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 | Re: Fobo's "Philosophy..." (part 1 rough draft) | |
| Posted By: Yossarian | Date: 4/10/04 7:51 p.m. |
| In Response To: Fobo's "Philosophy..." (part 1 rough draft) (Forrest of B.org) : A PHILOSOPHY OF REALITY, KNOWLEDGE, AND MORALITY
: PREFACE : This essay is written to explain to myself the fundamental essence of
OK. : I am aware that many philosophers past have thought of and written about many
Everyone is a lunatic, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher. I love this post already. : THE BASIS OF REALITY : The reality that I know is, in essence, a set of ideas, beliefs, or
: With my perception, I see, hear, taste, smell, feel, and emote. If I had no
And without logic to interpret the incoming sensory stimuli we are but animals, who themselves are more likely to identify with this "sensititve reality", though not 100%. I can agree that logic and perception are your cornerstones of reality, and that one without the other is useless, but I have to contend that personal underlying logic, that is, the logic used to determine reality, is learned through perception. I happen to think, that as a product of evolution, the human brain is hard-wired for logical thinking, as it is for speech and other abstract processes, yet in order to utilize this infrastructure we must jump-start it with sensory data. Of course, this is not to say that humans are born with the ability to reason; a newborn can reason just as well as it can speak, that is to say, not at all. But I do think that the ability to form a logic of perception is relatively easy considering we have the hardware for it. In fact, simple observation (sensitive input) sets the rules in place, and these rules become more complex as the brain matures and the child understands more. The logic that is without words, the logic the is the foundation of anayltical logic is the logic that allows us to best experience your senstitive reality. Because natural laws populate so much of this logic (i.e. bright light= pain in eyes, cold = discomfort), our separate senstive realities appear very similiar. This is also due to the fact that our sensroy organs are nearly identical. This is why you will hear so little argument as to the color of the sky compared to what actually makes it that color. Or, as they say, seeing is believing. : With my logic, I build rules internally consistant with all that I know. If I
But what is a cognitive reality without perception but some kind of hell? The "testing of the rules" as you put it seems to happen all too often as an automatic response. This is another product of evolution, and it happens to us so often that we rarely even know that it is ocurring. Sensory information is constantly pouring into your brain, and the different organs scoop it up and pass it back and forth. The amygdala searches for possible threats. The hippocampus takes what it "thinks" you want to remember and stores it. The rules are, for the most part, tested and revised without our consciousness being any the wiser. Unless the rules being tested are beyond simple perception. The amygdala knows jack about quantum physics. : THE CONTINUUM OF REALITIES : The reality that I know is built with a combination of these two tools.
In which we can never find ourselves in one of these exclusively, as you point out later. As I said, animals for the most part can relate to a sensitive reality, though this is not to say that they are without rules of logic. Dogs can learn tricks after all, though any cognition they can achieve is the direct result of some sort of perceptive stimuli. This all breaks down into reward an punishment, something we have no reason to dive into. Simpler life forms such as arthropods can also act on their "perception of reality", though responsed are naturally very simplistic and are more a result of applying the incoming sensory data with a set table of genetically pre-programmed responses. There is a being operating off pure, sensitive reality. What a life. : I find myself closer to Cognitive Reality when I am contemplating theoretical
I think what it may actually come down here to is simply where is the processing for the activity occuring? When you're doing mathematical processes, there are multiple parts of your brain working at above normal levels to provide solutions. Because of your physical limitations in terms of processing power, you shift your focus away from outside stimuli that does not concern itself with the problem at hand. Have you entered a new reality? I do not think so. I think you've just re-allocate your mental resources. : I am not assigning absolute moral values to Cognitive, Sensitive, or Actual
Huzzah! : THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE VIA EXPERIENCE AND REASON : Both methods of gaining ideas, beliefs, or information, which I refer to
: The limit on reason is that, lacking knowledge from experience, logic must be
In a vacuum, then I'd agree with you, before my eyeballs explode and I die of suffocation. No, that's not right, I mean, with your assumption in vacuum, then the safe answer is false. This brings up two points to my mind: The first being, what is your major "goal" in all of this? To validate all you hyptheses of reality? I'm not arguing about the nobility of that, I merely tend to believe that it is a function that is more instinctual than cognitive. My other point here being that most always, assumptions aren't made in a vacuum; there is secondary data from past experiences that are similar, but not identical. Just because you have never driven a Ford Explorer doesn't mean you assume that you can't. Since you have driven other types of vehicles, you can be reasonably confident that you can indeed drive a Ford Explorer, all you need do now is actually do it in order to validate the "rule". In fact, I challenge anyone to come up with a real life situation in which secondary or prior logic cannot be utilized. : The limit on experience is that no being can experience everything, and thus
Both of these statements are arguable. If I've experienced everything I can experience then I have therefore experienced everything, because if I didn't experience it, then I couldn't have. Also, what reality can be more accurate than the only one we know? Since it is the only reality available to us, it is the most accurate and inaccurate at the same time. I do not think that accuracy and reality are compatible. Human recollections being what they are... : The reason why no being can experience everything could be put simply: the
