On The Deflationary Theory

[Mars]

Late to the party, are we saying religion is a useful lie?

 

where did you get that that was said?

[mfbukowski]

Late to the party, are we saying religion is a useful lie?

Uh no.

[Mars]

richard rorty passed away in 2007

[Tacenda]

where did you get that that was said?

Sorry, I'll re-phrase that, are we saying religion/faith/truth is based on interpretations?  So truth is unknowable in regards to a God? 

[mfbukowski]

I just saw another video that reminded me of this conversation. 

 

It basically described what has made humans so powerful, and it comes down to the ability to adapt flexibly and in large numbers together.  These phenomena are brought about because of our ability to create, understand, communicate, and cooperate with fictions.  For example, currency is a fiction, national borders are fictions, rights are fictions.  Currency is valued because we've agreed upon it, not because the piece of paper or digitized figure in a bank account is intrinsically valuable.

 

And thus, while all other creatures live in a simpler world of the elements, we as humans have our feet in the elements and our heads in useful lies.

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans

 

Jumping off that, however, not only do we live in fictions, we're created new worlds with those fictions, and we're also discovering more about the elements themselves with the helps of those useful lies.

This is absolutely wonderful- not because I liked the video but because it speaks directly I think to this latest question we are handling.  It's really great that this scientist's point of view, I think parallels tagriffy's world view- maybe, because of course I do not know for sure.

 

I am glad that there was a transcript so that I could read it in 3 minutes rather than listening for 20!

 

Here is a scientist- obviously a brilliant guy- locked into correspondence theory and he illustrates the position so perfectly that he misses the great irony of his position!

 

Notice that he postulates two worlds - one "fictional" and the other "real" because it is "objective".  This guy understands paradigms- he understands what he calls "fictions" but he never steps out of his own correspondence paradigm because it is just how he sees the world.  He never for one second understands that his dualism itself is just HIS paradigm he cannot leave.

 

And he is perfectly logical.   God cannot be real because he is not objectively observable.  He comes to the only possible way of understanding God one can reach if one believes in correspondence!

 

This guy illustrates the problem to perfection, and all his conclusions are exactly perfectly and unconditionally "true" if you accept his correspondence paradigm.

 

That is precisely why we who are believers need to give up this paradigm. 

 

We who know God exists because He has revealed himself to us cannot consistently possibly keep the correspondence paradigm.  It doesn't work with religion.  End of story.  It just doesn't work!  But that's ok because it doesn't work for many other reasons at all- and that is why there is a deflationary theory of truth, because so many others, atheists included, like Rorty, see that it doesn't work.

 

This guy is re-inventing what the Pragmatists have been saying for over a hundred years, while erroneously retaining the correspondence theory and not taking the final step to knowing that "reality itself" is a "useful fiction" and indeed that the concept of a "useful fiction" is a device invented to retain and defend the correspondence theory

 

I was desperately hoping that it would end with him saying something like- this-

 

the quote he did NOT say

 

"AND- all that I have told you itself can be seen as a "useful fiction, but it is not.  These "useful fictions" ARE REALITY!  Every perception which enters your brain has been constructed by your brain and conditioned by your culture and language.  Because we all have human brains we agree on them, that blue is what we have named "blue" and we accept that because of our language.  WE EVEN COOPERATE IN THE VERY CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY ITSELF!

 

Like all useful constructs, God himself is a useful construct and as real as a table or chair or the world itself, in fact God has constructed himself, because he too is human and he is a Being who is part of the entire chain of cooperation. He has given us language which is the great tool of cooperation which separates us from the chimps!  All that was created was created by the Word!

 

And the only church which teaches this is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and now we have some missionaries who would love to speak with you--   missionaries?  Are you ready?  Come on in!

 

Of course i am joking but that would be my perfect fantasy ending to this video.

 

But I think this also speaks to tagriffy's question/idea.

[mfbukowski]

Sorry, I'll re-phrase that, are we saying religion/faith/truth is based on interpretations?

Yes

 

So truth is unknowable in regards to a God?

