tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post7146145653398323448..comments2023-10-17T08:19:58.196-04:00Comments on FreeThinke: FreeThinkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-41587919781435896152014-05-28T09:08:10.332-04:002014-05-28T09:08:10.332-04:00Here's my view....
Faith is faith, and scienc...Here's my view....<br /><br />Faith is faith, and science is science. Therefore, there is no way that science <i>provides a satisfactory explanation for what that Something Else really is</i>.<br /><br />Sometimes I can reconcile the two, sometimes not. So what? Life is filled with paradoxes of all kinds. <br /><br />Besides, scientific "facts" often change. <br /><br />Case in point: Galileo discoveries defied the science of his day.<br /><br />Another case in point: medical experts have now discovered that women have been overdosed on Ambien for decades because it is an error to say that women and men metabolize drugs in the same way. See <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/drugs-can-affect-men-and-women-differently/" rel="nofollow">this recent finding</a>, and the sex differences apply to more than Ambien.<br /><br />PS: I'm up to making a short comment today. My fever <b>FINALLY</b> broke!Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-83540723492991506212014-05-28T03:54:06.223-04:002014-05-28T03:54:06.223-04:00Hi,
looks like I've arrived late for this, how...Hi,<br />looks like I've arrived late for this, however I have replied to your comment at westernhero wherein I clarify my position on the relative importance of facts and intuition, place limits on the domain of science, discuss how best to achieve consistently good chicken soup, and wonder what good is science for producing art.jeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-1113582288516037792014-05-26T20:40:08.159-04:002014-05-26T20:40:08.159-04:00_____________To a Louse ____________
Ha! whaur ye..._____________To a Louse ____________<br /><br /><i>Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie? <br />Your impudence protects you sairly; <br />I canna say but ye strunt rarely, <br />Owre gauze and lace; <br />Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely <br />On sic a place. <br /><br />Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner, <br />Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, <br />How daur ye set your fit upon her - <br />Sae fine a lady? <br />Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner <br />On some poor body. <br /><br />Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle; <br />There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, <br />Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, <br />In shoals and nations; <br />Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle <br />Your thick plantations. <br /><br />Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight, <br />Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight; <br />Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right, <br />Till ye've got on it - <br />The verra tapmost, tow'rin height <br />O' Miss' bonnet. <br /><br /><br /><br />My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, <br />As plump an' grey as ony groset: <br />O for some rank, mercurial rozet, <br />Or fell, red smeddum, <br />I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't, <br />Wad dress your droddum. <br /><br />I wad na been surpris'd to spy <br />You on an auld wife's flainen toy; <br />Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy, <br />On's wyliecoat; <br />But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye! <br />How daur ye do't? <br /><br />O Jenny, dinna toss your head, <br />An' set your beauties a' abread! <br />Ye little ken what cursed speed <br />The blastie's makin: <br />Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread, <br />Are notice takin. <br /><br /><b>O wad some Power the giftie gie us <br />To see oursels as ithers see us! <br />It wad frae mony a blunder free us, <br />An' foolish notion: <br />What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, <br />An' ev'n devotion!</b></i><br /><br />~ Robert BurnsFreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-58165913713797315582014-05-26T20:31:02.671-04:002014-05-26T20:31:02.671-04:00I define God as Truth -- among several other wholl...I define God as Truth -- among several other wholly incorporeal, intangible but absolutely essential phenomena.<br /><br />Keats sad, <i>"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty"</i> -- and that's all we can know, and all we need to know.<br /><br />Assuming that is true, we find God in Beauty.<br /><br />Defining Beauty adequately could -- and doubtless has -- filled volumes.<br /><br />Beauty is not mere prettiness anymore than peace is the absence of conflict or health the absence of disease. Beauty is not always mild and agreeable. Often it is poignantm and sears our conscience. Beaty is not meant to be "easy." Often it requires considerable spadework to be able to appreciate it. Beauty is touching, transformative. but always nourishing as it requires more and more of us.<br /><br />At any rate, I don't presume to know God, but I made a conscious decision to seek "Him," because ardent pursuit of The Highest Good has brought a greater measures of serenity, benignity, a more salubrious state of mind, and greater coping skills into my life than I would otherwise enjoy.<br /><br />It's really a very selfish thing this pursuit of God, if you want to take the cynical view. I don't look at it that way. I see it as pragmatic -- eminently practical.