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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
 Posted - 05/29/2004 : 07:22:26
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A didactic school system accepts a child with a naive intellect and twelve to eighteen years later produces an adult who is an efficient worker and voracious consumer but who is still a naive intellect.
Why doesn't our didactic system of education produce a sophisticated intellect? Because such a system is inherently unable to do so.
A Socratic system of education, also called a dialogue system, can aid in the development of intellectual sophistication.
The only transportation to the land of the sophisticated intellect is the streetcar named ‘self-learner'. The individual who has never spent any time in this magical kingdom cannot understand why this is true. After spending some time in the kingdom of self-learning one can begin to understand that intellectual sophistication can be learned but not taught.
This is the old bootstrap problem. A popular admonition is ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps'. Such is the case here. You cannot understand the nature of intellectual sophistication until you are one. I went to OSU and got an engineering degree. A popular bumper stick often seen around the campus was “Before I came to school I could not even spell engineer now I are one”. You must get on the streetcar, pay your passage and then, later, begin to understand why you want to reach your destination.
I suspect one might judge that acceptance of this admonition is a step of faith. Belief in God and a belief in reason are both acts of faith. Everything is grounded in a form of faith. We must all start off by accepting axioms or postulates or something similar. Everything is grounded in a narrative unsupported, in the beginning, by empirical evidence. Some actions, however they are started, are also later proven by empirical evidence to be factually true. The belief in self-learning, I am convinced, will be proven true to your satisfaction should you make the investment.
Moved to General Skepticism - Dave W.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9691 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 14:55:08 [Permalink]
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Hello, and welcome to Skeptic Friends!
That's some intersting reading there. I haven't really thought about the 'faith in religion' versus 'faith in reason' angle before. |
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"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 20:52:09 [Permalink]
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coberst wrote:quote:
Belief in God and a belief in reason are both acts of faith. Everything is grounded in a form of faith. We must all start off by accepting axioms or postulates or something similar. Everything is grounded in a narrative unsupported, in the beginning, by empirical evidence.
Absolutely, but what is the alternative? Science, for example, is based upon the idea that there is an "objective reality" which is the same for everyone. The alternative belief - that there is no objective reality, and everyone experiences or "makes" a reality independent of everyone else - would leave many people twitching in the corner, unable to act out of paranoia or out of carelessness. Such a belief allows me to dismiss everything you say as a figment of my imagination, and so it's not a solid foundation for any philosophy, unless "sociopathy" counts as one. Solipsism, in other words, is a dead-end to knowledge, which is why there aren't all that many solipsists out there.
Belief in "no God," on the other hand, doesn't demolish reality. And because of that, I don't see how these two "faiths" are really comparable upon the basis of their foundational axioms. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 23:22:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Everything is grounded in a narrative unsupported, in the beginning, by empirical evidence.
Of course, you can't prove by argument that anything you have ever experienced exists outside your own personal subjective reality either....
quote:
Belief in God and a belief in reason are both acts of faith.
Reason is the power to think rationally and logically and to draw inferences. Reason is not an object, but rather an act. The word is only a noun when you use it in the context of an explanation for an action. The ability to reason is a learned skill. I do not think that belief in the ability to reason requires an act of faith.
quote:
After spending some time in the kingdom of self-learning one can begin to understand that intellectual sophistication can be learned but not taught.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by intellectual sophistication. If you mean a person capable of using logic to solve problems while shedding preconcieved notions when evidence and logic demonstrate them to be false.... Then I partly agree. You can teach people logic, critical thinking, and problem solving.... but people can't be taught to shed those preconcieved notions in the face of contrary evidence. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 01:37:52 [Permalink]
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Let me give you an example of what I mean by a naïve intellect.
If I ask most people to give me an example of what they know for certain, they might very well answer “I know you are standing here before me”.
Now I will give you my example of what a more sophisticated intellect might reply to this naïve response.
Reality is that which is, regardless of our perception of it. Reality is the ‘thing in itself' normally labeled as the noumenon.
