| Challenge the Philosophy - Inquiry 2-5 |
Dear Stephen Garvey,
Unfortunately I cannot agree that we must act on faith every time we use reason. Faith is something that can be applied to so many things, so for the sake of this argument I'm going to assume that the "faith" in question is of a religious nature. This doesn't seem inappropriate considering how much of philosophy was based in a time where religion dictated virtually all thought. Faith is something that most people turn to when times are troubling and answers are not readily available. It is a comfort cushion for the ignorant. Rather than admit they don't know, people turn to god, point their fingers and say, "His fault!!". This attitude is tantamount to saying that the boogie man is the one who stole the cookies from the cookie jar. It feels better for many people to have an explanation for everything regardless of how stupid it sounds. Reason combined with a reasonable amount of intellect provides a powerful punch. And if reason fails, which it has, something has not been explained that does not mean that it can't or won't be explained. The human species just isn't there yet. As for your opinion that reason is the cause of our gradual self destruction. I agree with you to a certain point, but reason is proportioned out in everybody equally like 10 fingers and toes. I admit that for some the only effect of reason is destruction, but the pros outweigh the cons by a landslide. Our gradual self destruction is caused by a misuse of the power that reason grants us, not reason itself. I also find that you're rather vague about this "destructiveness". In what way do you mean? And how is this a constraint on scientists when it comes to reason? Finally, I disagree with your assumption that the advances made in science will ever help in the realm of philosophy. Science can unlock the doors to the mechanisms of the brain, as well as the rest of the world around us, but will never be able to explain consciousness and thought, that is up to philosophers and the rest of humanity.
Anonymous
A. I look at faith in two ways. First, the meaning of faith, namely putting your trust or belief in something that is consciously unknown to you. Second, I look at faith itself, the word, idea, appearance that vanishes into the unknown if you try to break down further. Then I turn to reason, or any other thought system, and see that it too vanishes into the unknown if you try to break it down. For example, what it reason itself? It is a word, idea, idealogy, theory, appearance on our minds, and then the unknown. Therefore, because the basis for reason itself is unknown, it follows that put our belief and trust in it, we must act from faith, whether unconsciously or consciously. You can say the same for every system of thoughts.
B. >Rather than admit they don't know, people turn to god, point their fingers and say, "His fault!!".
Isn't this what we are doing today. Rather than admit they don't know, people turn to reason, and think they can know almost anything! They forget, ignore, or overlook that they only know within their system of thoughts, even then they really don't know. No offense, but your statement is an example:
>And if reason fails, which it has, something has not been explained that does not mean that it can't or won't be explained. The human species just isn't there yet.
D. >Reason combined with a reasonable amount of intellect provides a powerful punch.
I agree. But it only does so within its system of thought (or controlled environment).
>I admit that for some the only effect of reason is destruction, but the pros outweigh the cons by a landslide.
The only pro, from the large perspective, is that we have an opportunity to overcome our weakness for reason. To illustrate, I believe that the practice of medicine is determental to humankind, because through physicians and the medicines they use, we are shielding ourselves from instinctual nature. In other words, we are relying on others and things to perserve us rather than relying on ourselves. I know that this inherently weak, compared to instinctual nature, which does the opposite.
>Our gradual self-destruction is caused by a misuse of the power that reason grants us, not reason itself.
I agree. It is not reason itself that is destructive, it is our use of it.
>I also find that you're rather vague about this "destructiveness". In what way do you mean? And how is this a constraint on scientists when it comes to reason?
If I am right about the difference between our thoughts themselves, and who we are, by existing through our thoughts, and the inventions we create through them, we are suppressing our existence, and making the means for it empty of who we are. In other words, the longer and more we exist through reason, the more we will destroy who we are: our physical being, our mental being, and ultimately who we are. (In other words, our environment and means to exist will become more inhuman, and ourselves less human.) It's an incidious suppression, which most people don't realize because they themselves are doing it to themselves through their means to exist: reason.
>And how is this a constraint on scientists when it comes to reason?
