Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

'Lazy learner'


Recommended Posts

24 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

What is the definition of intellectual honesty? It is an intentional method, it is not just sincere belief. Yes or no?

It is "honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that truth."  "Intellectual Honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs."

Intellectual dishonesty--"Intentionally committed fallacies and deception in debates and reasoning are called intellectual dishonesty."

Link to comment
14 hours ago, bluebell said:

He believes he does know it for everyone. It would be intellectually dishonest for him to say otherwise, given what he believes he knows to be true.

Isn't this a big part of the whole prophetic fallibility thing,though? I expect you are correct that Pres. Nelson and others are teaching what they believe they know to be true. I even expect they are quite confident in their ability to discern truth (I'm reminded of this essay: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/yes-its-true-but-i-dont-think-they-like-to-hear-it-quite-that-way-what-spencer-w-kimball-told-elaine-cannon/ ). I'm sure Pres. Young was sure he knew the (now disavowed) reasons for denying Africans the priesthood. There are other examples, if we want to rehearse them. For me in my search for truth, while it is interesting to know what Pres. Nelson or other prophet/apostle believes he knows to be true, I'm much more interested in the actual truth. We look to prophets for knowledge of truth because we are told they have a special relationship to God so that their declarations of truth are (more likely to be?) actual truth, not just their version of what they believe. In my quest for truth, how useful are prophets if my only guarantee is the promise that they will be honest and sincere in teaching what they believe to be true, with no sense of whether or not their teachings are/were/will be the actual truth?

Link to comment
1 minute ago, MrShorty said:

Isn't this a big part of the whole prophetic fallibility thing,though? I expect you are correct that Pres. Nelson and others are teaching what they believe they know to be true. I even expect they are quite confident in their ability to discern truth (I'm reminded of this essay: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/yes-its-true-but-i-dont-think-they-like-to-hear-it-quite-that-way-what-spencer-w-kimball-told-elaine-cannon/ ). I'm sure Pres. Young was sure he knew the (now disavowed) reasons for denying Africans the priesthood. There are other examples, if we want to rehearse them. For me in my search for truth, while it is interesting to know what Pres. Nelson or other prophet/apostle believes he knows to be true, I'm much more interested in the actual truth. We look to prophets for knowledge of truth because we are told they have a special relationship to God so that their declarations of truth are (more likely to be?) actual truth, not just their version of what they believe. In my quest for truth, how useful are prophets if my only guarantee is the promise that they will be honest and sincere in teaching what they believe to be true, with no sense of whether or not their teachings are/were/will be the actual truth?

If any prophet ever taught that we should believe them just because they said something and they are the prophet, then I agree, that would not be very useful.  I'm very thankful that one of the main teachings of the church is to find out for ourselves and to not rely on what other people have told us.

Link to comment
34 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It is "honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that truth."  "Intellectual Honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs."

Intellectual dishonesty--"Intentionally committed fallacies and deception in debates and reasoning are called intellectual dishonesty."

From the source of that definition:

Quote

 

We have a moral duty to be honest. This duty is especially important when we share ideas that can inform or persuade others.

Intellectual honesty is honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas. A person is being intellectually honest when he or she, knowing the truth, states that truth.[1] Intellectual honesty pertains to any communication intended to inform or persuade. This includes all forms of scholarship, consequential conversations such as dialogue, debate, negotiations, product and service descriptions, various forms of persuasion, and public communications such as announcements, speeches, lectures, instruction, presentations, publications, declarations, briefings, news releases, policy statements, reports, religious instructions, social media posts, and journalism including not only prose and speech, but graphs, photographs, and other means of expression.

Intellectual Honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs.

Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways including:

  • Ensuring support for chosen ideologies does not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
  • Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
  • Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
  • References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.

Harvard ethicist Louis M. Guenin describes the "kernel" of intellectual honesty to be "a virtuous disposition to eschew deception when given an incentive for deception".[2]

Intentionally committed fallacies and deception in debates and reasoning are called intellectual dishonesty. We have a moral duty to be honest. This duty is especially important when we share ideas that can inform or persuade others.

