Kharakov

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle-

, circular dualism is funny as hell.


Doesn't seem logical to postulate anything to be absolute without circular reasoning.

Infinite thrust providing acceleration is illogical, you would require infinite mass to provide infinite thrust which would negate any acceleration. More importantly, by the (current) laws of physics that you refer to nothing can move faster than the speed of light.

It is logical that man may one day make a vehicle that travels faster than 100 miles per hour, however in practice (as of 1800), this is untrue.

I consider myself an objective subjectivist.

(P1) Perfect subjectivity requires the complete removal of objective reality from an observation.
(P2) One cannot completely remove objective reality from an observation.
(C1) Therefore, one cannot achieve perfect subjectivity.

Unless you use self referential systems. After all, everything is everything.

Circles are funny- they are perfectly random (pi) and perfectly ordered (radius) at the same time. whoah...

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Some folks, it would seem, have really odd definitions of 'objective' and 'subjective'.

Keith.

Kharakov

Who?

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Yes, that's the way I see it. And that's one reason why I come out against absolutism. I suspect, deep down, that the way human beings understand things is fundamentally circular. So my approach to philosophy may seem unusual to the sort of people who think otherwise.

With a self-supporting, circular system, you can't prove anything absolutely. All you can do is decide whether or not a particular idea fits into the system. I believe that's what we do when we make logical arguments. In logic, we start with two premises from which we draw a conclusion. But where do our two "true" premises come from? They are the results of other logical arguments. If you follow the chain of reasoning far enough back, you will eventually come to a point where the only justification for a particular "truth" is the system itself. Hence, circularity.

For example, our system of logic is based on a number of logical axioms. But what makes these logical axioms seem true? They seem true because they are logical. You derive the axioms of logic logically. So logic is a self-referential system. If the logical axioms were absolute, rather than circular, then it would be reasonable to expect that a logical argument would always be right. But our experience shows us that pure logic leads to things like medieval scholasticism. And the schoolmen were not exactly famed for their grip on reality. It took science, with its empirical experiments, to finally give us some understanding of how the real universe works.

Fortunately, we are not completely stuck in our self-referential schemas. We have a source of verification from outside ourselves. This source is the real world, as it appears to us through our senses. We can test the points of our circular system of understanding against our impressions from the real world, to see whether they stand up or not (and the more objectivity we can put into this test, the better the results). Empirical testing can help us make our circular schemas better fit the reality of the universe. But it does not make them any less circular, or any less self-referential. And the notions that we want to test against reality will still be dictated by the schemas we hold in our minds. This is the sense in which I argue that our human understanding of the universe is not necessarily the "absolute truth" of the universe.

Now consider this. If you test an idea you have, and find it is not true (in the sense that it doesn't agree with observation), then what do you do? You change your belief. But remember, this belief is just one point in the huge circular argument that is your understanding of the universe. If you change one belief, then logically, you must change the beliefs that are derived from it, and the further beliefs derived from them, and so on, until you eventually change the beliefs that support the fundamental axioms of your belief system, and then you change the axioms themselves. Once you have changed everything to accomodate the new information, then the system will settle down, once more, into a stable self-supporting state -- until some other part of it fails the empirical test.

Presumably, there could be any number of permutations of these belief systems, depending on what parts of it get challenged and how these challenges are dealt with. So we can say that there are many of these belief systems existing simultaneously; in other words, there are many (probably an endless) number of metaphysical models you could subscribe to. Because all of these metaphysical models are circular and self-referrential, no one of them could be said to be the absolute truth. That is relativism. However, some metaphysical models are more useful than others (and "usefulness" is my answer to relativism).

One of the central platforms of my own philosophical system are my criteria of usefulness. There are five, in this order of precedence:

(1) Does the system work in the real world? That is to say, does it agree with observation? If a particular philosophical system doesn't work in reality, or if it doesn't produce predictable results, then it is not useful.

(2) Is the system logical? If a philosophical system doesn't have some sort of logic to it, then you can't use logic to verify it, or to draw logical inferences from it. That makes the system less useful.

(3) Is it parsimonious? In other words, is the philosophical system the simplest explanation of the things you want to explain, that requires the least number of novel ideas to explain it? The most useful system is generally the simplest one that covers all the facts. In science, this idea is called Ockham's Razor.

(4) Is it effective? That is, does the philosphical system suggest effective action, or does it tie your hands? It is all very well to invent some idea that will explain something, but if that explanation leaves you with nowhere to go, or if it causes you to take damaging and ineffective actions, then it is not useful.

(5) Is it positive? If you are driven to hold some philosophical conceit that is not empirically verifiable, or logical, or parsimonious, or effective, then you may just as well make it a positive philosophical conceit -- a conceit that makes you happy, rather than sad and anxious.

(This is just a rough draft of my criteria of usefulness. I hope you will make some allowances for that.)

Kharakov

Good!

Calvan

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

LOL. Thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between “me” and “Rationalist” even though I thought it a bit cruel to banish “rationalist” to Poland and even though I had no clear idea who or what “me” defended.

My excuse is that I was floundering about searching for meanings to references the most recent of which are dualism, utopian idealism, and self referential systems.

Your “rough draft” threw some light on the meaning of self referential and presented some meanings with which I would like to agree. I am not sure what those meanings are yet but I intend to look more closely to see if I can discern what they are.

Thank you very much.

Calvan

Keith Russell

Kharakov:

I have been in several debates with 'subjectivists' who define 'subjectivism' in the same way I define 'objectivism' (lower case 'o'.)

The 'subjectivists' with whom I've had discussions seem to view objectivists as intrinsicists, while subjectivists seem to hold the same views as the objectivsts, but they don't want to call themselves objectivists.

It seems mostly to be a semantic argument, rather than a true conceptual disagreement.

Keith.

Kharakov

Keith-

I will always question whether I am viewing objective reality through (subjective) rose tinted glasses. I also always except my subjective experience as objective reality- it's the only one I know. Occam seems to be the best person to polish my glasses as of yet. Ramble ramble...

Keith Russell

Kharakov:

Fair enough.

I still suspect that the distinguishing characteristic that objectivists identify as 'objectivity', and that subjectivists identify as 'subjectivity', might be the same thing, after all.

Keith.

John Page

LOL, yes it does depend on one's (subjective)point of view, doesn't it!!