Scientists are constrained by our dilemma because they are dependent on reason. Scientists can offer no solution to dilemma, other than admit that they are one of the causes of it. They explain our existence through reason, and intellect, and invent material things. If us existing through reason, and things we create through it is the problem, it follows that science is as well.
>Finally, I disagree with your assumption that the advances made in science will ever help in the realm of philosophy. Science can unlock the doors to the mechanisms of the brain, as well as the rest of the world around us, but will never be able to explain consciousness and thought, that is up to philosophers and the rest of humanity.
I don't understand your point. Surely, if scientists unlock the mechanisms of the brain, they might be able to use their findings to support theories about consciousness and thought?
Or are you saying that the basis for consciousness and thought is metaphysical?
From another perspective, we can never know consciousness, or thought, because we can't use something to know itself. Is that what you mean?
Best wishes,
Stephen Garvey
Questions and replies by Travis Cottreau
A. DEFINITIONS
I will need definitions to discuss the challenge proposition:
- Existence (as with "existing through our minds" and "we exist")
- Basis (as with "all life-forms have a fundamental basis behind their
existence")
Are you implying that "life-forms" exist more than inanimate objects exist?
Response:
We are implying that life-forms and inanimate objects exist, and that thoughts themselves do not.
Reply 1. by TC:
Hmmm... then what is a thought? Thoughts must "exist" (whatever that means, you haven't defined it anywhere, your definition of "be" includes the word existing in it, that's a circular argument) because they happen. They exist in the same sense that movement exists. You can't point to an object and say, "that's movement", but no one denies that movement exists or at least happens.
Since people do thinking all the time, then thoughts must exist, even if it's the neurons firing in the brain. Are you saying that people don't think?
Response:
In our view, thoughts themselves are empty forms with existence. We appear to give existence (ie. meaning) to thoughts themselves, even though they themselves do not have it. In other words, thoughts themselves, including numbers in our minds, appear to be illusory, and thereby have existence, only because we imagine they themselves have meaning, including meaning itself.
We appear to imagine thoughts themselves existence.
Reply 2. by TC:
You'll have to explain how you "think" that thoughts don't exist. How is it that they are less real than anything else? Even if you explain thoughts in terms of neurons firing, that's a real, concrete process no less real than motions.
I know that you will agree with me when I say that neurons firing in various patterns in the brain are "real" events and do exist. You must not equate them to thoughts. Is that right?
Response:
We have developed epistemological, phenomenological, and ontological arguments which show that our thoughts themselves are empty of who we are. By making this claim, we are not implying that thoughts themselves are not existent. Rather they are empty forms, which have existence only because we imagine they have it.
In terms of "neurons firing in various patterns in the brain", this is an undeveloped area; though the idea of "neurons firing" is still consistent with our view of thoughts themselves.
B. Are you saying "thoughts" don't exist in the same way that "numbers"
don't exist?
Response:
Yes, assuming "existing" is the same as "be", "be, in terms of competition's definitions, appears circular. Though all knowledge when broken down faces the same epistemic problem. We can't help you.
Reply by TC:
Ahh... this is an important point. It's difficult to talk about existence in the way that you do without first defining what you mean. I realize that all knowledge when broken down in this way faces the same epistemic problem, but you, at no point said that the understanding of existence is a axiom. Now I know.
Response:
We are unclear what to make of your response. Our only claim about existence is that from our limited perspective, there appears to be a fundamental level of being behind life-forms.
C. Are you implying that inanimate objects don't have a "fundamental
basis" behind their existence?
Response:
No. We are implying that thought themselves (ie. non-objects) do not have a fundamental basis.
Reply by TC:
Also, no one has defined a "fundamental basis" yet.
If I don't know what you mean, I can't defend or refute your proposition.
Response:
Again, we face epistemic limitation, as we acknowledged through the notion, inexpressible.