 

It is not only the excerpt you posted. It is an intentional method.

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

From the source of that definition:

It is not only the excerpt you posted. It is an intentional method.

I didn't post the other parts because I didn't want to copy and paste too much and there was nothing in the other parts that contradicted or changed what I said.  It is a method comprised of not allowing biases for ideologies interfere with seeking truth, not being dishonest in the sharing of the information or knowledge you find, and not plagiarizing. 

Which one of those are you claiming Pres. Nelson isn't doing?

 

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I didn't post the other parts because I didn't want to copy and paste too much and there was nothing in the other parts that contradicted or changed what I said.  It is a method comprised of not allowing biases for ideologies interfere with seeking truth, not being dishonest in the sharing of the information or knowledge you find, and not plagiarizing. 

Which one of those are you claiming Pres. Nelson isn't doing?

 

 

The process he describes and supports does not seem to be an intentional "method comprised of not allowing biases for ideologies interfere with seeking truth." I've elaborated about this already and the harm it can cause.

Link to comment
4 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

The process he describes and supports does not seem to be an intentional "method comprised of not allowing biases for ideologies interfere with seeking truth." I've elaborated about this already and the harm it can cause.

Ok. I’ve elaborated on why I don’t agree. 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, ttribe said:

All of the answers to prayers I experienced came in the form of feelings which were completely internal to me.  Additional understanding of cognitive biases caused me to re-evaluate the source and meaning of those feelings. 

Many thanks for taking the time and being willing to answer my question. What you have explained now makes sense to me.

Quote

If God is sending out angels to confirm the Church's truth claims on a regular basis, I missed out on that experience, but would certainly welcome it if I am wrong in my current state of being.

:good:

Link to comment
5 hours ago, ttribe said:

I'm not sure how to answer your question as I've never experienced the "angel in the night" phenomenon as it relates to the truth claims of the Church.  All of the answers to prayers I experienced came in the form of feelings which were completely internal to me.  Additional understanding of cognitive biases caused me to re-evaluate the source and meaning of those feelings.  If God is sending out angels to confirm the Church's truth claims on a regular basis, I missed out on that experience, but would certainly welcome it if I am wrong in my current state of being.

For me, those types of experiences can be explained as my own brain. Our own intuition, passive perception, combined with coincidence and belief about how life works can combine to create impressive psychological experiences.

Link to comment

error

Edited by mfbukowski
Link to comment
1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

For me, those types of experiences can be explained as my own brain. Our own intuition, passive perception, combined with coincidence and belief about how life works can combine to create impressive psychological experiences.

Every experience you have can be explained as your own brain.  You have no choice in that being so.   Please do think about that even though we have not been getting along well of late.   The thought you cite above is the way out of the black box, in knowing you and all of us- are in it in our own way

https://virtualphilosopher.com/2006/09/wittgenstein_an.html

 

Quote

 

September 26, 2006

Wittgenstein and the Beetle in the Box

In Philosophical Investigations (1.293) Wittgenstein introduces a famous and memorable analogy: the beetle in the box. Suppose everyone has a box that only they can see into. No one can see into anyone else's box. Each describes what he or she sees in the box as a 'beetle'. I know what a beetle is from my own examination of what is in my box, you from yours. Wittgenstein points out that in this situation while we all talk about our beetles, there might be different things in everyone's boxes, or perhaps nothing at all in some of them. The thing in the box, could be changing all the time. Whatever it is, he maintains that it cannot have a part in the 'language-game'. Analogously (and this is only implied rather than fully spelt out by Wittgenstein), if I say that I know what 'pain' means from personal introspection, on the model of what he calls 'object and designation' - like the ostensive definition (or, as non-philosophers put it, pointing) that tells us 'that's a cat' when I point at the furry animal in the garden - then whatever 'internal' object Im pointing at (the equivalent of the cat) drops out of consideration. It is irrelevant to the meaning of 'pain'. It is like the beetle that may or may not be in the box.

