The Problem Of Historicity

[mfbukowski]

If what we know about the "world out there" isn't determined by the object known, if all we experience is our subjective states and not the "world out there", i.e., if our knowing is determined by those states, then we can never logically claim to know anything about the world, or even that there really is a "world out there".  Rorty says it's common sense to believe this, but he has no ground to believe it.   Unless something in our thoughts and language corresponds to the external world, we have no basis for determining whether any proposition about the world is true or false, even the proposition that "there is a world out there" distinct from ourselves.  Believing we aren't brains in vats becomes an article of faith, not anything based on knowledge or experience.  Without the ability to know anything outside our own subjective states, we have no basis to determine whether what we believe about the "world out there" is true or false.  That means you have no basis to determine whether the powerful spiritual experiences you've had validly refer to God or to some other external cause, or to some flaw in your subjective experience apparatus.  To say "I know the Book of Mormon is true" thus has nothing to do with anything external to you (e.g. God, Joseph Smith, Moroni, the LDS Church, etc.).  Given the position you take, I can see how you can validly say that you experienced what you experienced, but can't see how you can reasonably link those experiences to anything outside of yourself, anything that isn't you.  You've ruled out any possible correspondence between those subjective experiences and anything outside of your subjective self.

Only your first question is a justified statement about Rorty's statement.  I am sorry you do not understand it.

 

But yes you are correct that calling a statement "true" has little to do with the world outside of language.  The point is that obviously we get things done anyway.  I think there is no point in discussing it further- the discussion is "stuck" on this point.

 

If you are genuinely interested in this topic, a good place to start would be with this article  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/#Obj2Cor

 

According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’.

There are many implications of a theory of this sort for philosophical debate about the nature of truth. Philosophers often make suggestions like the following: truth consists in correspondence to the facts; truth consists in coherence with a set of beliefs or propositions; truth is the ideal outcome of rational inquiry. According to the deflationist, however, such suggestions are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake. The common mistake is to assume that truth has a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of. For the deflationist, truth has no nature beyond what is captured in ordinary claims such as that ‘snow is white’ is true just in case snow is white. Philosophers looking for the nature of truth are bound to be frustrated, the deflationist says, because they are looking for something that isn't there

 

 

Note that it says that it is a widely accepted theory of truth.  You have an uphill battle proving your point, unfortunately

The deflationary theory has been one of the most popular approaches to truth in the twentieth century, having received explicit defense by Frege, Ramsey, Ayer, and Quine, as well as sympathetic treatment from many others. (According to Dummett 1959, the view originates with Frege.) The following passages all contain recognizable versions of the doctrine, though they differ on points of detail.

So it isn't as if Rorty, much less Bukowski, is dreaming this up.

Here is the article's refutation to the correspondence objection to deflationism.

 

7.2 Objection #2: Correspondence

It is often said that what is most obvious about truth is that truth consists in correspondence to the facts — for example, that the truth of the proposition that the earth revolves around the sun consists in its correspondence to the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. The so-called correspondence theory of truth is built around this intuition, and tries to explain the notion of truth by appeal to the notions of correspondence and fact. Even if one does not build one's theory of truth around this intuition however, many philosophers regard it as a condition of adequacy on any theory of truth that the theory accommodates the correspondence intuition.

It is often objected to deflationism, however, that the doctrine has particular trouble meeting this adequacy condition. One way to bring out the problem here is by focusing on a particular articulation of the correspondence intuition, an articulation favoured by deflationists themselves (Horwich 1998b). According to this way of spelling it out, the intuition that a certain sentence or proposition ‘corresponds to the facts’ is the intuition that the sentence or proposition is true because of a certain way the world is; that is, the truth of the proposition is explained by some contingent fact which is usually external to the proposition itself. We might express this by saying that someone who endorses the correspondence intuition so understood would endorse:

Now, the problem with ( is that, when we combine it with the deflationary theory-or at least with a necessary version of that theory-we can derive something that is plainly false. Someone who holds a necessary version of deflationism would clearly be committed to the necessary truth of:( The proposition that snow is white is true because snow is white

And, since (9) is a necessary truth, it is very plausible to suppose that ( and (9) together entail:(9) The proposition that snow is white is true iff snow is white.