D. I find that defining existence is one of the toughest first steps
that I haven't seen in your ideas. I also see you discussing degrees of
existence, as in existence being more or less empty. Isn't existence
a binary concept, i.e. fully true or fully false? Isn't an individual
dirt molecule as fully in existence as a human being? That's the
reason that I asked my first question above.
Response:
Yes, a dirt molecule appears to be.
E. REWORDING YOUR PROPOSITION
In an attempt to understand your statements, I will try and re-word the statement and see if you agree with the re-wording.
"we can't know who we are and be who we are at the same time"
is the same as:
Knowing and being are two states of human beings. They are mutually exclusive states when applied to ourselves (i.e. who we are). Since we are currently be-ing (i.e. we exist), then we cannot know ourselves.
Is that correct?
Response:
We cannot really know who we are. In other words, what we know of ourselves appears to be fabrication with limited connection to who we are.
Reply 1. by TC:
Ok... You didn't say if my re-statement of your proposition was correct.
Response:
Yes, your re-statement is correct.
Reply 2. by TC: "Fabrication"? Whose fabrication and why is a fabrication a problem? "Limited connection"? Since you don't know who we are and have stated that clearly, how can you know if "who we are" has a limited connection to anything?
Response:
We can reason who we are, within obvious limitation, through our knowledge, without directly knowing anything about who we are. In other words, we reason who we are in an indirect, relational sense through our knowledge.
Reply 3. by TC:
I think I'm getting what you say. We can and do have knowledge, yet this knowledge isn't related to who we are (isn't direct knowledge). We can reason out an approximation to who we are using the knowledge that we have, but it's not right. In fact, you're saying that it's "empty" of who we are.
F. ONE LAST QUESTION
Since you say:
"Since "who we are" is beyond our minds, and it appears that we can never express it, we label the conception of "who we are" inexpressible, which means that we cannot even imagine "who we are"."
This means that "knowing who we are" isn't possible. I don't know how you can even make your initial proposition, which is why I re-worded your proposition because I didn't think that I understood it.
So, if the above statement about "who we are" is accurate, you can reduce your proposition to, "We can't know who we are" and be done with it, why do you even tie it to "be who we are" in the 2nd half of your proposition?
Response:
It clarifies the scope of not knowing who we are. Using only "we can't know who we are" is ambiguous because the proposition could apply to certain contexts like when we are asleep.
Reply by TC:
What does being asleep have to do with anything? I don't think that anyone will ever be bringing that up in a refutation of the proposition, it seems rather absurd.
Response:
Sorry for any confusion. We chose to use "we can't know who we are and be who we are..." over "we can't know who we are", to avoid confusion by defining the context. (ie. we can't know who we are while being who we are).
Inquiry 3 March 31-April 5 2000
Earlier entry, Entry 122.
Please explain more clearly your proposition "we cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time"
1) I know who I am
2) Thus I am being me
3) I can know who I am by being who I am
4) I can know who I am and not be who I am
What am I missing??
Sean Walker October 17 2000
Assuming that your statement 4. means that what you know yourself as may not be what you really are, we are in agreement.
Though we would add that from our perspective, we cannot know who we are because we need intrinsic separation from what we know in order to know. In other words, by knowledge being intrinsically separate from who we are, what we know cannot be who we are.
In response to entry 288 you say that the proposition is not an infinite loop because it is not an "absolute truth-value". But, does that solve the problem? Is it then the case that your (or perhaps "our") conception of reason and reasonableness, being, presumabely, an absolute truth value, is absolute and trascnendent? Do we not, then, merely loop infinitely in the larger circle of reason?
Please correct me if it is just I that is getting all confused.
bq November 11 2001
Thank you for your comment. No, we do not think you are getting the arguments confused. However, whether we believe the conception of reason is absolute and transcendent or not, will not matter because we still face an infinite loop or infinite regress from our perspective. Dale Clifford in Entry 292 touches on this point when he says, "Questions such as Goedel's (yours basically reworded) and Feryer-Abends incommensurate only provide boundaries to teleocentric arguments."
We think the important point, according to Goedel for example, is that no matter what teleocentric position we take, we will face an infinite loop.