Another skeptic quandry...

[Marechal Ney]

Since my last topic in March about skepticism, I have found a relaxing solution to my problem in Hume; even though I can't know reality, my senses give the best bet at what the material world is, so I should cautiously trust them. Since then, I started paying more attention to ethics, particularly existentialism, instead of epistomology.

However, the skeptic plague (or perhaps it is an enlightenment...) returned.

I began to notice myself becoming confused when I was thinking about my opinions, on everything from politics to what kind of sandwhich I should eat. I found that I had no definitve proof to argue for an option, and, with opinions, one has to choose. I found all ethical philosophies that preached how to live to be lacking in evidence, so I turned to existentialism; even there, and even after reading Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism", which is a philosophy must-read and beautiful work, I began to consider that humanity may not have free will. I countered this by arguing that humanity should assume they have free will, as there is no harm done in choosing how to live if man's thoughts are pre-determined (as it actually isn't a choice), and a person should thus think that humanity does have free will, as that would enable them to best pursue truth.

Then, I realized that I couldn't prove that it was good to pursue truth. And at that point, I was just confused. In the past two hours, I have been trying to systematically reconstruct my opinions. I have a task in mind: To refine them to the point where I can know that it is better to have natural cheese on my sandwich rather than processed cheese, as then I could have opinions over pragmatic daily activities. I have almost finished; all I need to do is to prove that it is good to pursue truth. So I would like to ask for help: Why is it good to pursue truth?

Currently, here are the beginning steps of my plan for reconstructing my opinions: It is more likely that thoughts and the human mind exist than it is that material objects I sense exist. So, the human mind can think for three goals:

A: To find truth.
B: The human mind shouldn't think, it should be lazy; or it should think about things without trying to do anything.
C: To find falsehoods (purposely).

Why should the human mind choose option A? I will be methodologically skeptical to any answers until they are proven, even though I want to have an answer. Please, help me! Often I realize I don't have motivation to do daily tasks because I am so perplexed by doubt, a solution will be fantastic. Or, is it the case that I can't prove anything? Oh, and rep will be awarded.

[Plan C]

At various stages in my life I have rediscovered and found new respect for Erasmus and his deep understanding of just how much of a maze a man's mind and soul can be. Praise of Folly carries a meaning for me beyond most works I have come across in my studies. It comes back to me often and I marvel at simplicity of the concept and the vastness of the consequence of it.

Human condition is a heavy burden. Should we sway closer to flesh, to our animalistic origins? Enjoy the most basic things in life? On the most primal level, warm sunshine throught forest's canopy + bird song and smell of fresh water simply cannot be bested. Hug from a loved one. Potato roasted in the fire. Why do we ruin all this goodness and spend countless hours playing with concepts which exist exclusively in our minds? Why do some of us feel they have the right to impose their own concepts of life onto others?

The answer is that we do it involuntarily. We are unable to disregard our curiosity and "switch off" our exploratory urges. Immediate, terrestrial frontiers concquered (largely) we venture to expanding boundaries of our psyche and ratio. We will always be "looking for truth" on some levels and we will be unable to shed the doubt about who we are and why we are.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Your skepticism sounds like mine one year ago. "Why should humanity find truth"? Because truth is an elementary part of ourselves.

Existentialism is basically a philosophy of fatalistic resignation and an all too nihilistic mindset. Eventually, I think the one who comes through the hard trodden path of Nihilism must eventually stop and have the main sudden realization: of the vanity and limitations of "philosophy" as they are currently understood, and the dead end to which they lead. It must be realized that humanity is not merely a grouping of "rational' animals", and that indeed, the roots and the string pullers of thought and reason are both beyond them and are not part of them. As such, the disproportional importance of rationality (that which Chesterton rightfully called the trait of madmen and people without intuition) diminishes.

Humanism is also not to my liking. Basically, it would take thousands and thousands of lines to explain satisfactorily why, but I've came to regard that the moment when man's ideal became humanistic, that is limited to the purely human sphere (or "human, all too human", as Nietzsche would say), what followed was a decadence in all spheres of life, and not progress properly speaking.

[Amorphos]

I don’t understand why philosophers think we cannot know reality, this I feel really holds philosophy back and gives rise to all manner of ridiculous theories [god/alienmatrixes etc];

Objective truth; 'a plant will use chlorophyll to trap photons and will
produce sugar and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water...'
Objective truth; such observations are made by inputting info derived of objectively true photons and their Objective truth; the info they give.
Objective truth; that info is then described in the mind by a correlative info called informational thought ~ otherwise known as subjective truth.

Point being that by following the path of sets of Objective truths there is not always subjectivity. definitively, subjectivity only occurs when the path is broken ~ when we get something wrong [or imagne it]. Apart from that our meatware [brain] is no different to a computer just more complex, we wouldn’t say a computer has subjectivity surely, or at least one that is not objectively true.