Unfortunately, however, (10) is false. The reason is that the relation reported by ‘because’ in ( and (10) is a causal or explanatory relation, and such relations must obtain between distinct relata. But the relata in (10) are (obviously) not distinct. Hence (10) is false. But this means that the conjunction of ( and (9) must be false, and that deflationism is inconsistent with the correspondence intuition. To borrow a phrase of Mark Johnston's — who mounts a similar argument in a different context — we might put the point differently by saying that, if deflationism is true, then what seems to be a perfectly good explanation in (goes missing; if deflationism is true, after all, then ( is equivalent to (10), and (10) is not an explanation of anything.(10) Snow is white because snow is white.

How might a deflationist respond to this objection? One response is to provide a different articulation of the correspondence intuition. For example, one might point out that the connection between the proposition that snow is white and snow's being white is not a contingent connection, and suggest that this rules out ( as a successful articulation of the correspondence intuition. That intuition (one might continue) is more plausibly given voice by (8*):

(8*) ‘Snow is white’ is true because snow is white.

However, when (8*) is conjoined with (9), one cannot derive the problematic (10), and thus, one might think, the objection from correspondence might be avoided. Now certainly this is a possible suggestion; the problem with it, however, is that a deflationist who thinks that (8*) is true is most plausibly construed as holding a sententialist, rather than a propositionalist, version of deflationism. A sententialist version of deflationism, on the other hand, will in turn supply a version of (9), viz.:

(9*) ‘Snow is white’ is true iff snow is white

which, at least it is interpreted as a necessary truth, will conspire with (8*) to yield (10). And we are back where we started.

Another response would be to object that ‘because’ creates an opaque context — that is, the kind of context within which one cannot substitute co-referring expressions and preserve truth. If ‘because’ creates an opaque context, then it would be illegitimate to suppose that ( and (9) entail (10). This too is a possibility; however, it is not clear that ‘because’ creates opaque context of the right kind. In general we can distinguish two kinds of opaque context: intensional contexts, which allow the substitution of necessarily co-referring expressions but not contingently co-referring expressions; and hyper-intensional contexts, which do not even allow the substitution of necessarily co-referring expressions. If the inference from ( and (9) to (10) is to be successfully blocked, it is necessary that ‘because’ creates a hyper-intensional context. However, it is open to a friend of the correspondence objection to argue that, while ‘because’ creates an intensional context, it does not create a hyper-intensional context.

A final, and most radical, response would be to reject the correspondence intuition outright. This response is not in fact as drastic as it sounds. In particular, the deflationist does not have to say that someone who says ‘the proposition that snow is white corresponds to the facts’ is speaking falsely. Deflationists would do better to say that such a person is simply using a picturesque or ornate way of saying that the proposition is true, where truth is understood in accordance with the deflationary theory. Indeed, the deflationist can even agree that for certain rhetorical or conversational purposes, it might be more effective to use the ‘correspondence to the facts’ talk. Nevertheless, it is important to see that this response does involve a burden, since it involves rejecting a condition of adequacy that many regard as binding on a theory of truth

So the best that can be said is that "The snow is white" corresponds to the "fact" that the snow is white, when "fact" is understood to be a proposition.  That means it is purely a linguistic statement.

 

But clearly we are getting beyond the scope of what can be taught here about philosophical theories of truth without most folks having an adequate background.  I understood all of this before I even joined the church so it might be hard for those who do not see the points Rorty and others are making.

 

It's about what can be expressed in language, not about the world out there.  The bottom line is that experiences cannot be put exactly into language.   Saying something is beautiful does not express the experience of beauty so it cannot correspond to it.  Saying something is blue does not express blueness to a blind man because the language does not correspond to the experience or even really express it.  Language cannot "correspond" to anything in the world.  We understand each other because we all have similar experiences so words make sense, but without that, without knowing what color is, what sight is, what sound and smell are, we could say nothing about our experiences of the world.  If we didn't know what a cat was or a pillow was, we could not say that "The cat is on the pillow".  Language is not a picture, it is not a smell or taste or sound.

 

Language really is a set of verbal descriptions intended to convey one's interpretation of one's experience to another.  Those descriptions are about experience, not about a world beyond experience.