This is part of Wittgenstein's so-called Private Language Argument (of which there are numerous competing interpretations). The gist of this is that the assumption that introspection governs the meaning of our sensation language is false: language is rule-governed public behaviour (though, perhaps perversely, Wittgenstein denied that he was a logical behaviourist, though some of his interpreters find this disengenuous). Language is far more enmeshed with the world and our forms of life than those who (perhaps influenced by Descartes and his legacy) see the mind as essentially a private theatre would have us believe...

This post relates to the course Philosophy in the Gallery at Tate Modern.

 

 

Link to comment
9 hours ago, bluebell said:

Ok. I’ve elaborated on why I don’t agree. 

Wish I could do this

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Our own intuition, passive perception, combined with coincidence and belief about how life works can combine to create impressive psychological experiences.

Indeed!  We call all that "reality", and for us, it is.

THAT is the key.  Even the idea that bias is "bad" is one of those impressive psychological experiences.  There is no way out of your brain to "reality" nor can you test your impressions against "reality" because you can never get outside your brain.  IT IS the "beetle in the box"

For all of us it is like that.   It's a miracle we can communicate at all.

"God confounded speech at Babel so we could not become like Him"

We must see all these as allegories.

My best to you.

Link to comment
1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

 Please do think about that even though we have not been getting along well of late.   

It's nice that you acknowledge this. 

But I do not agree to some sort of teacher-student dynamic with you. A respectful dialectic here is fine to me, but unsolicited homework assignments, not so much.

16 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

The thought you cite above

Which thought, exactly?

Link to comment
11 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Indeed!  We call all that "reality", and for us, it is.

THAT is the key.  Even the idea that bias is "bad" is one of those impressive psychological experiences.  There is no way out of your brain to "reality" nor can you test your impressions against "reality" because you can never get outside your brain.  IT IS the "beetle in the box"

Thank you.

When I was a kid, very little, it occurred to me that my whole life could be happening in my imagination, like a dream. I concluded that there was no way to be sure, but that the best response is to act like it is real. 

Edited by Meadowchik
Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Thank you.

When I was a kid, very little, it occurred to me that my whole life could be happening in my imagination, like a dream. I concluded that there was no way to be sure, but that the best response is to act like it is real. 

And so you can do so now and take all those "complex psychological reactions" of spiritual experience as "true".

That was precisely the philosophical realization I got after reading all those philosophers- that caused me to seek out the church.   It changed my life.   It IS real for you-the only reality anyone can know for themselves!

Yes we can make mistakes about that- but that is the risk about anything.  "There is no way to be sure" is one key and "the best response is to act like it is real" is the other.

We can feel God's love and the best response is to act like it is real.   We will never know otherwise until we die and then we will either be with God of we won't know anything and it won't matter what we believed.   We won't get the opportunity to say even to ourselves "I told you so"!!  ;)

I prefer living with the belief in God.

And so that is also the essence of Pragmatism.   If you experience it, it's "real" to you.   And if it is real to 15 million people, you are in good company.  ;)

These ideas allowed me to give up on skepticism

Link to comment
25 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

When I was a kid, very little, it occurred to me that my whole life could be happening in my imagination, like a dream. I concluded that there was no way to be sure, but that the best response is to act like it is real. 

This is another way of saying exactly what you say above

Quote

Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

And so you can do so now and take all those "complex psychological reactions" of spiritual experience as "true".

Well I have had other experiences too, some which basically amounted to a spiritual punch in the face. 

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

That was precisely the philosophical realization I got after reading all those philosophers- that caused me to seek out the church.   It changed my life.   It IS real for you-the only reality anyone can know for themselves!