 

No.  Read the thread.  reason it out.  If truth is interpretation then the idea of truth itself is useless. Everyone has their own interpretation.  Interpretation of perception itself and therefore God is "real".  Millions have experienced God.

 

That's it kiddo, that's all you're getting from me.     (For others- we have had many conversations!)

[mfbukowski]

richard rorty passed away in 2007

That's ok- he's figured it out by now!  All he missed was that God himself is an Ironist. I am sure it was a big time facepalm.  But he's gotten over it by now.

[Mars]

Sorry, I'll re-phrase that, are we saying religion/faith/truth is based on interpretations?  So truth is unknowable in regards to a God? 

 

bold part - no that's not it at all

 

i'll take some time and post more later, but no...  that's not it at all

 

it's like the opposite

 

we can indeed know God via experience

 

how we try to fumble around and try to explain such an experience is where words can fall short

 

to someone who's never seen anything remotely like the color red you don't describe red and expect that to suffice. you show them red.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Mars

[Tacenda]

Yes

 

No.  Read the thread.  reason it out.  If truth is interpretation then the idea of truth itself is useless. Everyone has their own interpretation.  Interpretation of perception itself and therefore God is "real".  Millions have experienced God.

 

That's it kiddo, that's all you're getting from me.     (For others- we have had many conversations!)

That's all I deserve to get.  I have read the thread but not for a few days.  It's a great way to look at things.  Then nothing can get in your way of having a testimony of the church being true practically.  The way the church has helped you have a belief in God is priceless! 

[Tacenda]

bold part - no that's not it at all

 

i'll take some time and post more later, but no...  that's not it at all

 

it's like the opposite

 

we can indeed know God via experience

 

how we try to fumble around and try to explain such an experience is where words can fall short

 

to someone who's never seen anything remotely like the color red you don't describe red and expect that to suffice. you show them red.

No need to post more, I get what you are saying.  I think what it boils down to is the idiom "truth is in the pudding"!

[mfbukowski]

bold part - no that's not it at all

 

i'll take some time and post more later, but no...  that's not it at all

 

it's like the opposite

 

we can indeed know God via experience

 

how we try to fumble around and try to explain such an experience is where words can fall short

 

to someone who's never seen anything remotely like the color red you don't describe red and expect that to suffice. you show them red.

By Jove, I think he's got it!! 

[Meadowchik]

This is absolutely wonderful- not because I liked the video but because it speaks directly I think to this latest question we are handling.  It's really great that this scientist's point of view, I think parallels tagriffy's world view- maybe, because of course I do not know for sure.

 

(snip)

 

I did really like the video because his insight about human differences is valuable.  But I do agree that all these "fictions" are indeed real, too.  The difference, is, though, easily seen in that these fictions have to be maintained by our human cooperation.  The sand and tides will still be there regardless of currency or national borders.  Another way to think of it is how "real" something is without collaboration.  I imagine a land called Texico, and it is real to me as one cohesive land, but no one else knows this idea.  This makes it "less real" than Mexico and Texas, right?

 

I haven't been able to keep up with the entire thread and I am not sure what you mean by correspondence.  Maybe you can use my examples above to explainiate?   Sorry if you've already done that a million times already!

[mfbukowski]

This is a discussion in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Phil. that captures what an "Ironist"is
 
 