 

But that goes beyond what we can do here really.  Perhaps we feel we are defending positions rather than conversing with the goal toward understanding.

 

Sorry- we are not getting anywhere I think.  But it has been a good discussion and your replies are on point.  We have just gotten to the point where I do not have the magic words to communicate the ideas better than I have!

[mfbukowski]

With no basis on which to conclude that your experiences correspond with anything outside of yourself, that faith, all faith, is blind.  With such a philosophy, the only response to someone saying "I know the church is true" is "no, you don't know that".  Without a philosophy that allows for correspondence between what you experience and the world outside, you can never honestly say that you know anything outside of yourself.  

No, faith is faith.  "The hope for things UNSEEN".  That is what it is supposed to be- a HOPE, not "knowledge".  Yet Alma 32 shows us how in time it can be called "knowledge" because it becomes certainty.

[mfbukowski]

Gazza, hello.

 

The thread, if I understand it, is of the highest importance for explaining to people like me and presumably you, why Mormonism is compatible with a philosophy that proposes that ALL history is subjective, and maybe even that all knowledge is subjective too. I don't think I can ever begin to agree with the view at all. I don't think all LDS today will be comfortable with it either. But who knows? I do see why this could be the future for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I see why it is appealing. It seems to me that much that is foundational in Mormonism, especially as it regards their exclusive claims to have Restored a lost Gospel, are incompatible with this new theory of knowledge. It seems to me that if this view is adopted, there is an inconsistency between a switchover to this ahistorical philosophy at this time, and the way Joseph Smith founded the Church, and the way his successors preached the Restoration and apostasy. I think there is lack of continuity there. But...there is lack of continuity between the Catholic Church of today, and the Catholic Church of Joseph Smith's day. How do I as a Catholic overcome that? What about your church? How do the claims of your church fare in the light and shadows of the nearly 2,000 years since Christ ascended to His Father? Okay, you don't have Book of Abraham problems. But you have problems. What are they?

 

Anyway, if they will win me, they have to appreciate how I believe. If I will win them, I have to appreciate how they believe. Otherwise, never the twain shall meet. Many are always okay with that. But I find in most serious Mormons a spirit that I have, a deep desire to share what they think is good and beautiful, and true, at least to them. That is why I keep hanging out with them. 

 

Regards and best wishes that you will join the ride here with deep convictions of your own, but prudent ways of explaining why we should join your church.

 

3DOP

I love to explain Catholicism to athiests too.  Unfortunately, like you, I seldom get it right

[mfbukowski]

If what we know about the "world out there" isn't determined by the object known, if all we experience is our subjective states and not the "world out there", i.e., if our knowing is determined by those states, then we can never logically claim to know anything about the world, or even that there really is a "world out there".  Rorty says it's common sense to believe this, but if he also thinks that "We cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves" he has no ground to believe it.   Unless something in our thoughts and language corresponds to the external world, we have no basis for determining whether any proposition about the world is true or false, even the most basic of propositions about external reality that "there really is a world out there distinct from ourselves".  Believing we aren't brains in vats becomes an article of faith, not anything based on knowledge or experience.  That means you have no basis to determine whether the powerful spiritual experiences you've had validly refer to God or to some other external cause, or to some flaw in your subjective experience apparatus.  To say "I know the Book of Mormon is true" thus has nothing to do with anything external to you (e.g. God, Joseph Smith, the text of Moroni 10:4, Moroni himself, the LDS Church, your fellow ward members who bear their testimonies about experiences they've had similar to your own, etc., all of whom may or may not exist, you can never really know since you're trapped inside of a purely subjective world with no objective referents).  Given the position you take, I can see how you can validly say that you experienced what you experienced, but can't see how you can reasonably link those experience to anything outside of yourself, anything that isn't you.  You've ruled out any possible correspondence between those subjective experiences and anything outside of your subjective self.  Saying "God revealed something to me" is therefore meaningless.  It's just language...mere words that have no connection to anything real outside of your brain.