<br /><br />Unlike Fundamentalists, on whom I look with wonder and pitying contempt, I try not to be adamant about anything. I know just enough to know there is no end to knowing.<br /><br />I see the same sort of mulish intransigence in mlitant atheism as I do in fundamentalism. I see it in the Left, just as I see it in the Savonarolas and Cromwells of former times.<br /><br />Lastly -- for now -- a notable lack of humor and an apparent lack of any capacity for merriment sends ip red flags, and causes my hackles to rise immediately. Likewise a show of undue preoccupatiion with Self.<br /><br />The level of anger, derision, conceit and hyper-defensiveness -- <i>hubris</i> if you prefer -- I see in the approach to discourse these days is beyond appalling. It is alarming and uncivilized.<br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-51684737727495016302014-05-26T20:30:25.333-04:002014-05-26T20:30:25.333-04:00"Well how about that! By proving the existenc..."Well how about that! By proving the existence of love, you have inadvertently proven the existence of G_d! You ARE good!"<br /><br />For me this was never about proving or disproving the existence of God, but no, nothing I said proves the existence of God, unless:<br /><br />you're admitting that God does not exist in reality, and that God only exists fictitiously i.e. as an idea that only exists in peoples' minds.<br /><br />So unless you're admitting that God exists only fictitiously, then you should probably not use my arguments. Because while there is evidence showing that love exists in reality, there is no evidence that shows God exists in reality. Given that you seem to be on FT's side of the theist camp, my guess is that you're not trying to prove that God does not exist in reality.<br /><br />And just like science, I readily admit that I can be proven wrong, it's just that you haven't done a very good job at proving me wrong.<br /><br />Lastly for you, Thersites--because I'm fairly certain that at this point you've exhaustedall of your means to argue against me--what self-respecting philosopher ever quotes Nietzsche except as an example of philosophy gone wrong?<br /><br />Why, when Nietzsche first articulated and supported Nihilism, would you ever use him in an argument about evidence and truth? In the same work that you've been quoting this whole time, Nietszche says this about God:<br /><br />"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"<br /><br />Sure, by uttering the phrase "God is dead," one admits that God must have existed, but then at that point we would have to redefine what God is. Surely, Nietzche could not have believed in the Thomas Aquinas version of God--that which there can be nothing greater--because then Nietszche could not posit that God is even capable of dying. Nietszche has been disproven, superceded, and tossed aside by every respectable 20th century philosopher--so why would you EVER quote him: the man who's unrelenting nihilism and unrepentant belief that everything is meaningless spawned a whole host of attrocities and horrors in the 20th century?<br /><br />Sounds to me, Thersites, that you need to broaden your library of philosophers. Go read some Camus or even some Arendt, and stop throwing out wild ass assertions that my refutations of everything you've said somehow prove your points. Because they don't: they just show that your thinking is illogical, poorly based, and mostly irrational.<br /><br />I'm finished arguing with you, because even if you said to me "2 + 2 = 5" and I showed you that "2 + 2 = 4," you would simply say that I somehow proved your point that 2+2=5. In other words, arguing with you is pointless.<br /><br />(No doubt you will see this as some sort of intellectual victory on your part. I'll merely have to take solace in the fact that there are assuredly plenty of people reading this who are just as baffled by your ineffective debate tactics as myself.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-79453868854571196012014-05-26T19:43:19.412-04:002014-05-26T19:43:19.412-04:00" ... who are you going to believe? Your own ...<br /><i>" ... who are you going to believe? Your own inner voice, or the taunting giant opposite?"</i><br /><br />I have earned through lng experience to trust my hunches, and respect my perceptions, so I must say, "I tend to believe whar my Inner Voice tells me about the nature,character, value and and motivation of "The Taunting Opposite."<br /><br />I am not, however, so conceited, so adamant or so dense as to be cocksure that I am always right.<br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-4525373894125811492014-05-26T19:06:22.800-04:002014-05-26T19:06:22.800-04:00Quite honestly, polygamy
Is all over the Bible. ...<b><i>Quite honestly, polygamy <br />Is all over the Bible. <br />To say the ancients lived like beasts <br /> Isn’t any libel<br />. <br />There's little thought or talk of love, <br />Since women were just chattel.<br /> Men were free to fornicate, <br /> While girls were bred like cattle. <br /><br />There is no way that we can say <br />What's best for everyone. <br />What's right for me might poison thee <br />Or take away your fun.<br /> <br />Oh how I wish we could be free <br />To live life as we choose, <br />And cease all consternation<br /> Over other peoples' views!</i></b><br /><br />~ FreeThinke FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-25734477813694209092014-05-26T18:42:52.946-04:002014-05-26T18:42:52.946-04:00"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything...<br /><i>"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."</i><br /><br /><i>"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."</i><br /><br /><i>"Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think."