Justifying Hallucinations as "Reality"

[MiserereNobis]

9 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Objective evidence is evidence of an object.  Like objective evidence of whom to marry, for example, is the woman or any woman you might want to marry.

 

9 minutes ago, Ahab said:

my understanding of what you mean when you say what you say is the objective evidence that informs my perceptions

Ahab, you need you do some reading on what objective evidence is.  Your definition is wrong in one way, and your example is wrong in another.

[Ahab]

1 minute ago, MiserereNobis said:

 

Ahab, you need you do some reading on what objective evidence is.  Your definition is wrong in one way, and your example is wrong in another.

It's easy for you to say someone is wrong but it's another matter for you to actually show it.

I know what objective evidence is and if you sincerely believe I don't then just tell me what you think objective evidence really is.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

"Only"?  I think that is problematic- and is a great example of what could be classified as confirmation bias- or not.0

Doesn't this depend upon the size of the effect? If you're talking of subtle differences then yes, confirmation bias makes it very hard. If your talking about going out at night and asking if it's bright sunny day or a dark starry night it seems kind of ludicrous to say confirmation bias would make that unknowable.

Now moving from the general case to the more specific case of religious experience, I do think confirmation bias can be a problem. Whether it always is will again depend upon the size of the differences one is dealing with. To my eyes seeing an angel before one would be more like discerning night from day than discerning the effect of priming someone with words related to old age and judging how they walk. So unless we acknowledge that effects aren't all the same size and that often we can distinguish effects I think we're missing something fundamental. I'm fine saying small effects are hard to know.

So going to your orbit question, given the level of observation at the time, I actually don't think heliocentric and geocentric models were really distinguishable. The geocentric model won well before it was really evaluative. Kuhn, I think, makes that point quite compellingly even if some of his arguments don't hold up as well.

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And it still does not address the point I was making- that we make personal decisions and plans based on having no "objective evidence" all the time.  Whom to marry, when to marry, to do the mission first or graduate first, to not marry at all, which school to attend or what life plan is best, or why we should be moral are decisions not based on "objective evidence" unless one tweaks that definition into something entirely different than the usual understanding

I have no problem saying that often we have to make decisions on the basis of incomplete and often indeterminative evidence. We take up a risk. So I not only don't have problem with that but it's actually a pretty key facet in my philosophy. This is actually a pretty big issue for Heidegger. I think this aspect of risk where we take up our own possibilities is a very important phenomena. If you wish to talk about that I'm more than happy to. My point is merely that everything isn't risk in that strong fashion. Often the risks (such as when I judge it night or day) are low due to the nature of the phenomena.

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Making plans in our lives- and atheists DO make plans- is an exercise in faith no matter if they want to admit that or not.  It's semantics as usual.  One man's "plan" is another man's "faith".  Look at the "PLAN" of Salvation as a plan to get to the celestial kingdom or a plan to go to Harvard and become a nuclear physicist and you will see how similar the processes are.

If faith is the basis of action when there is low evidence then yes, clearly atheists use faith. I might prefer a different term simply due to the religious connotations of faith. But I think it the same phenomena. And I do think James, for all his flaws, notes correctly many parts of the phenomena at play here.

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I have no problem with that- in fact I do it myself all the time but I have no illusion that my tweaks "conform to evidence" in any way at all.  Truth is based on judgement calls within a community, and what is perfectly true for someone LDS, -like the statement "I know the church is true"- is nonsense for anyone not LDS

Well I think the phrase "I know the Church is true" is an odd idiom given how English has changed. My own view is this is likely a Hebrewism in our language. But it definitely was once a more prominent part of English such as when we talk of true friends or being true to ones spouse. Even truing a bike wheel is a remnant of this more archaic sense. So pedagogically I think we have to be careful how we use odd Mormon phrases that non-Mormons don't understand.

However to say that a member can't know that this is God's Church on the earth with the proper authority seems wrong. A non-member may very well disagree with us on that point. But I think saying it's nonsense is precisely because they think there is no relevant evidence. So it really is a dispute over evidence. Thus the process is at least comprehensible.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

Perhaps your idea of the "usual understanding" is part of the problem, otherwise I do not know what you mean.

Objective evidence is evidence of an object.  Like objective evidence of whom to marry, for example, is the woman or any woman you might want to marry. Any action we take is objective evidence of what we could have done or wanted to do.