If we made the whole thing far simpler;
There is a box, it is observed by that which can view the box [like a camera], the view is known by that which can process the view.

Can the processor make up the view and idea of the box without there being a box? That is; assuming that it cannot make up information concerning what a box is without first attaining the information. If we follow this through to its logical conclusion there would be absolutely no sources for informations!

The imagination is void without derivatives. You cannot make everything up from nothing, there has to be something which you based the original idea upon, and I maintain that in most cases if not all, there is ‘always’ something objective which you based the idea of a thing on.

tell me of something which has no derivative?!!!!


end rant
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[Amorphos]

The original truth

Just thinking about objective and subjective truth; if we could follow the thought trains back to the original thought, would that not be in and of itself an objective truth ~ even though its entirely subjective.

I’d suspect that the original thought or idea would be an inner recognition of self [not as in self reflection], whatever it is we would then assume all things other than this are external to this and hence would be subjective truths.

All original truths are objective truths; we could imagine that all other things or selves are internal to us, to our mental sphere, however as we follow the thought trains back to an original thought it leaves everything else outside of that. So weather or not we consider everything as internal to us, everything that we are not currently thinking [an example of an origin but in the context of the current], or is otherwise external to an original thought/objective truth, all others are external. This makes them subjective truths does it not?
However each and every example of non-origin be it a thought or an item, mental or otherwise, they themselves surely belong to a train of thought or entity having an origin and hence all subjectives relate to an objective truth!

There are then two distinctions in the world;

Replace subjective with; derivative [non original].
Replace objective with; original.

For example, if we imagine an inputted frequency [to computer or human] containing information about the outside world, some of it will always be original and some derivative. There will always be an amount of truth in it both in terms of origins and in that derivatives also contain the seed of an original truth within them.

[Taiji]

So I would like to ask for help: Why is it good to pursue truth?

Depending on what you think 'truth' is I think it can be good or bad. In and of itself I think it's not good to pursue a truth you have to be deluded to perceive.

And then there's plenty of information that teaches us how to be more effective at achieving something someone values. The personal truth of the value of these is probably well worth seeking. Knowing what works for us has potential to teach us plenty about ourselves.

Currently, here are the beginning steps of my plan for reconstructing my opinions: It is more likely that thoughts and the human mind exist than it is that material objects I sense exist. So, the human mind can think for three goals:

A: To find truth.
B: The human mind shouldn't think, it should be lazy; or it should think about things without trying to do anything.
C: To find falsehoods (purposely).

A and C are the same but with different wording.

B is a strange alternative to C and A - You are making anything but the pursuit of truth out to have negative connotations.

Why should the human mind choose option A? I will be methodologically skeptical to any answers until they are proven, even though I want to have an answer. Please, help me! Often I realize I don't have motivation to do daily tasks because I am so perplexed by doubt, a solution will be fantastic. Or, is it the case that I can't prove anything? Oh, and rep will be awarded.

You should do what you think you should do whether you feel motivated or not. It sounds like you describe being compulsed to think about certain things as if your survival depends on finding a solution to them. It doesn't, and you probably know it, so it's just a matter of building the self-discipline to resist the compulsion.

Crippling doubt is overcome by a confidence that not having the absolute truth does not mean things will go wrong when you respond to your environment. Basically it sounds like you're describing the procrastination that perfectionism causes - Be satisfied with a less than perfect answer and get on with it. Not having a full picture of what is going on is always the case, nothing anyone can think will ever change that.

[Marechal Ney]

Several days ago I started thinking (which was difficult, as I questioned whether I should actually be thinking and eventually had to force myself into thinking), and found a solution

While I have difficulties with Pascal's Wager, it nonetheless was a great addition to philosophy, with its idea that one does not have to prove something objectively true, but merely to say that a person ought to act assuming it is true. I started with the question of whether it was better to pursue truth, or to not.

1) Either it is better to pursue truth, or it is not.
2) At the current moment, it cannot be known. However, there is a chance that, within our lifetimes, an answer may be found.
3) It is easier to renounce truth than it is to gain it; one day of skeptic quandry, I have found, can be totally devastating; most people just decide to focus purely on their daily lives without contemplating philosophy and finding the answers of the universe, because it is easier to avoid the grand questions.
4) If a proof were to be devised in 10 years which states, infallibly, that one ought to pursue truth, and I had chosen to not, it would be difficult for me to begin "learning" truth; it takes a person a long time to learn how to think philosophically.
5) If a proof were to be devised in 10 years which states, infallibly, that one ought to avoid truth, as it is a waste of time, and I had chosen to pursue it, then I may be a bit dejected, but transition to living a simple, pragmatic life could be done very easily.
6) Therefore, since betting on truth and being wrong is less bad than betting on un-truth and being wrong, one ought to pursue truth.

