How do we REALLY Learn What We as Individuals Think We Know?

[RGCheek]

Sorry, but I had to split this up.

We have opposite views on Hume. You believe that he has an indubitably immense negative impact on the salvation of one’s soul yet his philosophical work can be easily dismissed. Instead, I do not think his work can have much effect on one’s individual salvation, but he does provide many profound epistemological insights.

I fail to see how such self-contradictory writing can be of any rational use. When ones self asserts that the self does not exist, that the supernatural cannot exist because their is no natural evidence of it, etc, it is garbage, IMO, and there is no reason to give it weight, but many do this because they are told by others that ‘this is great writing’ and they also in turn believe it because other authorities they trusted regarded it as ‘great writing’.

I have to confess that I suspect Hume’s works are like ‘Moby Dick’; honored by people who mostly have only read the Cliff notes on his work and never gave it a slow chewing.

Perhaps, one reason for this greatly divergent view of the impact of Hume’s philosophy is that I regard religiosity as a predominantly social and emotional phenomenon, while you (presumably) stress the intellectual foundations of theism and the apparent absurdity of the religious skepticism. I see religious apologetics just as ornate regalia that clothes the underlying cultural and psychological influences for one’s faith. (Note, I am not arguing religion is solely a natural phenomenon!)

I have no idea what you mean by ‘religiosity’.

Religious apologetics is sometimes used as a patina of rationalism and justification, but among the hard core adherents it is the soil from which their faith grows and flowers.

I can say that I did have vivid spiritual experiences that convinced me of the reality of heaven and God’s love. This is indeed subjective. Due to the influence of the Spirit and invaluable spiritual gifts, I am unaffected by Hume’s arguments (or arguments from other atheists and agnostics), but my faith is still vulnerable to other things.

I wont ask you to tell what those experiences were because it never works to do so. People believe if they want and wont if they don’t. I never did till it happened to me. I still had faith prior, but that faith was greatly strengthened afterwards, and it did no one else any good at all to speak of it. It only embarrassed the ones who loved and respected me and made me arrogant.

Thank you again for this response. It is a freshness appreciated.

 

[Latias]

I have to confess that I suspect Hume’s works are like ‘Moby Dick’; honored by people who mostly have only read the Cliff notes on his work and never gave it a slow chewing.

I read a good portion of the* Dialogues*, Enquiry,* Treatise*, and all of Natural History of Religion. I still love his style and insights.

Hume himself explicitly acknowledges the limits of skepticism.

For here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive scepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigour. We need only ask such a sceptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer. A Copernican or Ptolemaic, who supports each his different system of astronomy, may hope to produce a conviction, which will remain constant and durable, with his audience. A Stoic or Epicurean displays principles, which may not be durable, but which have an effect on conduct and behaviour. But a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence. It is true; so fatal an event is very little to be dreaded. Nature is always too strong for principle. And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act and reason and believe; though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them.

One reason that I like Hume is, instead of trying to expatiate a profound metaphysical disquisition, he employs skeptical reasoning to elucidate the “whimsical condition of mankind”. He does not bring enlightenment or truth, but aporia and intellectual liberation,

I do not think many of the new atheists even appreciate the implications of skeptical reasoning and radical empiricism. Ostensibly, it undermines the implicitly “rationalist” (in the context of the new atheist movement) tenet of scientific realism (that scientific inquiry can provide ontologically “true” accounts of reality). I have accepted the implications of radical empiricism and associate myself philosophically with scientific antirealism/instrumentalism. Perhaps, a major factor that I do so is that it is so novel and counterintuitive a position, but it is tenable and philosophically challenging to defend it. If I attempt to provide an antirealist perspective about the existence of atoms (or other well-established theoretical entities) while seriously considering all the empirical and theoretical evidence for the existence of atoms, it would probably be a convoluted account that would require one to discount the explanatory and practical success of the most rigorous theories of physical science. The best an instrumentalist can say is that there can be an alternative theory (not yet formulated by scientists) that does not posit theoretical entities that do not have the properties of atoms, but can also reproduce and explain the phenomenon that atomic theory explains. It is hard for a scientifically informed person to take that possibility, seriously, especially since it involves vitiating the validity and robustness of one of the most successful scientific theories that is a pillar of modern physics. Not even the theory of relativity has done that to Newtonian dynamics.