Seriously, bro, you don't seem to understand reality nearly as much as I once thought you did, and your statements and my understanding of what you mean when you say what you say is the objective evidence that informs my perceptions.

So you have objective evidence of God because he is an object.  ok 

Ahab please quit while you are behind.  You are just too well trained in these matters for me to argue with you.

Edited April 18, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Ahab]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

So you have objective evidence of God because he is an object.  ok 

More like there is objective evidence of God because God is an object and God has given me evidence of his existence, but yeah what you said is true, too.

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

Ahab please quit while you are behind.  You are just to well trained in these matters for me to argue with you.

I won! You just don't know it yet.

 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

However to say that a member can't know that this is God's Church on the earth with the proper authority seems wrong. A non-member may very well disagree with us on that point. But I think saying it's nonsense is precisely because they think there is no relevant evidence. So it really is a dispute over evidence. Thus the process is at least comprehensible.

If the evidence is objective why is it more objective for a member than a non-member?  To me that is a clear admission that evidence is in the eye of the beholder- so how is it then objective?

Yet again the distinction appears semantic to me- confusing language games.

It's not that I disagree with you particularly- my entire point is that evidence is what we make of it- so I guess I do not understand how we differ on that.

Edited April 19, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

If the evidence is objective why is it more objective for a member than a non-member?  To me that is a clear admission that evidence is in the eye of the beholder- so how is it then objective?

The evidence Is objective, generally, but the naysayer is denying it and refusing to admit it. The looking at the sun but denying the sun thing. The truth is there for all who have eyes to see it.

Jesus IS the Christ. 

The Book of Mormon IS inspired scripture.

And all the naysaying in the universe will never change that, or anything else that IS true/real.

 

 

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If the evidence is objective why is it more objective for a member than a non-member?  To me that is a clear admission that evidence is in the eye of the beholder- so how is it then objective?

Yet again the distinction appears semantic to me- confusing language games.

It's not that I disagree with you particularly- my entire point is that evidence is what we make of it- so I guess I do not understand how we differ on that.

Not quite sure how you are using "objective" here. Evidence is itself theory laden and depends upon other webs of beliefs and evidence. So not everyone will interpret the evidence the same way which is why we have disputes. This doesn't mean it's "in the eye of the beholder" in the sense of under their control in some arbitrary sense. 

Semantic distinctions are important in order to communicate real differences.

Evidence isn't just what we make of it of course. There are better or worse inferences. 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Not quite sure how you are using "objective" here. Evidence is itself theory laden and depends upon other webs of beliefs and evidence. So not everyone will interpret the evidence the same way which is why we have disputes. This doesn't mean it's "in the eye of the beholder" in the sense of under their control in some arbitrary sense. 

Semantic distinctions are important in order to communicate real differences.

Evidence isn't just what we make of it of course. There are better or worse inferences. 

This seems quite unclear and contradictory to me, sorry. I agree that there are better or worse inferences but inferences are interpretations of evidence, not evidence.  Unless you are saying that even evidence is interpretative and therefore "in the eye of the beholder" and then we agree.

Nietzsche and many many others: "There are no facts, only interpretations"

Edited April 19, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, Ahab said:

The evidence Is objective, generally, but the naysayer is denying it and refusing to admit it. The looking at the sun but denying the sun thing. The truth is there for all who have eyes to see it.

Jesus IS the Christ. 

The Book of Mormon IS inspired scripture.

And all the naysaying in the universe will never change that, or anything else that IS true/real.

 

 

Of course I am denying none of those things except the first sentences.  I don't know where you get this stuff.

Edited April 19, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

54 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

This seems quite unclear and contradictory to me, sorry. I agree that there are better or worse inferences but inferences are interpretations of evidence, not evidence.  Unless you are saying that even evidence is interpretative and therefore "in the eye of the beholder" and then we agree.

Nietzsche and many many others: "There are no facts, only interpretations"

Everything is an interpretation but that doesn't mean it's just in the eye of the beholder. That's Rorty's claim of course but I think he's wrong in that. It can all be interpretations but the interpretations can be constrained and lead to fixed conclusions. 

