Philosophy Now Forum

Advocate wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 5:01 pm
Learning is the process of closing your mind by discovering necessary, or necessarily accepted truths and thereby having a donation for greater understanding.

One’s mind must be open in order to make those discoveries. The cessation of learning leads to a closed mind, until the process of learning resumes.

“You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever.

The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too?

It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world.

To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Advocate wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 5:01 pm
This is where Bayesian reasoning steps in and solves everything. It didn't matter where you start, as long as you iterate properly you'll always approach Truth.

Could you apply Bayesian reasoning to a political of metaphysical issue and show how it helps you approach the truth? Or on any issue you think is important, preferably something that comes up in a philosophical forum.

Open mindedness is all very well, as long as it is not so open as to let your reason fall out.
Scepticism is a vital default setting and many on this Forum would do well to get some in.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 4:38 pm “You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever.

The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too?

It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world.

To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

When reason fails find another person's weak platitudes to borrow.

Advocate wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:38 am Believing that someone's opinion is more valuable if they've been converted to the right side of an argument because they have proven they are willing to accept change when they're wrong denegrates those who were never wrong in the first place. That the latter have not proven their ability to change when they're wrong says nothing about that ability's existence and the fact that they're actually right makes it irrelevant. If a non-convert is already right, by what standard do we doubt their epistemology? If a convert is now right, by what standard do we judge theirs? Would they not shift again and be wrong again? Why would someone who is already right ever change their epistemology to something less valid?

Is this all just your way of arguing that you shouldn't need to feel like you are losing out on something by not having the ability to doubt yourself under any circumstances? It's basically a narcissist manifesto.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:59 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 4:38 pm “You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever.

The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too?

It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world.

To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

When reason fails find another person's weak platitudes to borrow.

I've "seen through" you. There was nothing behind it.

Advocate wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:38 am Believing that someone's opinion is more valuable if they've been converted to the right side of an argument because they have proven they are willing to accept change when they're wrong denegrates those who were never wrong in the first place. That the latter have not proven their ability to change when they're wrong says nothing about that ability's existence and the fact that they're actually right makes it irrelevant. If a non-convert is already right, by what standard do we doubt their epistemology? If a convert is now right, by what standard do we judge theirs? Would they not shift again and be wrong again? Why would someone who is already right ever change their epistemology to something less valid?

Advocate.

The complexity is mind-blowing even before you consider a subject's context of life experiences. It is said that truth is experience to the individual and agreement for the group/society. Our common biology assures we perceive in much the same way but our conditioning and emotions color and/or mutate our judgments. Reason I think is the answer your looking for and if one is to highly emotionally invested in a particular idea he is less likely to listen to reason. It the person did not reach their belief through reason it is futile to attempt reason to change the individual's mind. If you change your opinions standards or values just to fit in then you lack any intellectual integrity and it a terriable state for anyone to be in. It is without a doubt that someone people are more intelligent and more reasonable than others, the ability to reason varies across the board. Reason is the gold standard, not magical thinking not emotional beliefs not inherited biases.