For me it is a starting point, not an end to itself. The realization that the same thing happens to others is fundamental to me. The acknowledgement that their "real" and my "real" can interact and the enrichment that comes from that is a major source of joy in my life. These facts and valuing myself and others then forces the uncomfortable but rewarding process of seeing how much we can grow from and contribute to this collaboration.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

We can feel God's love and the best response is to act like it is real.   We will never know otherwise until we die and then we will either be with God of we won't know anything and it won't matter what we believed.   We won't get the opportunity to say even to ourselves "I told you so"!!  ;)

We could also just say it's love, and similarly choose to value it. (There is also the logical consideration that without valuing the Self in others we neglect the Self including our own and thus fling reality into something incomprehensible. But whereas we value our own perception, identify Self as the starting point of all moral action, then identify others who have a Self, too, then reality becomes semi-comprehensible and exponentially more manageable.)

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I prefer living with the belief in God.

I'm not convinced that a God would want people to believe in Them and I am quite convinced that belief in God--especially as an authoritarian--causes personal and relational harm to people. 

I wrote this take on God recently which imo applies here:

Euthyphro's Dilemma, on Good and Evil: Is God God because God is Good, or is Good Good because God says it is Good? When I was a believing, theist youth, I believed the former, and this was consistent with the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism: God is God because God is Good. I still ascribe to the idea that if there is a God worth worshipping, that God must be Good. And I still believe in choosing Good over Evil. I think that one of the greatest weaknesses of religion and humankind is when people choose the latter, when they decide what is Good based on some authority figure or so-called representative of God, but without also confirming independently that it is Good. If people use their empathy and intelligence to figure out the difference between Good and Evil, I believe Good has a better chance at prevailing. If those of you who believe in God choose to seek out the Good, and if those of us who are atheist choose to seek out the Good, we can find common ground. Perhaps we will even find more common ground with each other than you would with some other theists or we would with some other atheists. And if there is a God who is Good, then we would be closer to God, too.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

And so that is also the essence of Pragmatism.   If you experience it, it's "real" to you.   And if it is real to 15 million people, you are in good company.  ;)

These ideas allowed me to give up on skepticism

What was once real to me has been shattered into bits and blown away in the wind. It does not work for me anymore.

I am an atheist, and I still have beliefs. I have had to severely reconstruct my worldview and invent the tools to function that were long neglected as a believer. And now that I see the reality outside of the carefully-curated box that was my past life and religion, and its impact on those I love, I am grateful for the shattering. 

Link to comment
2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And so you can do so now and take all those "complex psychological reactions" of spiritual experience as "true".

That was precisely the philosophical realization I got after reading all those philosophers- that caused me to seek out the church.   It changed my life.   It IS real for you-the only reality anyone can know for themselves!

Yes we can make mistakes about that- but that is the risk about anything.  "There is no way to be sure" is one key and "the best response is to act like it is real" is the other.

We can feel God's love and the best response is to act like it is real.   We will never know otherwise until we die and then we will either be with God of we won't know anything and it won't matter what we believed.   We won't get the opportunity to say even to ourselves "I told you so"!!  ;)

I prefer living with the belief in God.

And so that is also the essence of Pragmatism.   If you experience it, it's "real" to you.   And if it is real to 15 million people, you are in good company.  ;)

These ideas allowed me to give up on skepticism

The miraculous thing about it all is once you decide you want to believe sincerely enough (because you realize your life will be so much more wonderful, meaningful, worthwhile and enjoyable if it turns out that the gospel actually is true) the signs of its truthfulness miraculously begin to appear all around you and multiply in number, scope and power of intensity until you no longer merely hope the gospel is true but become thoroughly convinced it is true. Even if one can only get to the point where he or she wishes or hopes the gospel is true, and then adjust their attitudes and live their lives as if it is (because they realize they’ve got nothing to loose and everything to gain if it is true) God rewards their sincere leap of faith with confirming signs at every hand until the whole of their existence becomes an dazzlingly bright testimony that God lives and the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

The Lord knew whereof he spoke when promised us that convincing signs will follow those who make the conscious choice to believe. This is how I was able to evolve out of atheism: I wanted the gospel to be true and reformed my thinking and life accordingly, and low and behold a new life of joy and positivity, affirmed by living faith, hope and charity, marvelously transformed my life and my world until belief became as natural as breathing.