 

IMO, this is just a situation of wanting your cake and eating it too.  The pragmatic philosophy you employ destroys the foundation for any knowledge of a reality outside of ourselves but you still assert that you have knowledge of something outside of yourself, namely God.  As I asked in a previous post, why does God get a pass when we "cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves"?  What are the grounds for concluding that God is the author of your spiritual experiences (as a Mormon you surely believe God is distinct from you and is therefore an object)?  On what objective basis do you make that determination, as opposed to a purely subjective "I just know"?

Rorty, as above

 

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states

 

Notice he is specifically saying that the world is not our creation and most things in space in time are NOT caused by human mental states.

 

Perhaps reading carefully might be a goal.  When one of the worlds greatest philosophers say something which all of the philosophers in the world have not seen as you do, perhaps one might consider the possibility that one has misunderstood the point.

 

On the other hand, if a great many philosophers affirm that what is said makes sense, but they disagree for specific reasons, one might want to look at those reasons and see if one agrees with them, with the attitude that perhaps one has something to learn.

Edited August 19, 2014 by mfbukowski

[Spammer]

Rorty, as above

Notice he is specifically saying that the world is not our creation and most things in space in time are NOT caused by human mental states.

 

Perhaps reading carefully might be a goal.  When one of the worlds greatest philosophers say something which all of the philosophers in the world have not seen as you do, perhaps one might consider the possibility that one has misunderstood the point.

 

On the other hand, if a great many philosophers affirm that what is said makes sense, but they disagree for specific reasons, one might want to look at those reasons and see if one agrees with them, with the attitude that perhaps one has something to learn.

 

 

Rorty, as above

Notice he is specifically saying that the world is not our creation and most things in space in time are NOT caused by human mental states.

 

Perhaps reading carefully might be a goal.  When one of the worlds greatest philosophers say something which all of the philosophers in the world have not seen as you do, perhaps one might consider the possibility that one has misunderstood the point.

 

On the other hand, if a great many philosophers affirm that what is said makes sense, but they disagree for specific reasons, one might want to look at those reasons and see if one agrees with them, with the attitude that perhaps one has something to learn.

 

My comment about Rorty and his 'common sense' statement you quoted was based on my reading of your bolded assertion that "we cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves". Not having read Rorty, I assumed that Rorty agrees with you.  My problem is that I see the two statements 1) "we cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves" and 2) "the world is not our creation and most things in space and time are not caused by human mental states" to be mutually exclusive.  The former says we can't know anything about the world, since we can't distinguish between it and our mental states.  The latter is a statement about the nature of the world that presumes that at least something about the world can indeed be known - we can know that the world is not our creation and most things in space and time are not caused by human mental states.  

 

Perhaps that's where the kink in our dialogue lies.  I can't see how you can reconcile 1) and 2) above.  If we can't know anything about the world, then no inference or statement about the nature of the world is valid.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Spammer

[Spammer]

No, faith is faith.  "The hope for things UNSEEN".  That is what it is supposed to be- a HOPE, not "knowledge".  Yet Alma 32 shows us how in time it can be called "knowledge" because it becomes certainty.

 

That's all well and good, but hoping that your faith corresponds with reality is not the same thing as your faith really corresponding with reality.  But your philosophy, if I understand it properly, rules out knowing that as a possibility since we can't ever get outside ourselves so we can distinguish between reality and our mental states.  That's what I meant by blind faith.  It's a faith with no mechanism in place that allows for knowledge of whether the faith is misplaced.

[Spammer]

Only your first question is a justified statement about Rorty's statement.  I am sorry you do not understand it.

 

But yes you are correct that calling a statement "true" has little to do with the world outside of language.  The point is that obviously we get things done anyway.  I think there is no point in discussing it further- the discussion is "stuck" on this point.

 

If you are genuinely interested in this topic, a good place to start would be with this article  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/#Obj2Cor

 

 

Note that it says that it is a widely accepted theory of truth.  You have an uphill battle proving your point, unfortunately

So it isn't as if Rorty, much less Bukowski, is dreaming this up.

Here is the article's refutation to the correspondence objection to deflationism.

So the best that can be said is that "The snow is white" corresponds to the "fact" that the snow is white, when "fact" is understood to be a proposition.  That means it is purely a linguistic statement.