Phenomenon is that which we perceive. That which we perceive is the result of sense data operated upon by our mind. Reality causes our sense data but the sense data is not reality.
Phenomenon and noumenon are not identical. We have no knowledge of the nomenon we have knowledge only of the phenomenon. We can speak of knowledge only as regarding the phenomenon.
The degree of similarity between the phenomenon and the noumenon is the degree of truth that we possess. You can see here that absolute truth i.e. when noumenon and phenomenon are the same is beyond our reach. We cannot know reality but we can only know the phenomenon that is an approximation of reality and is our knowledge.
We have knowledge only of that which is a perception. A perception is sense data organized by our mind. The sense data is not the reality itself. Now we live our lives in the naïve mode generally and that is ok until we begin to wish to understand things that require a more sophisticated foundation.
If you wish to begin to move out of a naïve understanding of something you must prepare yourself by developing a proper foundation for that move.
If you wish to move from the world of naïve acceptance of what is reality to what is a sophisticated understanding of reality you must enter into a sense of understanding not normal to the naïve every day life. Now a teacher can tell you the things I have spoken of and you can memorize the words and later pass a test on the subject matter. However, the memorizing of the words and passing the test is not sufficient if you wish to become sophisticated. You must understand and understanding is something you must do for yourself.
You may very well read what I have said above and dismiss it as non-sense and remain naïve about the matter. However, if you begin to think about what I said you will begin to really grasp the meaning. There are some things that one must ‘walk the walk' to understand.
Teaching by telling is a good way to pass on information from one person to another but understanding is possible only when you grapple with the matter on your own. Such understanding does not come easily. It may take you months of thinking before you understand some things. Moving from the world of naïve to a world of the sophisticated understanding can be difficult and may take a very long time but no one can do it but you. No one can give you understanding you must take it. You must fight hard to find it and make it your own. Our educational system has trained us, not caused us to understand. A trained person can accomplish much but understand little.
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 01:45:17 [Permalink]
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| Often we get into semantic problems. Where you see me use the word 'belief' or 'faith' you can substitute the word 'assume'. I have only recently discovered that skeptics are alergic to such words as belief and faith. I shall begin to use assume in the future. It is, however, the case that somewhere in the beginning of any attempt to construct a system of 'truth' one must begin with some assumptions. Religious people have belief or faith skeptics have assumptions. |
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Maverick
Skeptic Friend
Sweden
385 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 02:10:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by coberst
Belief in God and a belief in reason are both acts of faith.
How do you know this? Through reason? |
"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." -- Carl Sagan |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 09:45:54 [Permalink]
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| I assume that reason is the only human faculty for ascertaining knowledge. I conclude that religious people have two sources of knowledge; reason and revelation. In cases where the truth from these two sources contradict then some religious people give primacy to reason and some to revelation. Those who give primacy to revelation are generally considered to be fundamentalist. I find a great deal of empirical evidence to support these conclusions. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 21:48:51 [Permalink]
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coberst wrote:quote:
...We cannot know reality but we can only know the phenomenon that is an approximation of reality and is our knowledge...
Yes, yes, yes. And phenomenology taken to its extreme is solipsism. No matter how extreme your particular version is, it seems to me that it only tells us what we cannot know, and therefore isn't terribly useful, other than in aborting quests for knowledge which cannot be fulfilled.
Look, your argument that those who rely on reason also rely on assumptions was accepted by at least one person (me), but the thing which must be realized is that those with religious beliefs accept those same assumptions, as well. Several of those assumptions are required for day-to-day life (like the idea that your co-workers actually exist, and aren't just whacky "perceptions"). Religious people just have more unsupported assumptions (that God exists, for one) than those of us who aren't religious. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 22:07:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
The degree of similarity between the phenomenon and the noumenon is the degree of truth that we possess.