</i><br /><br /><br />~ Ralph Waldo Emerson<br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-12305165952717996832014-05-26T18:29:23.640-04:002014-05-26T18:29:23.640-04:00”Education without values, as useful as it is, see...<i>”Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”</i><br /><br /><i>“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”</i><br /><br /><br />~ C. S. Lewis<br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-41343610071327680902014-05-26T18:17:06.458-04:002014-05-26T18:17:06.458-04:00...cuz out of all the voices calling out to me, I ...<i>...cuz out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the voice of Truth!</i> - Casting Crowns, "Voice of Truth"Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-50629816709495609632014-05-26T18:11:18.415-04:002014-05-26T18:11:18.415-04:00Okay, but who are you going to believe? Your own ...Okay, but who are you going to believe? Your own inner voice, or the <a href="http://farmersletters.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-those-who-serve-thank-you-for-your.html" rel="nofollow">taunting giant opposite</a>?Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-8916617061468621222014-05-26T18:08:33.364-04:002014-05-26T18:08:33.364-04:00Those addicted to dispute
And seek forever to refu...<b><i>Those addicted to dispute<br />And seek forever to refute<br />Will from the earth reap bitter fruit.</i></b><br /><br />~ Tillie Oylen SegalAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-61361906668603685892014-05-26T17:46:33.977-04:002014-05-26T17:46:33.977-04:00He preached upon “breadth” till it argued him narr...<br /><br /><i><b>He preached upon “breadth” till it argued him narrow,— <br />The broad are too broad to define: <br />And of “truth” until it proclaimed him a liar,–– <br />The truth never flaunted a sign. <br /> <br />Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence <br />As gold the pyrites would shun. <br />What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus <br />To meet so enabled a man!</b></i><br /><br />~! Emiy Dickinson (1830-1886) <br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-43428783633897917132014-05-26T17:45:13.685-04:002014-05-26T17:45:13.685-04:00I know that x is true, but...
Fetishist disavowal...I know that x is true, but...<br /><br />Fetishist disavowal.<br /><br /><i>The revolutionary rational which justified the colonial split from Great Britain was a universalistic ethic of brotherhood: “All men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” However we are constantly confronted with the glaring inequalities which have existed since the very foundation of the nation. Slavoj Zizek asks, “Is even the most universal ethics not obliged to draw a line and ignore some sort of suffering?” According to Zizek this ignorance which sustains all universalistic ethics is called fetishist disavowal: “I know it, but I refuse to fully assume the consequences of this knowledge, so that I can continue acting as if I don’t know it.” (Violence, p. 53) Furthermore, the more universal the ethic – for instance the insistence that all men are created equal – the more violent the fetishist disavowal must be in response (p.54). Thus, ironically, it was not until after the Revolution that ontological violence which ensured the inferior treatment of blacks became truly engrained. Before and shortly after the Revolution, Southern leaders such as Jefferson and Washington did not doubt that their black slaves were of equal intellectual capacity. However, by the time Andrew Jackson and John Calhoun began speaking publicly black inferiority was a thoroughly established fact. In order to adopt the post-Revolutionary ethic that all men are created equal and therefore entitled to the same rights – while at the same time indefinitely perpetuating the institutions which denied these rights – Southerners, and US Americans, had to engage in fetishist disavowal. By constructing slaves as something Other, they could be ignored. Ralph Ellison’s book the Invisible Man makes real the theory of fetishist disavowal.</i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-66614729237309409122014-05-26T17:31:58.997-04:002014-05-26T17:31:58.997-04:00Now the philosopher Slavoj Zizek (a Lacanian) beli...Now the philosopher Slavoj Zizek (a Lacanian) believes that human beings often hold contrary views and ignore conflicting evidence (in the form of a 'fetish'). This doesn't merely apply to people of "faith". It's very common. For we are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En4mOdVdhSY" rel="nofollow">inundated in ideology</a>... much of which is "false" but gives us "feelings of power". Some of these "truth suspension activities we employ for short durations to avoid immediate pain, others which we choose to repress "permanently".Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-62057059016848680122014-05-26T17:13:53.259-04:002014-05-26T17:13:53.259-04:00btw - Science "generally" admits that at...btw - Science "generally" admits that at any moment, it can be proven wrong. And if it can't be proven wrong, we'll then, it's just not "science".<br /><br />And if people of "faith" are loathe to admit this fact, people who claim to follow "science" seem to be in complete denial of it.<br /><br />And I don't make any claim at all that "my" faith is truer than anyone elses. My faith generally makes ME <i>feel</i> more powerful. And according to Nietzsche, whatever makes me <i>feel</i> more powerful, MUST be "the truth" (see below for confirmation).<br /><br />People "select" the evidence that they are willing to consider. People of "faith" select it. People of "science" select it.