Rorty's liberal ironist, recognizing—indeed, affirming—the contingency of her own commitments, is explicitly ethnocentric. For the liberal ironist,
…one consequence of antirepresentationalism is the recognition that no description of how things are from a God's-eye point of view, no skyhook provided by some contemporary or yet-to-be-developed science, is going to free us from the contingency of having been acculturated as we were. Our acculturation is what makes certain options live, or momentous, or forced, while leaving others dead, or trivial, or optional. (ORT 13)
So the liberal ironist accepts that bourgeois liberalism has no universality other than the transient and unstable one which time, luck, and discursive effort might win for it. This view looks to many readers like a version of cultural relativism. True, Rorty does not say that what is true, what is good, and what is right is relative to some particular ethnos, and so in that sense he is no relativist. But the worry about relativism, that it leaves us with no rational way to adjudicate conflict, seems to apply equally to Rorty's ethnocentric view. Rorty's answer is to say that in one sense of "rational" that is true, but that in another sense it is not, and to recommend that we drop the former. Rorty's position is that we have no notion of rational warrant that exceeds, or transcends, or grounds, the norms that liberal intellectuals take to define thorough, open-minded, reflective discussion. It is chimerical, Rorty holds, to think that the force or attractiveness of these norms can be enhanced by argument that does not presuppose them. It is pointless, equally, to look for ways of convicting those who pay them no heed of irrationality. Persuasion across such fundamental differences is achieved, if at all, by concrete comparisons of particular alternatives, by elaborate description and redescription of the kinds of life to which different practices conduce.

A Mormon might say that the ironist is one who - by composing one's own "story" organizes her own reality from matter unorganized, but is aware that the story itself changes to adjust itself to different circumstances within the community.

 

A Mormon might describe that as "continuing revelation".  And by applying that view of an Ironist to God we now have a "community" defined by God created by a "vocabulary" ("The Word") to which all humanity belongs, and those who understand the vocabularies (Mormons) tacitly agree.

 

Continuing revelation can be seen as God the organizer of the community re-defining the vocabulary from time to time as circumstances demand.  Some members of the community may not accept the vocabulary (Redefinition of marriage) and perhaps may start their own community or develop their own vocabularies- interpretations and explanations- to accommodate that. (Progressive Mormons?)

Look at this from the church's own definition of doctrine:

 

With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted.

 

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.au/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine

 

The 15 "counsel together to ESTABLISH doctrine that is CONSISTENTLY PROCLAIMED!"

 

What is that if it is not establishing a community vocabulary?  Defining the words- the story- by which "truth" shall be known??

 

This is actually an institution established to create the "truth" as definitions of words and vocabularies for the community of Mormons!!

[mfbukowski]

I did really like the video because his insight about human differences is valuable.  But I do agree that all these "fictions" are indeed real, too.  The difference, is, though, easily seen in that these fictions have to be maintained by our human cooperation.  The sand and tides will still be there regardless of currency or national borders.  Another way to think of it is how "real" something is without collaboration.  I imagine a land called Texico, and it is real to me as one cohesive land, but no one else knows this idea.  This makes it "less real" than Mexico and Texas, right?

 

I haven't been able to keep up with the entire thread and I am not sure what you mean by correspondence.  Maybe you can use my examples above to explainiate?   Sorry if you've already done that a million times already!

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#CorThe

See also post 1

[mfbukowski]

We are definitely getting there, at least. I would go further than to say it is "just a paradigm." I previously described reality as not just a myth, but the myth. "[T]ruth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come" (D&C 93:24). Having knowledge of anything presumes that there is reality of something to be known. The myth of reality works not just because it gives one comfort, but it gives us something to strive for and it provides a means of doing it. This is the source of the correspondence intuition. We pursue science and scholarship because we want to know "things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come." We continually act upon the myth and our everyday speech reflects it.

 

To a certain extent, I guess you are right that I'm unconsciously reflecting deflationism. But whereas a deflationist would say adding "it is true" to a statement adds nothing, I would say it adds everything.

I wanted to save this for last because I am hoping all that I have already said today would help answer this.

 

Things "as they are" are things as we perceive them.  Human experience.  Did Joseph see "things as they are" when he allegedly saw God?  We must postulate that he he saw something "real" that very few others in the entire history of humanity have seen.   Was it"real"?

 

This theory allows me to say it is "as real as any other personal experience" which means to me "things as they are".  What you see is what you get.

 

Of course we have drug induced hallucinations.  Are those "real"?  Semantics!  It is crucial that one realizes that this is all "just words" used for a purpose.  If one wants to go all matrix, those would call that hallucination "real".  

