Reply to the response to Entry 519

“We acknowledge that every aspect of your position on ‘direct realization experience of [Reality] or ‘that which is’’ is possible. However, in context of Competition 1, what is required is not merely more reasonably demonstrating possibility, but more reasonably demonstrating more reasonable possibility. So we ask: Is your position on ‘direct realization experience of [Reality] or ‘that which is’ more reasonably possible? (Excerpt from the response to Entry 519)

In your entry, you acknowledge that conscious thought, from our perspective, ‘excludes the very Reality that is constantly there to be experienced’. In other words, you acknowledge that we (apparently) cannot know Reality or ‘that which is’ through conscious thought. From this position, which we agree with, you somehow make the step from so-called experience of ‘that which is’ to direct realization of experience of ‘that which is’. Without this step, there would be no apparent way we could know that we experience that which is. Viz., realization--whether direct or indirect--that we are consciously aware (of experience of ‘that which is’) is contingent on conscious thought which takes us back to the limitation of conscious thought. If you remove the realization step, then as mentioned, we would be left with experience, which we are not consciously aware of, and therefore, the experience would not exist from our perspective. So we think your position is limited by necessary inclusion of conscious thought, and therefore, your position is a less reasonable possibility of direct realization experience of ‘that which is’.

Your challenge may be to more reasonably demonstrate how we can more reasonably realize through so-called experience ‘that which is’ without including conscious thought in the process, or by backtracking on your position that conscious thought ‘excludes the very Reality that is constantly there to be experienced’, more reasonably demonstrate how conscious thought includes that very Reality that is constantly there to be experienced. (Excerpt from the response to Entry 519)

Everything is – everything is interconnected – everything is interrelated – everything is complementary.

The only truth, the only reality lies in our ‘immediate experience’. We cannot encapsulate a cosmological, or philosophical concept of our being through cerebral activity. There is a quality of ‘experiential knowing’ (innate knowledge) that is not subject to any so called ‘conscious thought’ or dependent on any accumulation of memory processes.

With your ‘more reasonable’ requests there seems to be the presumption that I, or anyone else, ‘possess’ knowledge of Reality (as I would possess a pair of shoes). Were it in my power to share that kind of knowledge I would willingly do so, as I would willingly share my shoes with you if need be.

You constantly invoke, and seek cerebral answers to the question of Reality, or ‘who we are’. ‘What is‘, or Reality does not come within the confines of what is possible, nor are they contingent for their existence on our recognition of their essence. They do not exist as a cerebral possibility – they are!

It has already been stated that everything is, everything is interconnected, everything is interrelated, and complementary, the very conditions necessary to experience that which is complete, and whole in every sense. To know the truth of that, cerebral illusions of what makes up Reality need to be dispelled. That truth is not the property of anyone to share, or market, (like a pair of shoes), it can only be experienced. In that experience, in that critical penetration we become ‘who we are’, and know that it is not a question of the possibility of the experience, but that the reality just exists, and that there are no steps to that reality. Reality is not a ‘possibility’. Reality is a constant – the fundamental basis for all life.

In establishing ‘immediate experience’ as the only Reality available, we can begin the process of establishing its true identity at the macrocosmic level.

What is ‘immediate experience’?

It can be a process which reduces all manifestation to mechanical subsidiaries, or it can be a process in which everything that is manifest reveals its living content.

It is conditional that appreciation of our limitations provides us with the opportunity to experience our true relationship with Nature, and Reality.”

Bridie March 17 2005

Response:

Your position that “everything is” is self-defeating because it means that contradictory positions like “nothing is and everything is”, and “everything is disconnected and unrelated, and everything is interconnected and interrelated” are all what “is”.

It is unclear to us how we can know through so-called “real” or “immediate” experience without the use of conscious thought. You refer to innate knowledge, but even still experience requires the use of conscious thought in order for us to know. Viz., experience itself does not allow us to know; it is only by interpreting experience that we know of experience. Note, to argue that we interpret experience through the use of innate knowledge in a so-called Archimedes’ moment, still involves conscious thought. (I.e. conscious interpretation of both the experience and innate knowledge.)

