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I wonder how many rationalists on HN this post will piss off before it falls off the main page. "Reality", "science", "fact", and "logic": these are all arbitr
by IANAD 10y ago
I wonder how many rationalists on HN this post will piss off before it falls off the main page.
"Reality", "science", "fact", and "logic": these are all arbitrary concepts and disciplines that are stuck in a limited worldview. There is no true objectivity we can experience as humans.
Just because we don't experience something or it doesn't fit with what we consider rational thought, it doesn't mean that that thing cannot exist.
However, we learn this truth from science itself- in seeing how other living things experience life and react and how it is so different than how we experience it- how we aren't made to be objective.
The means of showing us truth we've relied on is flawed. At this point, the rationalist understands why Plato divides into thing and form- because form is the only ideal that is an anchor when you realize that our experience is unreliable:
https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/Intro%20to%20Philosophy/russo_plato1.pdf https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/I...
But, then when you accept form as the ideal and reject things, you have rejected everything we have to understand form. So, you fail to have anything dependably rational left.
- ajmurmann 10y agoThis strongly reminds me of things touched on in Ian Hacking's Representing and Intervening. Early on he mentions that done medieval philosophers thought that crabs emerge out of tree trunks and later transform into ducks. Obviously that's total nonsense from our perspective but it might be a good enough heuristic like the world being flat is a really good assumption for everyday use.
- donatj 10y agoSo the options are the world is rational and understandable, or there is no truth, everything is a lie and we're living in a Lovecraftian horror where we are physically incapable of understanding reality. Presented with the two options I'm inclined to believe the prior. - If the latter is true and I believe the prior no vice. - If the prior is true and you believe the latter however no virtue. There's no sense in making an attempt to understand the world. You're missing out on everything. Just giving up on understanding. I'll take the prior.
- gonvaled 10y agoYou shouldn't choose what you believe, you should accept what is. Otherwise you should be believing in Gods (however mutually exclusive they may be) since: 1) If you believe in God and it doesn't exist, no harm. 2) If you do not believe in God and it does exist, you go straight to Hell.
- ar0b 10y agoYou forgot 3)Believe in the wrong God and go to Hell anyway
- patrickmay 10y ago4) Suffer the consequences of trying to fool an omniscient being by pretending to believe.
- UlyssesSKrunk 10y ago5) God does exist but the reason there is literally no evidence is that he wants to test us and will punish those who believe in something with no evidence and with send to heaven all those who don't believe in him. Seriously. Pascal's wager is the dumbest wager I've ever heard.
- tadufre 10y agoSince there is no possible way to know 'what is', we all must choose what to believe. To believe otherwise is to delude ourselves.
- Vokrel 10y agoThe set of all possible "Gods" includes deities who punish worship, who lie to their worshippers, who are completely two-faced in their dealings with mortals, who have completely random intentional urgings, who put everyone through the torture of infinite fractal realities, and/or anything else that throws the wrench in trying to rationally deduce the "goodness" of "God". This is also compared with the possibility that humans are faggots who will talk about absolute bullshit to make themselves feel better. No offense to gay people but I'm talking about the mass of humanity that seeks to "feel" more using ass-backwards strategies because they trust their idiotic culture too much. I'd prefer to remain silent until overwhelming proof forces me to consider "a being of superior influence on this reality who resides outside of visible reality". It could definitely exist (along with the things from the set of known unknowns and unknown unknowns). But I'm betting more on humans being faggots.
- _greim_ 10y agoI feel like this works from a misinformed or co-opted definition of "rationalism." A rationalist is someone who tries to think clearly in order to win. Science, logic, the teachings of Plato; all of that stuff can inform a rationalist as they try to achieve their desired outcomes in the world.
- wahern 10y agoThere is no true objectivity At least you stated your premise up front. Everything after that is unnecessary. You may as well paste that as the entirety of every comment you ever make. Saying anything more is simply an exercise in creative writing. Indeed, one wonders why you would bother to say anything, period, if you cannot admit to the conceit of objectivity.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoMore: IANAD said "there is no true objectivity" as if that statement were objectively true.