 

I would call it "illusion" like a mirage and get on with life

 

Is there one definable way to define "truth"?  Uh, no- that is indeed why the deflationary theory was constructed! 

 

This is precisely the problem- everyone wants certainty and a solid foundation for "truth"- but I maintain that the desire itself has been programmed into Western culture by the good old Greeks- and their compadres, Aquinas and company and then the proponents of "correspondence"

 

That video that Ted video shows that.  This guy believes in useful fictions- and yet he cannot give up the idea that even the idea of a "useful fiction" is a useful fiction!

 

So if a useful fiction is used to describe an other useful fiction- what do you get??  It is as if they cancel each other out and you can say that reality itself is a useful fiction.

 

But obviously at that point you are turning language on its head!!  Just face that reality is what you see, complete with mistakes!  Oh no!  We are adrift in a sea of opinions and interpretations!

 

Yep!  Get used to it!   Come up with your own explanation if you like- your own "useful fiction", but know that others will disagree. 

 

One way or another we have to face the reality of ambiguity of language, and that language is all we have to express our perceptions and ideas and all that is "in our heads" and that includes all of human endeavor.

 

Everything that is and all we know personally is part of the pool of human experience and there is nothing outside that pool of experience that humans can know, except human experience.  And any new ones will also become part of that pool.  No one has walked on Mars yet (except maybe his wife ) but some day that might become part of the pool of human experience also

 

To me, that is as obvious as A=A.  Since human experience is a creation of the human mind, we have created all the universe as we can know it

 

So seeing the Ideal Human as God, it is as obvious as A=A that Humanity including the Ideal Human have organized all we can know.  That is my definition of omniscience.

But that is for later!

 

I guess you are right that I'm unconsciously reflecting deflationism. But whereas a deflationist would say adding "it is true" to a statement adds nothing, I would say it adds everything.

 

If it is a useful fiction which gives you peace, go for it.

 

But I suspect that will become harder and harder a fiction to maintain.

Edited July 27, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

This is the conclusion of the Ted video quoted above. https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans

 

This is the epitome of the results of correspondence.

To conclude, then: We humans control the world because we live in a dual reality. All other animals live in an objective reality. Their reality consists of objective entities, like rivers and trees and lions and elephants. We humans, we also live in an objective reality. In our world, too, there are rivers and trees and lions and elephants. But over the centuries, we have constructed on top of this objective reality a second layer of fictional reality, a reality made of fictional entities, like nations, like gods, like money, like corporations. And what is amazing is that as history unfolded, this fictional reality became more and more powerful so that today, the most powerful forces in the world are these fictional entities. Today, the very survival of rivers and trees and lions and elephants depends on the decisions and wishes of fictional entities,like the United States, like Google, like the World Bank -- entities that exist only in our own imagination."

 

The United States is as real as God (not real)and both exist in our imagination.

Uh huh.

And this guy is on Ted receiving applause.

I hope he never needs a loan from an institution tied to the world Bank. They can loan him imaginary money.

These are the fruits of correspondence.  Are they sweet?  Does this explain reality as we know it?  This is a brilliant guy who only knows correspondence theory as the only possible view of "truth".  He is a totally naive realist who takes the position to its logical conclusion.  He is unquestionably brilliant but frankly, uneducated in these matters.

 

If you see these views he espouses as inadequate, welcome to the fold!

Edited July 27, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

This guy is the poster child for secularism and the "unknown god"

 

This would have been a great place to START the thread, showing where correspondence leads us and then presenting the remedy.

 

But you see this is why I have a conviction that if we could ever get others to see this video for the error it presents, we could be as a church what God wants us to be.

 

If we could show Mormons the strength of their position philosophically and show them the errors of secularism- it is not even conceivable what we could become.  We could fill the earth.

 

There is no "dual reality"- what is reality is human experience and the pool of human experience all defined by the words we use in language to define it.

 

You can see the linguistic problems correspondence engenders right here- concluding that the World Bank and United States are "fiction"- or "useful lies", as well as money.

 

Does anyone on this planet really think that money is a "useful lie"??