 

But clearly we are getting beyond the scope of what can be taught here about philosophical theories of truth without most folks having an adequate background.  I understood all of this before I even joined the church so it might be hard for those who do not see the points Rorty and others are making.

 

It's about what can be expressed in language, not about the world out there.  The bottom line is that experiences cannot be put exactly into language.   Saying something is beautiful does not express the experience of beauty so it cannot correspond to it.  Saying something is blue does not express blueness to a blind man because the language does not correspond to the experience or even really express it.  Language cannot "correspond" to anything in the world.  We understand each other because we all have similar experiences so words make sense, but without that, without knowing what color is, what sight is, what sound and smell are, we could say nothing about our experiences of the world.  If we didn't know what a cat was or a pillow was, we could not say that "The cat is on the pillow".  Language is not a picture, it is not a smell or taste or sound.

 

Language really is a set of verbal descriptions intended to convey one's interpretation of one's experience to another.  Those descriptions are about experience, not about a world beyond experience.

 

But that goes beyond what we can do here really.  Perhaps we feel we are defending positions rather than conversing with the goal toward understanding.

 

Sorry- we are not getting anywhere I think.  But it has been a good discussion and your replies are on point.  We have just gotten to the point where I do not have the magic words to communicate the ideas better than I have!

 

Good info.  I don't think we're quite at the point of getting nowhere.  Let's see what happens after you respond to my question about how to reconcile the two statements I referred to in post #280.

[mfbukowski]

My comment about Rorty and his 'common sense' statement you quoted was based on my reading of your bolded assertion that "we cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves". Not having read Rorty, I assumed that Rorty agrees with you.  My problem is that I see the two statements 1) "we cannot know anything about the world of objects distinct from ourselves" and 2) "the world is not our creation and most things in space and time are not caused by human mental states" to be mutually exclusive.  The former says we can't know anything about the world, since we can't distinguish between it and our mental states.  The latter is a statement about the nature of the world that presumes that at least something about the world can indeed be known - we can know that the world is not our creation and most things in space and time are not caused by human mental states.  

 

Perhaps that's where the kink in our dialogue lies.  I can't see how you can reconcile 1) and 2) above.  If we can't know anything about the world, then no inference or statement about the nature of the world is valid.

Excellent point!

I misspoke.  Substitute the word "speak about" for "know".

 

That is much clearer.  I take it for granted that we cannot "know" anything we cannot speak about- so they are equivalent for me!  Good point!  The point is about what we can talk about.  Only linguistic statements can be true or false- the world is not true or false, and I adhere to a deflationary theory of truth.

 

Battery going- more later

[Gazza]

The thing you don't understand is that to a testimony-bearing Latter-day Saint it's the powerful inspiration found in the end product of Joseph Smith's translations that matter and not whether or not the Prophet  translated ancient scriptural records in a way that conforms to the usual meaning of the word translate. I know by the revelations of the Spirit that the prophet's translations are true, and I get closer and closer to God each time I read them and abide by the divine precepts found in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

From my vantage point, former members of the LDS Church who unwisely attempt to bring down the Restored Kingdom of God are unwittingly fulfilling the prophecy of Lehi's dream, wherein he saw those who once held fast to the iron rod and partook of the precious fruit of the tree of life but then wander off into forbidden paths. Eventually these former believers cross the spiritual Rubicon, as it were, and are at last found numbered among those who stand at the windows of the large and spacious building, pointing in solemn mockery at those who remain steadfast and faithful to the Restored Kingdom. Nothing but frustration and disillusionment will be the fruit the apostate's labors because, come what may, God's holy decrees concerning the ultimate triumph of the Restored Kingdom will be fulfilled:

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” (Joseph Smith)

 

Not sure how to properly break up quotes here, so I'll paste bit-by-bit responses:

 

"The thing you don't understand is that to a testimony-bearing Latter-day Saint it's the powerful inspiration found in the end product of Joseph Smith's translations that matter and not whether or not the Prophet  translated ancient scriptural records in a way that conforms to the usual meaning of the word translate. I know by the revelations of the Spirit that the prophet's translations are true, and I get closer and closer to God each time I read them and abide by the divine precepts found in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price."