Using this type of logic, it can be proven that it is better to pursue success, and at least moderate wealth, in the world than to sit around and not do anything, as it is easier to renounce wealth than it is to gain it. Building off the first proof, I can construct a proof about the goodness of happiness.

1) Being happy decreases the chance that one will commit suicide.
2) Committing suicide makes one dead.
3) Being dead inhibits the quest for truth.
4) Therefore, a person ought to be happy, as long as that happiness is not gained at the rejection of truth.

_____

So simple, yet so effective. Thoughts?

[mw2xboxplayer]

Using this type of logic, it can be proven that it is better to pursue success, and at least moderate wealth, in the world than to sit around and not do anything, as it is easier to renounce wealth than it is to gain it. Building off the first proof, I can construct a proof about the goodness of happiness.

Your logical conclusion is sound, however, until this point. You make an error in assuming that success and wealth equate to happiness and 'goodness'. The gain of wealth, fame, etc. does not necessarily lead one to a state of happiness. A famous example of this false assumption can be derived from A Christmas Carol, in which a wealthy, successful man possesses a material fortune; but lacks true 'happiness'.

1) Being happy decreases the chance that one will commit suicide.
2) Committing suicide makes one dead.
3) Being dead inhibits the quest for truth.
4) Therefore, a person ought to be happy, as long as that happiness is not gained at the rejection of truth.

Thus, your derivative of happiness based upon the product of truth (the product of truth being wealth and success) is not a sound conclusion.

[Taiji]

1) Being happy decreases the chance that one will commit suicide.

It's far better to be normal - not happy or unhappy - the majority of the time. To me suicide risk is not just about where we are, it's also about how far we can fall.

[chriscase]

OP,
I think you need to define truth here, and I'm not simply being pedantic.

If we consider immediate, experiential truth, your question becomes trivial. As children, we learn about the world around us through repeated interaction with it. Is that a pretty light or a car rushing toward me? Am I at the beach sunbathing or crossing the street?

The ability to discern the "truth" of these sorts of propositions is a basic faculty that plays a significant role in whether any of us gets to be here, alive, on Earth, in the first place. Another way to say this is that it's not inherently good or bad, but those who have failed to develop a preference for these sorts of "truths" are generally no longer shuffling along with the rest of us on this mortal coil.

If you mean to abstract from this rudimentary form of truth, it seems likely the same basic argument will be definable in the abstraction.

[Col. Tartleton]

Exactly, our senses are fine but we should remember the mind can get confused. The fact of the matter is that most likely truth is close to what we experience if not what we comprehend.

I'm here and there is stuff and you're here too. Things are as they are. At the end of the day if my red is your blue it doesn't matter because red and blue are real. We can measure them (a strange thought.) Matter is physical, it has mass and volume and thus density and whatever, regardless of the Higgs boson particles involvement. I mean a dog is a smart generally happy creature and it doesn't pay much attention to this stuff. A rock doesn't pay attention to anything. I think we're just asking for trouble trying to see the big picture from our vantage point. I'm sure I'll die not really understanding the big picture, but hopefully I mastered the small picture. Do we use our minds to live successfully in the world we consider reality or do we withdraw and ponder if reality really is real and miss it all?

Truth is neat when its useful and it's all useful in context, but how the stars work doesn't help you drive to work. Is truth what you perceive or what actually is? Does that difference matter? I see the sun as a bright hot light that makes the world bright and colorful and warm and the plants grow and whatever. But not knowing how it works doesn't inhibit my ability to survive because man existed without even partial knowledge and we prospered in relative ignorance.

[Playfishpaste]

Suppose there's a goal, G, which you want to accomplish or have sufficient reason to accomplish. To accomplish G there's a set of things you'd have to do presumably, since it IS a goal, and not something you've already attained (a goal is necessarily something you haven't attained).

So for you to possibly attain G, you have to do some set of actions, let's call this set of actions A.

Now, how might we find out whether some x is a member of A? Well, it doesn't particularly matter how, in this case, because what we're concerned with is the options you've outlined. If you are a seeker of falsehoods, or just neutral to the truth value of propositions, it will be rather difficult or at least troublesome for you to figure out the members of A. For example suppose G is "having sex before age 30". If you're neutral or a falsehood seeker, you might think a member of A is "slathering yourself in human feces". But you are less likely to think that slathering yourself in human feces is a member of A if you are a truth seeker or someone who actively tries to get at the truth. Since slathering yourself in human feces is obviously not a member of A, it's better for you to be a truth seeker to achieve your goal and avoid smelling like feces.

This is true of any goal G and set A. So it's always better to have truth seeking properties if you want to do anything at all.

Another possibility is that volunteerism is false, and you actually can't decide on what your beliefs end up being, in that case the question is ill formed because you don't have the option to be truth conducive or falsehood conducive.