 

Yes it is a human construction we all agree on.  But guess what??  So is all reality as we know it!! 

 

THERE IS no-thing else and can BE no-thing else or else we would not call it a "thing"!!   Is that really that hard to understand??

[Mars]

this is gonna sound like i'm backtracking, but here goes

 

it still feels like "there's more to this"

 

the guy in the ted talk takes that feeling and says "oh that's because there's two realities"

 

today, i would say "i don't care if there's two or two million.  the only reality i can experience is the one i'm dealing with right now.  agreeing what money is doesn't create a new separate reality, it just abstracts away some things for economic convenience.  we're just agreeing on language, not creating new reality"

 

but it feels very attractive to consider a mysterious and ethereal reality that's beyond our reach and ultimately forever out of our reach.  it's gained a ton of traction in the western world.  how come?

[Ahab]

I'm still having some trouble translating the way some of you are saying some things, but I'm still getting the gist of what y'all are saying, I think. And I think this translation process is part of the idea behind the deflationary theory too. Trying to put things in an overall/objective context while trying to make sense of it all subjectively.

But still some ideas are just wrong. Still real and part of Reality because some of you are really having those ideas that are not right, which you might and I admit could reasonably be considered true. True but not good. Like how evil is true/real because it truly and really is part of reality, but still not good.

That's what is still needed in this discussion, I think. We still need some way to distinguish and classify what is good and what isn't, along with what is really there somewhere and what someone thinks is there but really isn't, except as a mirage/illusion/mistaken notion.

[Mars]

I'm still having some trouble translating the way some of you are saying some things, but I'm still getting the gist of what y'all are saying, I think. And I think this translation process is part of the idea behind the deflationary theory too. Trying to put things in an overall/objective context while trying to make sense of it all subjectively.

But still some ideas are just wrong. Still real and part of Reality because some of you are really having those ideas that are not right, which you might and I admit could reasonably be considered true. True but not good. Like how evil is true/real because it truly and really is part of reality, but still not good.

That's what is still needed in this discussion, I think. We still need some way to distinguish and classify what is good and what isn't, along with what is really there somewhere and what someone thinks is there but really isn't, except as a mirage/illusion/mistaken notion.

 

'ideas are wrong'

 

what about them is wrong?  is the perception incorrect?  can you demonstrate it?  is the conclusion based on the perception incorrect?  could you demonstrate it?

 

in either case, the demonstration would still be using language that you and the other person agree or disagree on.

 

for conclusions and rationale, humans have embraced logic which has its set of rules.  but it's all just shared language to make sure that your conclusions and my conclusions will match.  it's structure, order, and organization of ideas and observance.  it's a mapping of cause and effect.

 

for perception, that's harder to argue.  if someone doesn't see the color red and we are assuming they're being truthful, then we'd probably subject them to some sort of scientific testing to see if their perception is categorically or measurably different than ours.

 

*****

 

as for what's good, society tends to decide upon what's good based on what works.  even internally.  we get rewards for behavior.  we develop habits.  some habits have enormously high good rewards for the very short term and then enormously bad rewards for the long term.  and we can't quite distance ourselves from loving the good rewards at the expense of the bad ones.  and so we're addicted to drugs.  or pornography.  or alcohol.  or we're mean to other people because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

 

once those behaviors go on destroying other people, then humans realize that threats to the safety of the community ought to be removed.  and in the long long long aggregate history of humanity, governance emerges.  because we realize it's better to band together for safety under a certain set of rules defining what's good and what's bad.  because it works for us.

 

i don't think the deflationary theory of truth is supposed to do what you are trying to say it needs to do - it's not supposed to help you separate right and wrong or truth and error.  it's just saying that there is no alternate reality outside of words.  there are your experiences and your words that describe that experience.  as you go on in life you will have more and more experiences and you will do this on purpose or it will happen to you.  nothing exists outside of your ability to describe it because there is nothing for you to understand.  you can't know what you don't know.  and no one should expect you to.