<br /><br />For example, you state that "I find it ridiculous when people cling to an idea despite a preponderance of evidence that suggests said idea is false."<br /><br />So why do you cling to the idea of "logic" and "equality"? Nietzsche (above) has proven the idea "false"... the snowflake should be your example... as no two snowflakes are exactly alike. You simply choose to "selectively ignore" certain differences and equate them. Isn't this illogical? Or are the differences simply "too slight" to warrant consideration?<br /><br />Nietzsche, "Will to Power"<br /><br /><i>493 (1885)<br /><br />Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.<br /><br />534 (1887-1888)<br /><br />The criterion of truth resides in the enhancement of the feeling of power.</i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-26301602907028318152014-05-26T16:51:05.157-04:002014-05-26T16:51:05.157-04:00Well how about that! By proving the existence of ...Well how about that! By proving the existence of love, you have inadvertently <a href="http://eyeonfaith.blogspot.com/2012/10/lords-prayer-our-daily-dopamine.html" rel="nofollow">proven the existence of G_d!</a> You ARE good! ;)<br /><br />Emerson, "Conduct of Life, On Beauty" <i>The spiral tendency of vegetation infects education also. Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know. What a parade we make of our science, and how far off, and at arm's length, it is from its objects! Our botany is all names, not powers: poets and romancers talk of herbs of grace and healing; but what does the botanist know of the virtues of his weeds? The geologist lays bare the strata, and can tell them all on his fingers: but does he know what effect passes into the man who builds his house in them? what effect on the race that inhabits a granite shelf? what on the inhabitants of marl and of alluvium?<br /><br />We should go to the ornithologist with a new feeling, if he could teach us what the social birds say, when they sit in the autumn council, talking together in the trees. The want of sympathy makes his record a dull dictionary. His result is a dead bird. The bird is not in its ounces and inches, but in its relations to Nature; and the skin or skeleton you show me, is no more a heron, than a heap of ashes or a bottle of gases into which his body has been reduced, is Dante or Washington. The naturalist is led from the road by the whole distance of his fancied advance. The boy had juster views when he gazed at the shells on the beach, or the flowers in the meadow, unable to call them by their names, than the man in the pride of his nomenclature. Astrology interested us, for it tied man to the system. Instead of an isolated beggar, the farthest star felt him, and he felt the star. However rash and however falsified by pretenders and traders in it, the hint was true and divine, the soul's avowal of its large relations, and, that climate, century, remote natures, as well as near, are part of its biography. Chemistry takes to pieces, but it does not construct. Alchemy which sought to transmute one element into another, to prolong life, to arm with power, — that was in the right direction. All our science lacks a human side. The tenant is more than the house. Bugs and stamens and spores, on which we lavish so many years, are not finalities, and man, when his powers unfold in order, will take Nature along with him, and emit light into all her recesses. The human heart concerns us more than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than can be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer.</i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-66841821890151959872014-05-26T16:36:45.159-04:002014-05-26T16:36:45.159-04:00Thersites,
When did I discard the utility of fait...Thersites,<br /><br />When did I discard the utility of faith? There are some things you simply cannot know, and if one wishes to have faith in the existence of something he cannot know, then that is certainly his prerogative. I have absolutely no issues with anyone who chooses to have faith in something.<br /><br />The issue for me is two fold when it comes to faith.<br /><br />1. I find it ridiculous when people cling to an idea despite a preponderance of evidence that suggests said idea is false.<br /><br />2. It is monumentally ridiculous when two people who hold faith in something believe that their faith is somehow more true than anyone else's. Take theists and atheists for example. If you actually understand the concept of faith--that is, you understand that to have faith in an idea means you have no actual evidence that the idea is true--then the faith in the existence of God is equally as possible as the faith in the non-existence of God.<br /><br />Why? Because since no one can prove or disprove the existence of God, that means that no human is capable of actually knowing the truth. Therefore, to say that somehow faith in God is more true or more correct than non-faith in God is entirely baseless. If you have faith in something, you have to actually be willing to admit that you can be completely wrong, and that's something that BOTH theists and atheists are generally not prepared to do.<br /><br />As for your example about love, you've screwed your argument in a couple ways.<br /><br />First, the existence of "love" has been physically proven. What we identify as "love" is a chemical response in our brain to particular stimuli. It is our brain releasing dopamine when we come accross a person we are attracted to physically and/or emotionally. It's a brain function, no different than any other emotion. So in your scenario, if one was able to hook their spouse up to an MRI, you could actually prove whether or not the person loves you based on active brain activity when presented with the appropriate stimuli. At least, you would be able to prove that the person loves you in the physical brain chemistry sense.