"Emanual Kant was a real pissant, who was very rarely stable!" -Monty Python
As we are incapable of determining if there is, in fact, some level of reality (or Kantain noumenon) that is the basis of our perception... I submit that if such were, in fact, true.. that it would have no relevence unless we were capable of percieving it and incorporating it into our phenomenon. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 08:39:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by coberst
I assume that reason is the only human faculty for ascertaining knowledge. I conclude that religious people have two sources of knowledge; reason and revelation. In cases where the truth from these two sources contradict then some religious people give primacy to reason and some to revelation. Those who give primacy to revelation are generally considered to be fundamentalist. I find a great deal of empirical evidence to support these conclusions.
Empirical evidence. Well I suppose it should be easy to find any number of individuals and determine their approach to resolving assertions. What I don't see is that a reliance on faith/revelation leads to anything useful in the way of knowledge. Since faith is without limits the revelation of anything knowable based on faith is not very revealing.
If I am not the recipient of the revelation, then I must also consider the reliability of the teller, and if the teller was not the original recipient, well you can see where this is going. If the original recipient/recorder of a revelation is anonymous and has been dead for over 1800 years. That would require a great deal of gulibility on my part to accept the recorders word as truth unless that which was recorded confirms my preexisting beliefs or a belief that I find particularly consoling. To describe a revelation as knowledge is even more remote. I am certain that most of us have not and will not be receiving any revelation from a supernatural source. And are limited to the testimony of others who make such claims.
As an example:
I would consider the testimony of 20000 people who claimed to have seen the sun racing toward the hill they were standing to not be very reliable. I base this perception on reason and not a lack of faith in their testimonies. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 08:42:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by coberst
Often we get into semantic problems. Where you see me use the word 'belief' or 'faith' you can substitute the word 'assume'. I have only recently discovered that skeptics are alergic to such words as belief and faith. ...
My only objections to these words is when they are used as a foundation for knowledge. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 11:58:58 [Permalink]
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To Moakley,
You and I agree that revelation is not a source for truth. That is why you and I are not religious people. It is my suspecion that many people find truth in revelation because the contemplation of a meaningless life they find to be unbearable. That is why I propose that we non-religious people seriously consider what we can offer to these people in the way of developing a meaningful life without the aid of supersticion. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 12:08:00 [Permalink]
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| I'm still stuck on the part where you claim that there is a level of reality beyond our clear perception, and that the clarity with wich it is percieved by individuals varies among individuals. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9691 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2004 : 12:19:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
I'm still stuck on the part where you claim that there is a level of reality beyond our clear perception, and that the clarity with wich it is percieved by individuals varies among individuals.
I don't have a problem with that.
Atoms and molecules can not be seen, neither can the forces that interacts with them. Elementary particles acts according to quantum physics, and to certain degrees also according to random chance.
We, who know and are aware (at least to a point) of these things, of the different sciences, have a better understanding what we see and what happens. That is what gives us our clearer perception.
A naïve or ignorant person thinks it's cool, that a dried corn thrown in boiling oil pops and become a popcorn. But our (or at least my) sense of reality is much deeper than that. We know that it is the internal pressure, caused by the heat, that builds up to the point where the casing bursts and the energy contained is being explosively released. We know that it is the photosynthesis that made the corn-plant form the complex carbonhydrate that got stored in the corn-seed, that we find so delicious when we spray some certain alkaline-metal chlorides on it.
We do know them by other names, and a few of them are also know by the naïve person coberst refer to. But how many have the deeper understanding of what really happened, and why? |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 06/01/2004 12:21:48 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2004 : 14:04:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
We, who know and are aware (at least to a point) of these things, of the different sciences, have a better understanding what we see and what happens. That is what gives us our clearer perception.
That's not what he's referring to. He's claiming that some people have an a clearer perception of some underlying truth than others. That there is a layer of reality that is filtered by perception and that there is some variation among individuals in the clarity of their perception of this alledged underlying reality.
In other words... there is some metaphysical source of reality that we all percieve with varying levels of clarity. One that cannot be objectively observed. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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