[mfbukowski]

this is gonna sound like i'm backtracking, but here goes

 

it still feels like "there's more to this"

 

the guy in the ted talk takes that feeling and says "oh that's because there's two realities"

 

today, i would say "i don't care if there's two or two million.  the only reality i can experience is the one i'm dealing with right now.  agreeing what money is doesn't create a new separate reality, it just abstracts away some things for economic convenience.  we're just agreeing on language, not creating new reality"

 

but it feels very attractive to consider a mysterious and ethereal reality that's beyond our reach and ultimately forever out of our reach.  it's gained a ton of traction in the western world.  how come?

well I believe there is a reality outside of our ability to describe it. But the way that we reach that reality is through direct experience. Meditation for example allows one to achieve a sense of timelessness. I think the Holy Spirit can communicate effectively the will of God for us individually. The perception of beauty is something we could not express yet we know it when we see it.

[Ahab]

'ideas are wrong'

what about them is wrong? is the perception incorrect? can you demonstrate it? is the conclusion based on the perception incorrect? could you demonstrate it?

When an idea is wrong the idea itself is wrong. It is usually if not always a false perception of something that is true or real, and the false idea concerning something true/real is demonstrated by contrasting the false idea with the correct perception of what is experienced. And No, the conclusion based on the person's perception is not correct when the person has a wrong idea about what is being perceived. We both could probably come up with some examples to demonstrate what I'm talking about but even with good examples it would still be possible to come up with a false idea.

in either case, the demonstration would still be using language that you and the other person agree or disagree on.

I agree with that statement.

for conclusions and rationale, humans have embraced logic which has its set of rules. but it's all just shared language to make sure that your conclusions and my conclusions will match. it's structure, order, and organization of ideas and observance. it's a mapping of cause and effect.

Conclusions do not always match, though. Perceptions do not always agree. People can look at the same thing but still somehow get a wrong or false idea about what they are seeing and experiencing.

for perception, that's harder to argue. if someone doesn't see the color red and we are assuming they're being truthful, then we'd probably subject them to some sort of scientific testing to see if their perception is categorically or measurably different than ours.

Think of an example where someone gets the wrong idea about something that is true and good, thinking instead that it is false and evil. Where do they go to get tested? Who gives the correct test results?

*****

as for what's good, society tends to decide upon what's good based on what works. even internally. we get rewards for behavior. we develop habits. some habits have enormously high good rewards for the very short term and then enormously bad rewards for the long term. and we can't quite distance ourselves from loving the good rewards at the expense of the bad ones. and so we're addicted to drugs. or pornography. or alcohol. or we're mean to other people because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

once those behaviors go on destroying other people, then humans realize that threats to the safety of the community ought to be removed. and in the long long long aggregate history of humanity, governance emerges. because we realize it's better to band together for safety under a certain set of rules defining what's good and what's bad. because it works for us.

What's the backup plan in all of that? Who is there to set things straight when those in charge of a society have false perceptions about what is good and allow bad things to happen without any direct penalty?

i don't think the deflationary theory of truth is supposed to do what you are trying to say it needs to do - it's not supposed to help you separate right and wrong or truth and error. it's just saying that there is no alternate reality outside of words. there are your experiences and your words that describe that experience. as you go on in life you will have more and more experiences and you will do this on purpose or it will happen to you. nothing exists outside of your ability to describe it because there is nothing for you to understand. you can't know what you don't know. and no one should expect you to.

So what's the big difference or advantage or appeal in the deflationary theory? What is it good for?

[Mars]

It's good and useful to disabuse us of the notion that there is unknowable truth.

[mfbukowski]

Ahab

The theory does not say there is no truth or falsity it says that we cannot define it. That's all very simple. We cannot define truth and you have not done it, no one has doneh .

The best definition we can come up with is that the truth works. If you eat sand from a marrage you die. If its water you live. Yes sometimes our perceptions are wrong but those perceptions do not operate in reality they do not work.

Nature itself selects for what is true or false.

Edited July 28, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Ahab

Please read post 391 again. The correspondence theory is inconsistent with being religious.