<br /><br />Secondly, on the philosophical level, Descartes--whom you quoted earlier in the discussion--accounts for the different ways in which things exist. Things can exist in reality or they can exist fictitiously, i.e. things can exist only in the mind. Take Santa Claus for example. Santa isn't real in the sense that he does not physically exist, but Santa is real in that the concept of him exists. Santa Claus, like many fictional things, exists fictitiously.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-44845287206606679542014-05-26T14:53:37.401-04:002014-05-26T14:53:37.401-04:00It's almost entirely about logical consistency...<i> It's almost entirely about logical consistency.</i><br /><br />That G_d:Love::Higgs Field:Gravity isn't logically consistent? <br /><br />Who knew?<br /><br />But then as far as logic is concerned:<br /><br />Nietzsche, "Gay Science" <i>Origin of the Logical. Where has logic originated in men's heads? Undoubtedly out of the illogical, the domain of which must originally have been immense. But numberless beings who reasoned otherwise than we do at present, perished; albeit that they may have come nearer to truth than we! Whoever, for example, could not discern the "like" often enough with regard to food, and with regard to animals dangerous to him, whoever, therefore, deduced too slowly, or was too circumspect in his deductions, had smaller probability of survival than he who in all similar cases immediately divined the equality. The preponderating inclination, however, to deal with the similar as the equal - an illogical inclination, for there is no thing equal in itself - first created the whole basis of logic. It was just so (in order that the conception of substance should originate, this being indispensable to logic, although in the strictest sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a long period the changing process in things had to be overlooked, and remain unperceived; the beings not seeing correctly had an advantage over those who saw everything "in flux." In itself every high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every skeptical inclination, is a great danger to life. No living being might have been preserved unless the contrary inclination - to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait, to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than be in the right - had been cultivated with extra ordinary assiduity. The course of logical thought and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to a process and struggle of impulses, which singly and in themselves are all very illogical and unjust; we experience usually only the result of the struggle so rapidly and secretly does this primitive mechanism now operate in us.</i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-8673998984095686342014-05-26T14:48:31.558-04:002014-05-26T14:48:31.558-04:00btw - Are you married, Jack?
If you are, does you...btw - Are you married, Jack?<br /><br />If you are, does your wife love you? Do you KNOW, or do you merely have "faith" that she does? Science is very good at finding bits of evidence to prove the existence of "gravity" (Higgs Bosons, Higgs Fields, etc.), but very bad at proving its' logical correlates in the Humanities, ie -"love". But then again, perhaps there is no such "thing" as love. I mean, you can't "prove" its' physical existence, can you?<br /><br />And to claim that "science" is more important and should always take precedence over the "humanities"... would be an arrogant position, don't you think? To say that the humanities weren't weren't good for anything sincew they aren't "evidence" or "fact" based would also seem a bit 'hubristic", don't you think?Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-64685065013569919912014-05-26T14:24:16.073-04:002014-05-26T14:24:16.073-04:00There is a difference between "knowing" ...<i>There is a difference between "knowing" that something exists and having "faith" that something exists, and all I did was use the common definition of those ideas.</i><br /><br />...and all I did was offer a more "expert" definition, one that exposes some "nuances" inherent in the term "knowledge". And before you again discard out of hand the utility of "faith", perhaps I can introduce you into another "nuance", that of the concept of "Right Opinion".<br /><br />from Plato's "Meno"<br /><br /><i>Soc. But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he have knowledge (phrhonesis), this we were wrong. <br /><br />Men. What do you mean by the word "right"? <br /><br />Soc. I will explain. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere else, and went to the place and led others thither, would he not be a right and good guide? <br /><br />Men. Certainly. <br /><br />Soc. And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not? <br /><br />Men. Certainly. <br /><br />Soc. And while he has true opinion about that which the other knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who knows the truth? <br /><br />Men. Exactly. <br /><br />Soc. Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion. <br /><br />Men. True. <br /><br />Soc. Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge? <br /><br />Men. The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will always be right; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right, and sometimes not. <br /><br />Soc. What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion? <br /><br />Men. I admit the cogency of your argument, and therefore, Socrates, I wonder that knowledge should be preferred to right opinion-or why they should ever differ. <br /><br />Soc. And shall I explain this wonder to you? <br /><br />Men. Do tell me. <br /><br />Soc. You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of Daedalus; but perhaps you have not got them in your country? <br /><br />Men. What have they to do with the question? <br /><br />Soc. Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away. <br /><br />Men. Well. what of that? <br /><br />Soc. I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves; but when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions: while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain. <br /><br />Men. What you are saying, Socrates, seems to be very like the truth. <br /><br />Soc. I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them. <br /><br />Men. Yes, Socrates; and you are quite right in saying so. <br /><br />Soc. And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge? <br /><br />Men. There again, Socrates, I think you are right. <br /><br />Soc. Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or less useful in action; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to him who has knowledge? <br /><br />Men. True. </i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-36510870042028238352014-05-26T13:03:03.199-04:002014-05-26T13:03:03.199-04:00Of course he thinks he's intellectually superi...Of course he thinks he's intellectually superior to anyone who disagrees with his fussy little rants. If you don't see life exactly as he does, which often means being disgusted at everything in contemporary culture, then you definitely are intellectually inferior. He knows what's superior you and you don't.<br /><br /><br /><br />George Cumerbundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-31137385892898550812014-05-26T12:45:17.142-04:002014-05-26T12:45:17.142-04:00Thersites,
At no point did I deviate from the com...Thersites,<br /><br />At no point did I deviate from the common acceptance of the difference between "faith" and "knowledge." There is a difference between "knowing" that something exists and having "faith" that something exists, and all I did was use the common definition of those ideas. Can anyone here tell me what it is I'm missing? Is there some sort of secret meaning to these words that I'm not aware of.<br /><br />Anyway, back to FT.<br /><br />I really wish you wouldn't see me as being antagonistic, because that's not my intent. Since you like analogies and what not, let me give you one to illustrate my point.<br /><br />Let's say you meet a friend for lunch. Your friend is typically very well put-together--his appearance always seems deliberate, clean, and neat. You meet your friend and he is uncharacteristically dissheveled. If you were to ask your friend, "is everything alright? You look terrible," would that be antagonistic? I think not. It would be showing genuine concern and curiosity in something that you don't understand.<br /><br />"The chicken soup analogy may have been poor, because it seems entirely possible from the way both of you go at things that you may not be able to discern any difference in various versions of basic chicken soup, and that you probably don't care about it, so why would you wan't to bother exploring the possible implications of the question?"<br /><br />FT, if you read what I said in my argument, you would see that I understood your example perfectly. Here is what I said in reference to your chicken soup example:<br /><br />"Here, you are implying that people like myself--or Jez, I suppose--lack imagination simply because we like to live in the realm of the tangible. Or that we just look at things very plainly without trying to understand their underlying meanings or connections to other things."<br /><br />And then, you go on to say that I have some air of ominscience about me and my approach, as though I think I have superior intellect. But FT, it's usually you who have that air. You have been implying, this entire time, that people like me lack insight beyond facts and data<br /><br />My quibbles with you rarely ever have to do with what you and I actually know or don't know. It's not about knowledge, or facts, or imagination, or whatever. It's almost entirely about logical consistency. The great thing about logic is that you don't really need to have a vast breadth of knowledge or even life experience.<br /><br />It doesn't take much to understand that 2 + 2 does not = 5, and that's essentially all I've been trying to point out to you.<br /><br />No, I don't think I know it all. I am keenly aware of my intellectual limitations. I don't think in terms of who is wiser than who, or who is more knowledgeable about x than y. But as I said before, I know that I'm not an ignoramus or a dolt. I know that I'm at least intelligent enough to see the irony in you telling me that I'm close minded and then following with this:<br /><br />"If you think you have "refuted" anything I've tried to say, it would only be in your own minds."<br /><br />Right, because THAT doesn't sound like someone who thinks he's intellectually superior . . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-16640659916385566512014-05-26T12:21:56.960-04:002014-05-26T12:21:56.960-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.George Cumerbundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145653764764266444.post-25305797184111077502014-05-26T11:26:29.667-04:002014-05-26T11:26:29.667-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Julius Caesar Saladhttp://recipes.howstuffworks.com/who-invented-caesar-salad.htmnoreply@blogger.com