Everyone knows in their heart of hearts that the gospel, at very least, ought to be true, and God is so wonderfully merciful and kind that he allows even the dimmest spark of hope to be the starting point in the wondrous journey of faith that will consummate in a heaven that only exists because their are enough people who fervently want it to exist. Yes indeed, without faith and hope heaven could not exist.

Edited by teddyaware
Link to comment
5 hours ago, teddyaware said:

The miraculous thing about it all is once you decide you want to believe sincerely enough (because you realize your life will be so much more wonderful, meaningful, worthwhile and enjoyable if it turns out that the gospel actually is true) the signs of its truthfulness miraculously begin to appear all around you and multiply in number, scope and power of intensity until you no longer merely hope the gospel is true but become thoroughly convinced it is true. Even if one can only get to the point where he or she wishes or hopes the gospel is true, and then adjust their attitudes and live their lives as if it is (because they realize they’ve got nothing to loose and everything to gain if it is true) God rewards their sincere leap of faith with confirming signs at every hand until the whole of their existence becomes an dazzlingly bright testimony that God lives and the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

This, right here, is an extremely dangerous set of false statements.  I have experienced, and I have witnessed, wanting desperately for the truth claims of the church to be true.  The implication of your statements is that the blame for a loss of faith lies solely on the individual; it's my fault that I didn't get an answer to prayer.  In your world, I wasn't sincere enough; I didn't try hard enough.  Let me tell you this, I tried so hard, and wanted it so badly, that when it didn't come I became deeply depressed to the point of suicidal ideation.  Recently, a friend of mine who also lost his faith took his own life in the aftermath of his faith loss.  Your glib, thoughtless, posts create harmful thoughts in the minds of those who struggle with doubt.  You have every right to practice rigid adherence to your version of orthodoxy on your own, but to try to sell it to others is irresponsible and harmful.

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, ttribe said:

This, right here, is an extremely dangerous set of false statements.  I have experienced, and I have witnessed, wanting desperately for the truth claims of the church to be true.  The implication of your statements is that the blame for a loss of faith lies solely on the individual; it's my fault that I didn't get an answer to prayer.  In your world, I wasn't sincere enough; I didn't try hard enough.  Let me tell you this, I tried so hard, and wanted it so badly, that when it didn't come I became deeply depressed to the point of suicidal ideation.  Recently, a friend of mine who also lost his faith took his own life in the aftermath of his faith loss.  Your glib, thoughtless, posts create harmful thoughts in the minds of those who struggle with doubt.  You have every right to practice rigid adherence to your version of orthodoxy on your own, but to try to sell it to others is irresponsible and harmful.

I was thinking about this earlier this morning. The easy/lazy thing for me would have been to just continue going with the flow. Don't question too much. Don't study too much. Just go with it because...why not? I live in a very conservative area with an extremely orthodox membership including a good deal of local family. So in that setting, why would I choose to change my beliefs (both religiously and politically) where they didn't fit with my life? I am taking the harder road of bucking expectations and going against the "acceptable" orthodoxy. Why? Because I'm lazy? I don't think so. I'm a lot of things but that has never been one of them.

That is the problem with Nelson's words and people like Teddy speaking up about how if I had just cared enough and tried hard enough it all would have continued to work out. That is some classic Stick-the-head-in-the-sand(ism).

Link to comment
8 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Thank you.

When I was a kid, very little, it occurred to me that my whole life could be happening in my imagination, like a dream. I concluded that there was no way to be sure, but that the best response is to act like it is real. 

It is real. At least for you right based on what mfbukoski is trying to tell us.  But it may noit be real at all for anyone else nor mean your reality is based in reality or "true" whatever that means.

Link to comment
8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And so that is also the essence of Pragmatism.   If you experience it, it's "real" to you.   And if it is real to 15 million people, you are in good company.  ;)

Ummm not 15 million.  Maybe 5 million if you are lucky. So what? Why should that makes us feel happy. Maybe we should be happier if we join in with 50 million or so Islamic extremists whose experiences are "real" to them. This is why your argument seems essential stupid and nonsensical to me.  Apply it to anything you want really.

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...