Moreover, it is unclear to us the origin of innate knowledge, and how there could (more reasonably) be complete innate knowledge, when knowledge is based on (past) knowledge. If you argue that complete innate knowledge is latent in the external world and/or our minds, then you need to more reasonably demonstrate that it is, and more reasonably explain how it enters our minds without being changed by our minds.

539. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 537

“First you say: ‘Reasonableness, in the context of Competition 1, refers to possibility. So more reasonableness refers to more possibility, which is established through a comparison of positions based on soundness and consistency.’ And: ‘...reasonableness is our conscious awareness of a thought.’ (You might visit an insane asylum before you applaud that one.) And: ‘…reasonableness …refers to what is reasoned, regardless of the apparent absurdity of what is reasoned…’ And: ‘…unreasonableness refers to what is not reasoned, and therefore to what does not exist from our perspective.’ (How does one know that? Given that something is beyond one’s perspective, how do you know it does or does not exist? ‘X does not exist’ is an absurd claim because it assumes ‘it’ exist but at the same time ‘it’ cannot exist because we are locked into a perspective that precludes that we cannot know if ‘it’ exist or not.)

Facts are not reasoned or imagined or predicted into existence, they are experienced and confirmed (truth) or not (falsity). My conclusion stands: facts do not exist in your world limited to your perspective and limited reasonableness.
And you inconsistently state with certainty: ‘… your notion of ‘truth and falsity through verification’ is grounded on the apparent incompletion of verification, thereby erroneously equates true and false with verification or the lack of.’
Since ‘incompletion of verification’ now amounts to another unstated standard of ‘reasonableness’ you assume that verification must be ‘incomplete’ because we have a ‘perspective,’ therefore, truth must be incomplete because you assume falsity and truth are outside of our perspective. From this flawed assumption, your inferences and criticisms are limited to this bias, yet you inconsistently claim the ability to overcome your self-imposed limitations and know when you reach complete comprehension without knowing what that state is because it is possible or reasonable, but somehow recognizing it when it happens, and that this state will be outside truth and falsity because of our limited perspective allow us reasonableness. And by your assumption, comprehension excludes verification because truth and falsity lies within a perspective which must be incomplete by definition.
You freely fuse ‘factual’ and ‘apparent’ to form the fallacy of assuming what is to be proven: ‘…apparent incompletion of verification (factually) self-defeats your challenge of Proposition 1.’ Hopefully, you will never serve on a jury when you confound fact and appearance.
You say: ‘…since (your) verification is apparently incomplete and a basis for establishing true and false, it follows that any claim of true knowledge (by you) …is either incorrect or the notion of true refers to verified incompleteness.’
Do you breathe? Is that true?
Or, you can’t say because you are ‘limited to your perspective.’
Or it is a case of ‘verified incompleteness?’ (Whatever that is.)”

Jack Ferguson March 17 2005

Response:

As mentioned in the response to Entry 537, your notion of “truth and falsity through verification” does not overcome Proposition 1, unless you can more reasonably demonstrate that the process of verification results in complete knowledge.

Other issues:

Your contention that facts have no place in our epistemology of reasonableness is incorrect. Facts may be equated to what is more reasonable, with the qualification that they are not complete.

We do not “consistently state with certainty” or “complete comprehension”, as you contend, that verification is incomplete. Rather, we claim that verification as with any other conscious phenomenon is more reasonably incomplete. (As mentioned above, the onus is on you in the context of Competition 1 to more reasonably demonstrate the completeness of verification.)

Your semantic criticism of our usage of “apparently” is unsound, because you erroneously equate “apparently” with “appearance”, when our (normative) usage of the former term refers to what is evidently understood based on current knowledge.

Verified incompleteness refers to the more reasonable incompleteness of verification, whereby incompleteness defines whatever is verified (and whatever is not verified).

Unreasonable (theoretically) refers to what is devoid of reason (or conscious meaning), and therefore does not exist from our perspective. Can we give an example? No, because in doing so, our example will contain reason (or conscious meaning). Also, your criticism that we are assuming that something unreasonable exists is incorrect. There is no assumption of something unreasonable existing (from our perspective). Rather, there is (theoretical) reference to unreasonable in relation to reasonable.