I fail to grasp a couple of things in the preceding paragraph. First, what is "informational size"? Do you refer to the "brainspace" required to store the memory of an experience? The fact of the matter here is that different memories would take up different amounts of space, not only because of the *duration* of the memory, but also the *quality*. For example, I can barely recall turning on this computer a few hours ago, but I remember everything from the time I nearly broke my neck in a car accident some four years ago (an airbag did not save my life ;) heh heh). I remember each sound, the scraping metal, the feeling of my algebra book smacking me in the head, stumbling out into the snow, all very vivid. In here you also have the principal of heuristics, the mental shortcuts that make data processing so easy. For repetitious tasks (turning on my laptop) I may have one mental visual recollection of doing this, though I could have many. The brain has no reason to store data reduntantly, and usually will not. Are you trying to get at the point that a consciousness cannot understand everything without understanding (experiencing?) everything, including itself? Are you merely trying to dispove god at this juncture or...Of course, this assumes that god is a separate conciousness from existence, something I tend to doubt in more ways than one. : The net effect of these two limits on knowledge-gathering is that I cannot
Again, in a vacuum this works, but it would probably get pretty dusty what with all the dirt and cat hair! Godammit, no, I mean, the simple truth here is that there are too many unaccountable variables to let the situation be "either/or". Nearly each and every situation is "either/or/or/or/or/or/or...ad infinitum..." Let's go back to the analogy of you driving a Ford Explorer and living to tell about it: 1. Foborg gets into a Ford Explorer and starts the Engine. He cannot "reasonably back an assertion of faith" that he can actually drive it, "though [he] may be able to infer the probable truth through experience". Cool. So, like we discussed, he can probably drive it. 2. However, Foborg "cannot experientially disprove any such assertion either". This is to say, he cannot disprove the fact that he can drive it. 3. The result: Foborg can both neither drive nor not drive the Ford Explorer. The problem with this being that the following are also possible: 4. Foborg drives it, but not very well.
So much for "either/or"... : Therefore in Actual Reality,
Yeah, but when does this ever happen? Do we wait until the next "step" in human evolution? When does the safe answer become anything but "I lack the necessary logic and perception to answer that to a satsifactory degree of accuracy". The problem here is that advocates of faith will argue that they do indeed have experiential evidence in favor of their arguments. I once had a friend that swore he felt the hand of god on his shoulder when he got into a car accident (they were the thing to do back home). Of course, he later admitted he was on cocaine at the time. It is the very malleability of reality that makes it so weak and is pimped out so often by the zealots of...faith and reason. : THE AGNOSTIC BASIS OF MORALITY IN ACTUAL REALITY : For the remainder of this essay I am going to assume the premise, based on my
lol : The basis of most moral codes is founded either in pure faith ("I was
: "Moral" can generally be taken as synonymous for "good",
: A functional quantative definition is "an action which makes more people
Is it? Or does it cheapen happiness, and by extension, morality? I don't think morality boils down to happiness, being more the the socio-biological school of thought I would argue that morality is a structure of judgement of interpersonal actions that most benefit the existence of the owner of that structure. What is good (moral) for everyone may not be so for me, especially if that group is competing with me for resources or influence or fertile women. In fact, I happen to think that morality has a rather ambivalent attitude towards good and bad, and that they all don't always have that much to do with eachother. They're all so subjective. There must be made the distinction between object and action, and beyond that the perceptions of each. Object being a gun, action being the shooting of another person, perception being if the using of the object for that action is justified, which then must include participation from circumstance and ethics. More than happiness... : The three individual quantities of the above definition are individual
I'm sorry, but I don't see how any of this is applicable. Good, bad, immoral, or moral, he or she with the most resources and influence can and will dictate the moral climate of a culture of a society, and wether his or her doing so is moral or not is his or her decision. Easy come easy go. Morality, to me, is a silly silly thing. : QUANTITATIVE QUALITIES OF GOAL REALITIES TO ORIENT GOOD ACTIONS TOWARD : Actions are taken to execute the will of a person, where will was previously
: The first quality is 'knowledge'. A reality in which people know more is a
This under the assumption that knowledge is a "good" and "moral" thing. With knowledge comes a certain level of responsibility for wielding it, something not everyone is willing to carry. But knowledge itself is an object, not the action. And clarification is in order; do you mean general knowledge? Social knowledge? Botanical knowledge? Inherent knowledge? Is it not possible for a person to have little knowledge yet be "more" moral than a knowledeable person? : The second quality is 'variety'. A reality with more variety is more likely
The point being what? What if making more people happy is an immoral thing, or is against my personal or political goals? Which morality takes precedence? People like Big Macs, they think they are good and they make those people happy to eat them. Big Macs are unhealthy. It is moral to let them have Big Macs and it is immoral to allow people to have things that are knowingly unhealthy. Okay, that's not my point here, my point it, is happiness the ultimate goal? : The third quality is 'balance'. A reality in which things are more balanced
That's rather vague. Please give an example of all three of these in real-life situtions. : CONCLUSION : As promised, here is now my rationalization for why mostly knowing Actual
: The reason for the first premise, that mostly knowing Actual Reality is
: Not all people should always know exactly Actual Reality. Some people may
I think you did a good job here of summing up your arguments yet my main complaint is that there is no allusion to any practical application of the materials herein. That and the dependance on heavily subjective terms (though defined) make it a tad shaky. I'd write more, but your essay has raped my brain, and it is raining outside. Please forgive any spelling and grammatical errors, I sometimes change thoughts in midsentence. Yossarian. | |
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