 

[Ella S.]

I'm not about to pick apart your materialist beliefs. But I will say that seeing as how materialism is false and the material world in in actuality, an illusion, I would suggest you seek the truth rather than what your five senses tell you. I would suggest you go with the 6th, something I am familiar with.

And I do not suggest you try to persuade me otherwise.

P.S. Scientists are only now beginning to scratch the surface of consciousness. E.g. Hameroff and Penrose. I once asked my father while we were building a deck in the backyard, "do you think consciousness continues after death?" While we now know the answer, like Langan and I, there are still some who do not and others who are violently opposed to the idea.

Okay, if you insist, I won't try to persuade you otherwise.

I'll just say that I arrived at my current conception of the world by seeking the truth, which has been a difficult process of discovery. I would find out I was wrong, change my position, then find out that the new position was wrong, too, and have to change again. Some of the things I thought were wrong later turned out to be right. There are some things that I thought were right, then I thought were wrong, then I thought were right, then I thought were wrong, until now thinking they're right.

I've considered a variety of non-materialist positions, including the Cognitive-Theoretical Model of the Universe. I've read up on how consciousness proves the supernatural, about how consciousness can be explained materially, about how consciousness doesn't exist, about how the whole universe is conscious, and on and on, genuinely looking for the strongest arguments for each position.

So unless you have a new argument to bring to my attention, it's not my responsibility to try to make your argument for you. I've already done my research. It's not my problem that you can't make a solid case for your worldview and immediately fold under the small bit of scrutiny I've given it here.

 

[Ella S.]

Folk can aspire all they like, they will still only ever be intermittently rational.

It’s possible to become a bit more rational sure, but we are very limited in that regard due to our cognitive “hardware”.

While we can shake our environment a bit better, we can no more transcend our nature than other animals.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Augustus]

Speak for yourself.

Are you aware of anyone who has actually managed to transcend the obvious limitations of human cognition?

 

[Audie]

Are you aware of anyone who has actually managed to transcend the obvious limitations of human cognition?

Those with " received" knowledge do it every day.

 

[Polymath257]

Those with " received" knowledge do it every day.

*Claim* to do it every day.

 

[viole]

ou don't need to believe in God to know that Christianity was started by Jews, Paul is highly unlikely to have been a fraud, and Jesus existed. So why do so many (at least online) atheists, feel the need to dispute things that are neither supernatural nor fantastic? Why believe that religion as a whole is some nefarious force and everything about it is a lie? What does Jesus' existence have to do with believing in God? Nothing.

Well, I tend to agree here. I am not a scholar, but I personally think Jesus was a historical person. Or, at least, I have no problem with Him having existed. Who can say, maybe King Arthur was a historical person, too, but that for sure does not add a iota to the plausibility of Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake.

As a matter of fact, Pythagoras was definitely a historical person. Many believed he was the son of Apollo. Which, again, does not mean that Apollo existed. Same with a few Roman Emperors and their divine parents. And this are only examples from western culture.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rival]

Are you aware of anyone who has actually managed to transcend the obvious limitations of human cognition?

Everyone on RF, obviously

 

[Zwing]

I tend to agree here. I am not a scholar, but I personally think Jesus was a historical person.

Me too, but beyond that and the suggestion that he was some kind of pseudo-prophetic figure (which were a dime a dozen in Hellenistic Jewish society), I don’t buy much of what Christians say about him.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Blue Stilton is a God.

If you disbelieve me you're a fraud.

I prefer Roquefort. Is that heresy?

 

[Rival]

I prefer Roquefort. Is that heresy?

No, all blue cheeses are Gods.

Wensleydale though.... that comes from Hell.

As does Brie.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Folk can aspire all they like, they will still only ever be intermittently rational.

It’s possible to become a bit more rational sure, but we are very limited in that regard due to our cognitive “hardware”.

While we can shake our environment a bit better, we can no more transcend our nature than other animals.

I think to some extent we can transcend our nature. In fact I’d argue that we have become alienated from our true nature, and this is the root cause of our emotional and spiritual suffering. This, I think, is the true meaning of the story of our expulsion from Eden.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think to some extent we can transcend our nature. In fact I’d argue that we have become alienated from our true nature, and this is the root cause of our emotional and spiritual suffering. This, I think, is the true meaning of the story of our expulsion from Eden.

Well, personally I understand my true nature in an absurd sense, since I am an absurdist.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No, all blue cheeses are Gods.

Wensleydale though.... that comes from Hell.

As does Brie.

 

[Audie]

*Claim* to do it every day.

I covered the spurious claim but with
" received " in quotation markation.