 

Wow, very thick cognitive dissonance.  So fraud is inspirational to you?  A lie is fine so long as there is a cool inspirational picture at the end of it?  It should matter what he claimed to do--which was to very specifically labor to translate those payprus.  He even had detailed daily journals about how hard he was working to decipher each item.  There is no mistake or special pleading such as "conforms to the usual meaning of the word translate" that gets around the fact that he PRETENDED to translate documents in egyption, and then along came the rosetta stone and real egypitologists, and voila his "Book of Abraham" details of what the pictures mean and all.  Well, he was proven to be wrong, he wasn't even close, so if it doesn't matter to you since its only "inspiration" I have to say either you are not a person capable of rational thought.  You are in a delusion, wake up.

 

The evidence is overwhelming, none of the book of mormon claims hold water, we have no evidence of any civilization named, and JS was ignorant enough to put down animals, plants, ect. that did not even exist on the continent during that time period.

[USU78]

Not sure how to properly break up quotes here, so I'll paste bit-by-bit responses:

 

"The thing you don't understand is that to a testimony-bearing Latter-day Saint it's the powerful inspiration found in the end product of Joseph Smith's translations that matter and not whether or not the Prophet  translated ancient scriptural records in a way that conforms to the usual meaning of the word translate. I know by the revelations of the Spirit that the prophet's translations are true, and I get closer and closer to God each time I read them and abide by the divine precepts found in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price."

 

Wow, very thick cognitive dissonance.  So fraud is inspirational to you?  A lie is fine so long as there is a cool inspirational picture at the end of it?  It should matter what he claimed to do--which was to very specifically labor to translate those payprus.  He even had detailed daily journals about how hard he was working to decipher each item.  There is no mistake or special pleading such as "conforms to the usual meaning of the word translate" that gets around the fact that he PRETENDED to translate documents in egyption, and then along came the rosetta stone and real egypitologists, and voila his "Book of Abraham" details of what the pictures mean and all.  Well, he was proven to be wrong, he wasn't even close, so if it doesn't matter to you since its only "inspiration" I have to say either you are not a person capable of rational thought.  You are in a delusion, wake up.

 

The evidence is overwhelming, none of the book of mormon claims hold water, we have no evidence of any civilization named, and JS was ignorant enough to put down animals, plants, ect. that did not even exist on the continent during that time period.

 

I'm reporting this, mfb, I hope you don't mind, as being off-topic and spammerish.

[Gazza]

Very old news.

 

There are lots of threads about the BOA and THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.  Take it to another thread please.  You are clearly not well informed about the Mormon side of this VERY old argument.

 

Get informed and then make an intelligent argument after you understand the issues.

I am well informed, and I have never heard a good argument for the points raised, go ahead, link me, we shall see.  But from I know about the Book of Abraham alone is enough to discredit JS as a con.

[Gazza]

LOL!!!!

First you claim that the extant document WAS the source of JS's translation and NOW you claim that it wasn't.

In the future, please keep your story straight.

Now, back to the real topic of this thread.

Nonsense.  I am claiming that we do not need to use third parties to verify JS is a fraud and pretended to translate the documents, we can use what the church has published of them, and those are enough to demonstrate his fraud.

 

I made no such inconsistent statement, maybe you need to go back to school? What is your education level? High School? GED?

[Gazza]

Uh, OK well..... see you there. Where do I turn in my temple recommend? You have convinced me wholly that JS "made it all up".

 

The "pictures" prove it. Lol hahahahah. Probably the best argument I have heard in years. I mean that seriously. It has been years since I heard something so utterly stupid.

Your an idiot.

 

The REAL translations prove it.  The LDS church is just foolish enough to still have documentation of his fraud.  I mean we are taking about an indicted con man who claimed to look into a hat at a rock and translate borrowed gold angel plates, and then he proceeded to create a book that we KNOW holds zero historical or scientific merit, and that the book was inaccurate about plants, people, and the existence of mesoamerican civilizations.

 

Perhaps if you actually stepped outside your box and did some research you would come to see your recommend for what it is--certification of your lunacy.  Maybe you should join the Masons, surely you will notice the ceremony similarities.

[mfbukowski]

When Nietzsche said "There are no facts, only interpretations", that can also be easily misunderstood.

