I need the axiom to get rid of solipsism &c.
Blü
What is wrong with solipsism? It needs to be recognized, understood and controlled, but even your axioms are fundamentally solipsistic. They are what you believe and what make you comfortable with your relationship with the material world. Pretending otherwise may cater to your materialism, but does not get rid of the solipsism.
I have no problem with solipsism. As a wonderful quote from Heinlein notes, 'Sometimes she goes away, but I am always here.' That is how I know the relationship of self with the rest of the world. I do not doubt the reality of the rest of the world, even when it 'goes away' but I do know the difference between self and other."
8 comments:
We have paried these swords before but you remarks regarding axioms and solipsism, and other exchanges in the original thread on Bnet stirred me to recall this from a past discussion on axioms -
It is unfortunate that the words of or about philosophy, logic and knowledge can be mixed in ways that will not allow a cake to bake. It is also unfortunate that a subset of buzzwords within each of these subjects can be employed to reach contradictory and confusing conclusions about the nature of knowledge. At the most basic level –
1. Something exists, existence exists
2. Something that exists in reality, exists independently of any observation [Reality exists independent of me]
3. A thing is itself, A is A; a thing cannot be A and not-A at the same time; a thing must be either A or non-A [Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction and Excluded Middle]
4. Consciousness exists [I am conscious]
5. Entities act in accordance with their natures. The same entity in the same circumstances will act in the same way [Causality.]
6. I can choose [Freewill.]
The above is an axiomatic system proposed by David Kelly. For me it works. The system is not arbitrary; its basis is objective and logically consistent; the system is the roots of our knowledge of reality. The conceptual jousting that occurs when one proposes more complex terms be employed in axioms [determinism, rationality, subjectivity, etc] tends to create artificial conflicts, but there are no conflicts in reality.
The proposal that the existence/knowledge of God can be described in an axiomatic system is in my opinion highly problematical. What statements concerning God could be self evident [rather than “evident to a particular perceiver?”] Which statements could be considered universally true to all observers? Regarding self-evidence, “As seen from definition, an axiom is not necessarily a self-evident truth, but rather a formal logical expression used in a deduction to yield further results. To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that some of its claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of sentences. This does not imply that they could have been known independently” [Freedictionary.com.] Is the existence of God, heshself, a well understood sentence that leads to the derivation/deduction of other “truths?”
I have no problem with your (Kelly's) axioms. In the realm of ones actions with the material world they seem to work well. But as I said to Blü at some point is not that they don't work. They are boring.
I find the conceptual world much more interesting if very poorly defined. What is the existential state of Scarlett O'Hara? Or God? We can certainly talk of Mitchell's depiction as a pseudo-historical figure, and learn many moral and historical lessons from that depiction. But how do we do that if Scarlett does not in some sense exist? Like Scarlett the OT God can be discussed, historical and moral lessons learned from the depiction in the OT. In what sense does the OT God exist? But if we move to an undocumented God perhaps the Creator of Jefferson, or the God of the Universalists where do we get the data for the historical and moral lessons? Basically we must ask people who believe just what it is that they believe in. As long as we ignore existential issues we have no problem. God is whatever the believer describes as God, and the historical and moral lessons can be read in the actions of the believer, or better the believers as a group.
As far as I am concerned existential issues are just not relavent to discussions of fictional or mythical "beings." We can discuss interpretations of the myth or the mythical being, just as we can discuss interpretations of physical data in a science class. The existence of dark matter is not necessary to the discussion of gravitational phenomena in the universe, but it sure is handy to think it exists.
In a word: No. Trigger one, just possibly, but create the fault strains necessary to produce one? No. Conspiracy theories are amusing pass-times about as useful as computer games.
What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.
Thanks for the kind words. The theme came from an early habit with my sports cars of random walks on back roads. The background courtesy of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park on the ultimate blue road CA 1. The blue color is a reflection of the sky off the worn asphalt. Just amazing to this scientist.
I would appreciate comments, arguments, and of course referrals. As Massimo Pigliucci notes on Rationally Speaking Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
From this attention grabbing opener, you would will need to move to the next part in the introduction, in which you offer some relevant background around the targeted purpose belonging to the essay. This section helps the reader see why you happen to be focusing on this topic and makes the transition to the main point of your paper. For this reason, this is in certain cases called the “transitional” part belonging to the introduction.
While in the example higher than, the anecdote about Michelle might just seize the reader’s attention, but the essay isn't really really about Michelle. The attention grabber would likely get the reader thinking about how drunk driving can destroy people’s lives, nonetheless it doesn’t introduce the topic belonging to the really need for stricter drunk driving penalties (or whatever the real focus of your paper may very well be).
Therefore, you absolutely need to bridge the gap relating to your attention-grabber and your thesis with some transitional discussion. In this particular part of your introduction, you narrow your focus on the topic and explain why the attention-grabber is relevant to the specified area you will be discussing. You should introduce your exact topic and supply any necessary background tips that the reader would really want in order to understand the problem that you simply are presenting inside paper. It is possible to also define any key terms the reader might probably not know.
Continuing with the example over, we may very well move from the narrative about Michelle to your short discussion in the scope belonging to the problem of drunk drivers. We may very well say, for example: “Michelle’s story is just not isolated. Each and every calendar year XX (amount) of lives are lost due to drunk-driving accidents.” You could follow this which includes a short discussion of how serious the problem is and why the reader should care about this problem. This effectively moves the reader from the story about Michelle to your real topic, which may possibly be the ought for stricter penalties for drinking and driving.
Hi Anonymous-
Thanks for your excellent suggestions. The blue roads of thinking is a blog of random thoughts--mostly mine--collected from various sources mainly social media I have played on. My intent has been to collect related posts into a more readable blog: http://jcarlinbl.blogspot.com/
This topic has been high on my Roundtuit list but got lost due to the old date. Thanks for the roundtuit. I can't promise when but the draft is up.
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