In response to your questions, “Do you breathe? Is that true?”, we respond, yes we breathe, but it is not (more reasonably) true in a complete sense. (For further consideration of our position, we provide the following Wittgenstein quotes (from On Certainty ):
“At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.”
“At some point one has to pass from explanation to mere description.”
“The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.”
“We use judgments as principles of judgment.”)

540. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 539

“My argument was that your proposition is incoherent. Following the Razor, my argument is reasonable and sound. The burden was not on me, but on you to demonstrate it is coherent. An incoherent proposition cannot be demonstrated. Your Wittgenstein quote is about beliefs, not reasonableness, so there is no connection unless the proposition now includes beliefs. Beliefs are about objects unknown, unverified, neither true nor false, thus beliefs are groundless because they lack empirical verification. Your proposition is a belief, then it is a useless belief for it serves no function or purpose, (else why the quote?) Or, your proposition is a word-game that ends in silence, groundless belief or disbelief, or description. With your quote, I'll assume this game will run its course and come down to silence because it lacks coherence, verification and truth.”

Jack Ferguson March 19 2005

Response:

Your incoherence argument which stems from your notion of “truth and falsity through verification” falls short of overcoming Proposition 1, because you have not more reasonably demonstrated that truth and falsity are necessary aspects of reason.

(Note, Proposition 1, a statement about something that (more reasonably) does not and cannot exist, is demonstrated for instance through eleven supporting arguments. Also, due to the analytical nature of Proposition 1, so-called direct empirical demonstration of Proposition 1 is not helpful.)

Other issue:

By accepting (within limits) the incompleteness of human knowledge including empirical verification, it follows that all human knowledge is a form of belief (i.e. a form of confidence or faith in a proposition or doctrine etc.). So when Wittgenstein says that “at the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded”, belief can be substituted for knowledge: “at the foundation of well-founded knowledge lies knowledge that is not founded.” Or similarly, “the difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our [knowledge]”, and “at some point one has to pass from explanation [whether empirical or analytical] to mere description”. If you disagree with this position on incompleteness, then we ask you to more reasonably demonstrate complete knowledge, or if you cannot demonstrate complete knowledge and you still disagree, we ask you to more reasonably explain how incomplete knowledge is not fundamentally premised on belief.

541. Entry:

“It can't be overcome.... it is a peculiarly 'familiar' proposition that speaks to me more clearly than any static words I've ever observed. Something about it is so fundamentally right that arguing against it would only bring to light an obvious defense mechanism put in place to prevent us from committing suicide, or stopping the seemingly endless cycle or reproduction and ‘industrial progress.’ Furthermore, whenever I notice a contradiction involving myself or supposed ‘human nature’ it automatically changes my behavior/thinking. It is simultaneous. The new information that comes to me through experience CHANGES me. It is a shifting frame of reference that I cannot escape. I can't passively take in information without changing. The information changes me, which is why the current and misleading term ‘objectivity’ in science baffles me. The observer and the observed are the same and what I think BECOMES ME whether it is ‘true’ or not. I am what I think and what I think is constructed by the information presented to me.... and the information presented to me is LIMITED because of my LIMITED position as a human being in a particular location in time. Therefore, ‘knowing’ who I ‘truly’ am would be impossible since I am obviously limited through my isolated location. And since the observer and the observed are one and the same, then I can't possibly have the exact same experience with ‘reality’ as someone else in a different location in space and time. The very fact that as human beings we occupy different locations in space and time and have different philosophies of what is ‘true’ seems to reveal that truth depends on the particular location that you occupy and the experience you've had. Truth is not something that you ‘find’ it is something that you create and abide by. And as your ‘truth’ changes... so do you.”

Sabrina March 31 2005

Response:

We acknowledge your point on change in information which in turn changes who we are. (Laon Shelley from Entry 294 and who refers to “recursive reflexivity” takes a similar position.)

Your emphasis on “LIMITED position” of individuals (in terms of physically occupying space) and the difference in position of individuals (i.e. no two positions or points in space are the same) are new arguments supporting Proposition 1.