Put an other way, this quote from Dewey is apt. "...a judgment is called true when it harmonizes with all other judgments; false when it is in contradiction to some other. Suppose, for exmaple, and individual interprets a distant cloud as a mountain. The judgment is false because it does not agree with other judgments which he would be forced to make about the presentation with growing knowledge." (EW 2.190)

That "would be forced" part is key and is what removes this from a normal coherence model. It's not just coherence with our subjective psychological states. It's about objective truth and claims but arises out of Peirce's notion of "would be" for future truth. That is while Dewey wasn't quite the modal realist Peirce was, he shares the notion of objectivity being tied to future potential judgments. Dewey explicitly takes up Peirce's notion where truth is "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate" (EP1: 139) While Peirce expanded the metaphysics of this "fate" to a full bodied modal realism later in life, the key is that this movement is necessary.

Edited April 19, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Ahab]

I've got it!

Philosophies of men mingled with scripture that appear to be true but are not true, objectively, are merely hallucinations of truth!

if only they were really true, in reality, objectively, and that everybody everywhere could see them for what they truly are.

I'm going to go get myself a cookie now.

[MiserereNobis]

I was reviewing some Feyerabend for a class I'm going to teach and came across this gem (in How To Defend Society Against Science):

"And it is of course not true that we have to follow the truth. Human life is guided by many ideas. Truth is one of them. Freedom and mental independence are others. If Truth, as conceived by some ideologists, conflicts with freedom, then we have a choice. We may abandon freedom. But we may also abandon Truth. (Alternatively, we may adopt a more sophisticated idea of truth that no longer contradicts freedom; that was Hegel's solution.) My criticism of modern science is that it inhibits freedom of thought. If the reason is that it has found the truth and now follows it, then I would say that there are better things than first finding, and then following such a monster."

Agree with his epistemological anarchy or not, you gotta love his tone...

Edited April 19, 2017 by MiserereNobis

[pogi]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Everything is an interpretation but that doesn't mean it's just in the eye of the beholder. That's Rorty's claim of course but I think he's wrong in that. It can all be interpretations but the interpretations can be constrained and lead to fixed conclusions. 

Put an other way, this quote from Dewey is apt. "...a judgment is called true when it harmonizes with all other judgments; false when it is in contradiction to some other. Suppose, for exmaple, and individual interprets a distant cloud as a mountain. The judgment is false because it does not agree with other judgments which he would be forced to make about the presentation with growing knowledge." (EW 2.190)

That "would be forced" part is key and is what removes this from a normal coherence model. It's not just coherence with our subjective psychological states. It's about objective truth and claims but arises out of Peirce's notion of "would be" for future truth. That is while Dewey wasn't quite the modal realist Peirce was, he shares the notion of objectivity being tied to future potential judgments. Dewey explicitly takes up Peirce's notion where truth is "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate" (EP1: 139) While Peirce expanded the metaphysics of this "fate" to a full bodied modal realism later in life, the key is that this movement is necessary.

Can we then conclude that because man's perspective (and thus knowledge) is limited, that no judgement of man can be conclusively determined to be objectively "true" in light of our "growing knowledge" which may at some future point alter our current judgement?  Until our knowledge is absolute, is our truth not relative?

It sounds like the idea of "objective truth" is really nothing more than a hope and faith in some future state of absolute knowledge and perspective of infallible judgement, which is unattainable by man in his current mortal state.  

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by pogi

[Ahab]

20 minutes ago, pogi said:

Can we then conclude that because man's perspective (and thus knowledge) is limited, that no judgement of man can be conclusively determined to be objectively "true" in light of our "growing knowledge" which may at some future point alter our current judgement?  Until our knowledge is absolute, is our truth not relative?

You may conclude that but that wouldn't stop you from making the wrong conclusion.  Start with something simple, like "Jesus is the Christ".  That is an objectively true statement and the truth represented by the statement is objectively true, too. 

Just because we don't know everything about something doesn't mean we don't know anything about that something.

 

20 minutes ago, pogi said:

It sounds like the idea of "objective truth" is really nothing more than a hope and faith in some future state of absolute knowledge and perspective of infallible judgement, which is unattainable by man in his current mortal state.  

 

You mean it sounds that way to you.  And I'm sure other people would or already agree with you, too. Would you like me to tell you what I think, again, now?  I can probably manage to do it 70 more times, or even 70 x 7. If not even more.

