DRFseven

You're talking about an original assumption? No assumption is possible without experience. Even to learn what gods or elves are, an individual must acquire experience. The individual's environment supplies, not only information about gods and elves (language, stories, graphic depictions, formal education, etc.), but attitudes and learning methods (modeling after trusted caretakers, peers, teachers; trial-and-error learning, etc., all of which involves values based on reward interpretation signaled by memory.

But, yes, these assumptions do guide our future choices.

In relation to the only thing you have, which is the memories (potential for neurons involved in original experience to fire in a similar pattern, based on changes in those neurons as a result of that experience) you have of your experience with the concept of elves. How do elves fit in with what you know about the world? If they don't seem compelling, you can't believe in them. Have you tried?

You don't; it orders you! Certainly people can make a conscious effort to change, but only if they have had previous experience to enable them to perceive it as appropriate.

Nothing comes before experience. Look up some of the experiments involving sensory deprivation; even people with a lifetime of prior experience quickly lose cognitive abilities when a significant degree of sensation is blocked. Try to imagine a person born into a sensory deprivation device which sustained biological function, but blocked all normal avenues of sensory input; that person would never have an opinion with which to make a choice (actually, the person wouldn't live long, as seriously deprived infants show us, but there would be no way for thinking to take place; it ALL depends upon experience).

None, except experience, of course. You can experience something that changes the belief, which enables a different perception of reality.

ManM

DRFseven,
Given the sum total of our experience, would you say that reason dictates only one way to order that experience?

Pomp

ManM,

I'm not expreacher, but I'd like to address your comments here.

You are assuming your senses are accurate. How is this a logically necessary assumption?

It isn't, and I don't think that expreacher is claiming that it is. Sensory experience is primary in formulating foundational beliefs. Infants rely on the world they can sense to construct their initial worldviews, without reliance on formal logic. This thread is about why people actually believe what they believe, not whether or not those beliefs are, strictly speaking, epistemically warranted. We may not be able to formally prove that sensory experience is accurate (although I do think that there are several good arguments for that view), but this does not change the observed fact that sensory experience is an important factor in my worldview (and, assuming you all exist, your worldviews as well).

How does experience dictate its own interpretation?

Given that the Universe exists in a certain state, out of all possible interpretations of sensory data about that Universe, only a limited set will be close enough to reality to be of any use at all. Predictably, all (or nearly all, barring a handful of solipsists and the lke)worldviews that are actually held by human beings have the vasy majority of their features in common. Most importantly, they all include principles such as induction, cause and effect, etc. These common features could be said to be dictated by experience.

I have experienced the joys of debating with solipsists before, and it is quite futile. You should try it sometime. In fact, that was one of the major factors which led me to critically examine blind faith in reason.

Oddly enough, the only solipsist arguments I've encountered have come from the mouths of Xian apologists trying to dicredit "blind faith" in reason.

This is not to say that there are no real solipsists, but only that solipsism seems, in my experience, to be more of a device for questioning the foundations of knowledge rather than a belief honestly held by any serious thinker.

DRFseven

Sorry; I don't know if I'm interpreting your question correctly, since I've stated that we DON'T order our experiences, that they, instead, order us. I'm thinking that maybe you are referring to the comment I made that given an enabling situation, it is possible for an individual to learn to alter his/her environment in such as way that is conducive to directed change. For instance, if I were overweight and out of shape, but had never been able to maintain a conditioning program, there might be something I could do about my thinking pattern that would enable me to reach my goals. For this to occur, something would have to change from the way it had been; something would have to stimulate that change. The stimulus could be in the form of any environmental element (direct or remembered) that might cause an epiphany ("Aha! My office mate started using his lunch hour to work out, instead of going with me to get meatball subs; he lost 40 lbs, has kept it off for the last two years, and feels great. I guess it's possible I could do that, too."). This is, of course, only one example out of thousands of possible stimuli. This type situation is at the heart of cognitive behavioral therapy; the counselor asks the individual seeking help in reaching some goal to imagine what change in thinking would have to occur in order for that goal to be reached. The stimulating element certainly needn't be a professional counselor, though; it could be any experience at all (a remembered news article; a post on a message board!) that was sufficient to stimulate that effect on a particular set of variables (all of the individual's other memories and drives). In this way people learn to want to become educated, to become physically fit, to become wealthy, to become powerful, to become assertive, to become less fearful, etc.

DRFseven

What; you didn't CHOOSE to think debating with solipsists was futile, but, instead, you learned so though experience? And you didn't CHOOSE to critically examine blind faith in reason, but, instead, debating solipsists led you there?

Did you ever try the believing in elves thing?

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

MrDarwin

Similarly, in online discussions I've seen many, many theists assert that we all do believe in God. Atheists and agnostics are simply denying (or choosing to deny, despite their own deep-down beliefs) that which they don't want to believe. In other words, they are just fooling themselves.

Of course this raises the problem of how they know what atheists or agnostics really think or believe, implying mindreading or omniscience on the part of those making such assertions.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Princess of Peace

They either lack the experience necessary to believe otherwise, or they refuse to give any credit to any contrary evidence presented to them. Someone who lacks the necessary experience is called "sheltered." I've been there. Someone who refuses to consider the experience is called "in denial." "But judge, I never knew that eating fast food all my life would be unhealthy." Sheltered? Or in denial?

Don't Keebler elves make cookies? "You shouldn't believe everything you see on TV." Ah... so someone somewhere made a choice to believe what they saw on TV, and we are being warned to make another choice. But then, what kind of belief are we talking about?

ManM

Pompous Bastard,
Yes, solipsism is useless, not irrational. That is not a judgment of reason, but one of value. Thank you for supporting my crusade to put reason in its proper place.

DRFseven,
I'm starting to get the idea that you don't believe in choices, period. Let me see if I understand your position. We all have a reason for what we believe. No reasons come to us outside of experience. Therefore our old experiences color our new ones, and we can never escape this cycle.

If this is true then ex-preacher's naturalism, my theism, and your determinism are no more rational than a child's belief in Santa Claus. It is all nothing more than the product of our experience. Does this mean that creative interpretation of experience is impossible?

Pomp

ManM,

Yes, solipsism is useless, not irrational.

I might go so far as to say that the whole question of solipsism is arational, in that we simply have no way to reason ourselves into or out of it. It's an epistemic dead end or, as you say, a useless concept.

That is not a judgment of reason, but one of value.

Largely, yes. In one sense, it is a judgement of reason, in that we can use reason to arrive at the conclusion that solipsism is undecidable and, thus, an empty concept.

Thank you for supporting my crusade to put reason in its proper place.

If by "proper place" you mean "the only reliable means of determining truth and falsehood known to us," then I fully support your crusade.

Seriously, I don't see how admitting that there are some propositions that are undecidable, in principle, by reason is equivalent to putting reason "in it's place." Rational thought is based on several prerational axioms (the principle of induction, cause and effect, etc.). Asking reason to "prove" its own axioms strikes me as just a bit unfair.

ex-preacher

As PB as said so well, we rely on our senses prior to and outside of any logical assumptions. It is entirely possible that someone may be decived by their senses. You're starting to confuse me. Are you a solipsist by any chance? Do you not rely on your senses?

<strong> I would assert that experience and reason work hand in hand. Don't you agree? We experience something, try to make sense of it, then try to fit in new experiences to our framework. When that framework no longer adequately explains our experiences, we look for a new explanation. Don't you use reason and experience?

<strong> I think I have shown that I'm not. You, on the other hand . . .

<strong> So you do rely on reason after all! Good for you!