It is unclear to us why “knowing” who we “truly” are is “impossible”, when according to your position truth is a matter of invention and perception. Viz., to claim impossibility (without limitation) overlooks the limit of impossibility itself.

We agree with you that a defense mechanism may cause an individual to argue against Proposition 1. Though the source of argument against the proposition may be the limit of the proposition itself and thereby grounds for doubt, or ignorance of what one knows, or reluctance/resistance to change in one’s beliefs. Further, in our view, the major paradoxical shortcoming of Proposition 1, or any other proposition, is that due to its limit (or incompleteness) regardless of how sound and consistent it may be, an individual has rational means to ignore the proposition or disagree with it, which suggests that all knowledge may ultimately come down to power (in terms of preservation/survival).

542. Entry:

“‘We cannot [more reasonably] truly know who we are, in part or in whole, and be who we are at the same time’ Firstly, ‘we’, as a concrete fact with a definite identity, is a concept derived from a reality which is beyond our conceptual ability. Both who ‘we’ are at one moment and, it follows, who ‘we’ are in the broadest, eternal sense are unknowable and indefinable by ourselves certainly and probably in any sense that could be conceived. That is all to say the ultimate essential reality of everything that ‘we’ are is unknowable. It does not mean that we cannot know more or less about ourselves, or that there is no basis for understanding of ourselves; it only means that the ultimate identity of ourselves is beyond our grasp. I see this conclusion as being fairly benign and having little effect on ideas of morality or ethics, which are usually concerned with how to go about living with the knowledge we do have now about who ‘we’ are now. Secondly, the idea of being ‘who we are at the same time’ is, I think, problematic. ‘We’ are, now, who we are now. Soon we will be someone else. The change that takes place between moments in the transformation that is our existence as living dynamic entities is often, I would argue, about knowledge. Knowledge may come in the form of revelations of the nature of yourself or information provided by your senses, or perhaps debatably in a sense of time passing. But the idea of knowing is tied one way or another with our identities and with the passage of time. If there is change over time, it affects our nature and this change comes about first of all through knowledge of change. ‘We’ will never be who ‘we’ are now, whether it is due to a more true knowledge of ourselves or the simple experience of moments in passing. These are the reasonable assumptions upon which an idea of ‘we’ should be built, and I think they are outside of abstract philosophical speculation. If ‘we’ are anything, we are something that is fundamentally elusive, and dynamic and contingent upon all other things, including our knowledge and grasping at knowledge. This does not mean we should abandon the pursuit of identifying values and approximations of truth, just that we must identify these pursuits realistically. I think merely referring to worldly knowledge and ethical truth as ‘pursuits’ accurately portrays them as being beyond absolute authority and contingent upon a dynamic universe. To conclude, I would overcome the proposition ‘we cannot truly know who we are, in part or in whole, and be who we are at the same time’ by proposing that we will only ever have incomplete knowledge of anything and we will never be who we are now again.”

Thomas Davies April 6 2005

Response:

We agree that Challenge Proposition 1 has a minimal effect on morality and ethics, as long as moral and ethical ideas are determined within limits.

Though we agree within limits that “we will never be who we are now again”, we do not see how this position is problematic to our claim that we cannot truly know and be who we are at the same time. In fact, we contend that your position of not being who we are now again supports our position of not knowing and being who we are at the same time. (Viz., if being is constantly changing, it follows what we know of being will be a step behind being itself. One way around this position is to (more reasonably) demonstrate that knowing and being are simultaneous, so that change in being corresponds to change in knowledge, which takes us back to the problem of how we can truly know who we are and be who we are.)

It is unclear to us how your propositions, “we will only ever have incomplete knowledge of anything” and “we will never be who we are now again” overcome Challenge Proposition 1, because (1) Proposition 1 is proposed within limits, and therefore it makes no claim of complete knowledge, (2) never being who we are now again is consistent with not knowing and being who we are at the same time, and (3) your propositions in order to be self-consistent must themselves be incomplete.

In short, your propositions, which propose incomplete knowledge and a dynamic who we are, are consistent with Challenge Proposition 1, and therefore they do not overcome it.

Entries 533-537 Entries 543-546