[pogi]

3 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Just because we don't know everything about something doesn't mean we don't know anything about that something.

How can you be certain that future knowledge will not alter present judgement and interpretations of the variables that we do have? 

[Ahab]

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

How can you be certain that future knowledge will not alter present judgement and interpretations of the variables that we do have? 

It wouldn't matter if it did.  I would still know what I know now about something in the present. If I noticed that it changed later then I would then know what it was like then, which from now would be the future.

Like right now I know that I am sitting at a desk typing this sentence on a computer.  Now it's over.  I typed it.  What will I do next, I wonder?

[MiserereNobis]

8 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Like right now I know that I am sitting at a desk typing this sentence on a computer. 

Someone tell him about ol' Descartes. 

[Ahab]

1 minute ago, MiserereNobis said:

Someone tell him about ol' Descartes. 

Please hurry.  The suspense is killing me.  But not really.

[pogi]

31 minutes ago, Ahab said:

It wouldn't matter if it did. 

 Either you didn't understand what I was saying, or you are stating that it doesn't matter if your present judgments and interpretations might be false, in light of future knowledge, they are still objectively true.

Edited April 19, 2017 by pogi

[Ahab]

8 minutes ago, pogi said:

 Either you didn't understand what I was saying, or you are stating that even though your present judgments and interpretations might be false, in light of future knowledge, they are still objectively true.

Most likely a mixture of both, with me understanding only what I understood out of what you said.

My present judgments and interpretations might be false, sure, as a theoretical possibility, but in this case I do know what I was doing when I was said I was sitting at a desk typing that sentence on a computer. You may not know that, but I do.  And that was objectively true when I said it. But now that I have future knowledge I can see that is not what I am doing right now.  I mean, not that sentence.  This time I am typing another sentence, but not that one I said I was typing when I said what I was doing earlier.  And from the future tense I can still say that statement was an objectively true statement, and the act of typing it was objectively true, too.

This all seems so easy to understand but to talk about it in such detail is almost driving me crazy.  Not really, though. Objectively, I am really not going crazy.  And that is an objectively true statement, as well.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Ahab

[pogi]

33 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Objectively, I am really not going crazy.  And that is an objectively true statement, as well.

That is your subjective experience anyway...don't ask about our present judgement and interpretation😏

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

Can we then conclude that because man's perspective (and thus knowledge) is limited, that no judgement of man can be conclusively determined to be objectively "true" in light of our "growing knowledge" which may at some future point alter our current judgement?  Until our knowledge is absolute, is our truth not relative?

It sounds like the idea of "objective truth" is really nothing more than a hope and faith in some future state of absolute knowledge and perspective of infallible judgement, which is unattainable by man in his current mortal state.  

 

Yes this is it. 

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Everything is an interpretation but that doesn't mean it's just in the eye of the beholder. That's Rorty's claim of course but I think he's wrong in that. It can all be interpretations but the interpretations can be constrained and lead to fixed conclusions. 

Put an other way, this quote from Dewey is apt. "...a judgment is called true when it harmonizes with all other judgments; false when it is in contradiction to some other. Suppose, for exmaple, and individual interprets a distant cloud as a mountain. The judgment is false because it does not agree with other judgments which he would be forced to make about the presentation with growing knowledge." (EW 2.190)

That "would be forced" part is key and is what removes this from a normal coherence model. It's not just coherence with our subjective psychological states. It's about objective truth and claims but arises out of Peirce's notion of "would be" for future truth. That is while Dewey wasn't quite the modal realist Peirce was, he shares the notion of objectivity being tied to future potential judgments. Dewey explicitly takes up Peirce's notion where truth is "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate" (EP1: 139) While Peirce expanded the metaphysics of this "fate" to a full bodied modal realism later in life, the key is that this movement is necessary.

Misunderstanding.

I know Dewey better than the scriptures, chapter and verse.

That's not what I meant.

It's ok, thanks.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

That is your subjective experience anyway...don't ask about our present judgement and interpretation😏

What matters is whether or not I am really going crazy. Not if I think I am. A d not if you or everyone else in the world thinks I am. Personal opinion is irrelevant to objectivity. But I can still know the objective truth even if it isn't dependent on what any person thinks.