 

Usually people think a "fact" is a statement about the "world outside"- that the statement corresponds to the state of the world, and therefore is called a "fact".  People take that to mean that there is "no truth"

 

But that is not what Nietzsche was saying.  He was disputing that view of the world,  that words could correspond to a state of the world- and saying really that all language can do is describe experiences which are only intelligible to others because they have had similar experiences themselves.

 

So the world "blue" - an experience- can only describe "blue" to someone who has already experienced blue.  If the word "corresponds" to anything, it is a description of an experience we all have had.

 

"Blue" makes no sense to anyone who has never experience blue.  They don't know whether or not "The sky is blue" or false any more than "the sky is brown" is true or false because they lack the experience to know the difference.

 

So Nietzsche was saying that a "fact" is not about the world "out there"- it is a linguistic interpretation of someone's- or everyone's experience- not about the world which exists independent of our perceptions, at all.

[mfbukowski]

I'm reporting this, mfb, I hope you don't mind, as being off-topic and spammerish.

Sounds good to me- go ahead!

 

This guy hasn't a clue.

[USU78]

Immanuel Kant was a real puissant

Who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger

Who could think you under the table

David Hume could outconsume

Schopenhauer and Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine

Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel

 

[mfbukowski]

Immanuel Kant was a real puissant

Who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger

Who could think you under the table

David Hume could outconsume

Schopenhauer and Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine

Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel

 

It's unfortunate that a state of intoxication facilitates understanding how different the world can appear to different people at different times. 

[mfbukowski]

I am well informed, and I have never heard a good argument for the points raised, go ahead, link me, we shall see.  But from I know about the Book of Abraham alone is enough to discredit JS as a con.

Take it to another thread or I will ask the mods to ban you from this one.  Do your own research if you are capable of it.

[cdowis]

When Nietzsche said "There are no facts, only interpretations", that can also be easily misunderstood.

 

 

Cdowis said "I understand the difference between fact/data  and opinion/assertion."  

[Spammer]

Excellent point!

I misspoke.  Substitute the word "speak about" for "know".

 

That is much clearer.  I take it for granted that we cannot "know" anything we cannot speak about- so they are equivalent for me!  Good point!  The point is about what we can talk about.  Only linguistic statements can be true or false- the world is not true or false, and I adhere to a deflationary theory of truth.

 

Battery going- more later

 

Ok, that's great.   Progress!  I think I have a better grasp on what you're communicating.  There's nothing you said that precedes your mention of deflationary theory of truth that I don't also accept.  I don't yet know enough about the deflationary theory to be confident I'll say anything intelligent.  I'll reread what you provided earlier in the thread and comment as things come to mind.

[mfbukowski]

Ok, that's great. Progress! I think I have a better grasp on what you're communicating. There's nothing you said that precedes your mention of deflationary theory of truth that I don't also accept. I don't yet know enough about the deflationary theory to be confident I'll say anything intelligent. I'll reread what you provided earlier in the thread and comment as things come to mind.

Great!

The incredibly simple idea is that all conversation about anything is conversation between people who have shared experience talking about their experience and nothing more, nothing less. We can't talk about anything "outside" that. That's what science is, that's what religion is, that's what all human discourse is. When you truly grasp that, all worries about proving Anything beyond that go away. It's all someone else's description of their experience.

Edited August 20, 2014 by mfbukowski

[thesometimesaint]

I am well informed, and I have never heard a good argument for the points raised, go ahead, link me, we shall see.  But from I know about the Book of Abraham alone is enough to discredit JS as a con.

 

I suggest you read. "Traditions About The Early Life of Abraham" by Tvedtnes, Hauglid, and Gee.

[Spammer]

Delete. 

 

How do I link a clip as in #291?

Edited August 20, 2014 by Spammer

[mfbukowski]

Delete. 

 

How do I link a clip as in #291?

I copied that from USU, but I think that you just paste a link without doing anything fancy.   This is a clip I meant to post anyway, I am just pasting a simple clip copied directly from the youtube address bar and simply pasted below.  If you see the video, it worked.

[Spammer]

 

"Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori, adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx claims it was offside."

 

I can't believe they substituted Marx for Wittgenstein, even though in the end Marx was right.  Socrates was offside!