TRUTH SEEKERS

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Cary Cook

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Jan 7, 2020, 4:03:45 AM1/7/20
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A truth seeker crawls up out of a swamp of blatantly dogmatic bullshit onto a surface of slightly less dogmatic bullshit, searching for truth.  Is this surface a continent, or just an island?  He can’t know until he explores it.  He builds a plow out of logic and common sense, and cuts thru whatever can be debunked. 

 

He plows thru rotting corpses of respected bullshitologers who sold out, and their zombie children still singing their praises; also simple quitters who just got tired and settled for faith in dogma.  He wonders if he should have remained one of them, but knows he can’t, because he already tried his best, and failed.  Faith-zombies offer him shit, honestly thinking it’s food.  He offers to help them build a plow.  They pelt him with turds.

 

He looks for a God, hoping for a grinning daddy, and finds only what looks like the ass end of an even bigger truth seeker behind a bigger plow, cutting thru God knows what.  Did he just say, “Follow me”?  Nah.  Is this Guy real or imaginary?  Who created whom in his own image?  No way to know.  The truth seeker could pretend to know.  But pretense either way makes him just another dogmatic faith-zombie, another bullshitter, another heretic religion seller, another part of the problem. 

 

When his life is near spent, he still doesn’t know if knowledge exists at all, or if truth, is anything more than bullshit compacted over time into apparent objectivity.  But still he continues plowing, because there may be an afterlife, and if so, a quitter will surely slide into another shit-swamp.

 

Cary

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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Jan 7, 2020, 12:42:42 PM1/7/20
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Yep.

Our "plow" of "logic" must be taken on "faith." But so does "nihilism."
Call us "complacent" (if you choose) for settling on the former over the latter.
But it's still the only way to approach "truth," if "truth" does, in fact, exist.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Jan 7, 2020, 8:21:26 PM1/7/20
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Don,

 

I agree that logic, nihilism, and all assumed knowledge, except impossibility of the contradictory, must be taken on faith.

I agree that faith in logic is the only way to approach [propositional] truth, if "truth" does, in fact, exist.

 

Are you saying there is no qualitative difference between the faith used to claim to know epistemically necessary propositions and the faith used to claim to know epistemically unnecessary propositions?

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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Email

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Jan 7, 2020, 10:01:32 PM1/7/20
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Hi Cary,

Are you saying there is no qualitative difference between the faith used to claim to know epistemically necessary propositions and the faith used to claim to know epistemically unnecessary propositions?


No. "Claim to know" being the operative phrase here. The term "faith" is often used to describe a "commitment," a "bet" or even a "choice." No claim to know, no foul.

There are other standards, also in accepted use, which are less rigorous; for example, "science" invokes "observation" in addition to "reason" (as in "epistemological necessity") without "claiming to know" that we aren't all just "brains in vats." This turns out to be a quite effective shortcut, in spite of its obvious epistemological weakness -- and the obvious fact that it won't protect us from the potential error of falsely believing that we are not merely part of somebody's Matrix-styled computer simulation.

In practical apologetics, I also invoke an additional relaxed criteria: I always allow that my sparring opponent might "accidentally" be correct, even when they have no epistemological justification. I reserve accusations of "falsity" for those situations where "valid epistemological proof to the contrary" presents sufficient justification to assert the more-aggressive position (or, in the cases where the opponent claims scientific understanding, I'll allow "observational falsification" to suffice). And I simply don't bother with accusations of "insufficient justification." There are enough patently false beliefs making the rounds that it makes no sense to waste resources on those beliefs which are merely unjustified.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Jan 8, 2020, 3:34:37 AM1/8/20
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Don,

 

If you're talking about faith as willful choice we're not talking about the same concept.  I'm talking about probability judgment that any given dogma is true.  The whole post is about what it's like to be a truth seeker. 

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Jan 8, 2020, 2:12:03 PM1/8/20
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Cary,

Although we're holding ourselves to a tighter standard here, in my normal world, even a "truth seeker" can also seek a snack or a nap (both pleasant). All of those lesser choices  are more expediently made using less exacting criteria. Even the "faith" of a "normal" person runs more on "autopilot" mechanisms than on an incessant stream of precise reasoning. Among other benefits, this reduces stress.

This should be the correct "moral" approach to "truth seeking" -- because it appears to maximize "happiness," right?

I'm presently building a toy "supercomputer" (photo below) -- between responding to your posts. Although that device requires a great deal of technical precision, I'm expending considerably less mental effort on those decisions than on my responses here. The computer lets me know (by not working correctly) when I mess up, but then I just try to fix my mistake (and repair any accidental damage).

On such projects, it seems like I make almost as much progress by trial and dumb luck as I do by planning ahead. This technique is a willful choice, and it eventually gets me to an operational result (it actually works pretty well -- I've finished many similar projects before -- and I enjoy the process).

Here we're holding ourselves to a tighter standard. This is the correct time and place for this mode of operation. In real life, I get by successfully with a whole lot less effort -- and have more fun in the process. Which is really more morally correct?

- Don

image1.jpeg
68-core x 1400Mips/core = 95200 Mips (million instructions per second) array of computers (soon to be linked by ribbon cable connecting the pins, and appropriate driver software). Thirty years ago, this would have been the fastest computer on the planet. Today it's an old man's retirement toy.

Cary Cook

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Jan 8, 2020, 10:06:28 PM1/8/20
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Don,

 

What is this?  What "we" are you talking about?

 

Morality and truth seeking are separate issues.

Are you asking me to defend some [moral person = truth seeker] package?

image1.jpeg

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Jan 8, 2020, 11:35:56 PM1/8/20
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No, I was just observing an interesting incongruity between your definition of "morality" and your definition of "truth seeking." FWIW, I consider "morality" closer to "truth" than to "happiness." I still haven't been able to understand why you see "morality" linked to "happiness" instead. I'm kind of fishing for some kind of toehold I might be able to get toward understanding your thought process. I, myself, don't really have an understanding of the causal structure of "morality" -- presuming that it actually has any causal structure.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Jan 9, 2020, 12:57:42 AM1/9/20
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Don,

 

All of this is because you refuse to admit that there is no logical connection between is and ought.  Maybe there ought to be, but there isn't.

 

Conflating concepts causes confusion.

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