It is currently easy for one to be an “antirealist” regarding the ontology of the Higgs boson, dark matter, grand unification, or the RNA world, but it is much more difficult for one to maintain the credibility of such a position regarding theoretical entities from more established scientific theories and that are more amendable to observation (however defined, since antirealists would often quibble over the definition of “observation”).

 

[ynotzap]

It seems to me that 99.99999% of the people I know, even the most intelligent of them, do not learn things via reason and observed fact. They truly ‘learn’ by simple rote memorization of things they think true based on reference groups they have established in their minds as reliable sources of authority.

They may have a few specific areas of knowledge that they have explored personally, but most people, by far, do not lift the load themselves but merely hop a ride on the backs of those they see passing them toward a place they think they want to go.

Can any of us really say that we make rational and responsible decisions in this way?

I agree with most posters that we learn from others, I believe that’s the way God intended, but I also agree with you to some degree. We do learn by rote, and we take a lot for granted. An example of this: A young college student approached her professor and complained that she usually got A’s on her grades, and that she answered all the questions, almost word for word as the teacher taught. She only received a C grade. The teacher responded and said “What good does it do you to eat a meal that I digested, to parrot me at my words, I want to hear what you think” This is the danger in learning by rote and not questioning authority, we don’t think for ourselves, and I believe we are often mislead. But there is justification for learning by rote, especially at ground level, it’s a sign of maturity when we think for ourselves, and exchange thoughts with those we consider learned.

 

[inocente]

I used the animated lecture for those who are not so keen on reading dense academic jargon. If you have an objection to the data in that lecture you should state what it is clearly instead of linking to some generic text without specifying what it is you are going on about.

I don’t understand why you keep saying it’s generic. Did you miss that I said "Try chapter 1 of volume 3 in the classic text feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/?. Here, so you don’t need to click the link to volume 3 and then the link to chapter 1 yourself, I’ve done it for you - feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html. The chapter is specifically about the two slit experiments and is by the physicist who invented them.

As for you describing the cartoon as an “animated lecture”, I cited professional scientists who say it is pseudoscience. The article I linked contains more quotes, such as from the philosopher David Albert, ‘who appears in the film, [and] has accused the filmmakers of selectively editing his interview to make it appear that he endorses the film’s thesis that quantum mechanics is linked with consciousness. He says he is “profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness”’.

My comments on Hume and Picasso are valid in that I am far from the only person to be dismissive of them and that so many of our educated elites give them cred simply demonstrates how degenerate and useless our elites have become.

I didn’t expect you to argue against education altogether, as if viva la ignorancia!

Instead of engaging in a back and forth, you dismiss the whole list of posts I have made as though I presented nothing factual, which is simply incredible as even the texts you and others linked to admit that the mere observation of matter has an impact on how it behaves at the QM level which has always been my main point about it.

Perhaps it has escaped your attention that there are many interpretations of QM - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

So, were you really trying to honestly engage in a discussion , or were you merely trying to kick up dust to obscure and derail it instead? Sure looks like its the latter case to me, Bro.

You do a good job of making two plus two make five bro. I’ve linked the real info on QM, it’s up to you if you still want to take that cartoon seriously. There’s nothing else left to say.

 

[RGCheek]

I agree with most posters that we learn from others, I believe that’s the way God intended, but I also agree with you to some degree. We do learn by rote, and we take a lot for granted. An example of this: A young college student approached her professor and complained that she usually got A’s on her grades, and that she answered all the questions, almost word for word as the teacher taught. She only received a C grade. The teacher responded and said “What good does it do you to eat a meal that I digested, to parrot me at my words, I want to hear what you think” This is the danger in learning by rote and not questioning authority, we don’t think for ourselves, and I believe we are often mislead. But there is justification for learning by rote, especially at ground level, it’s a sign of maturity when we think for ourselves, and exchange thoughts with those we consider learned.

Agreed. There used to be a common concept of levels of learning, if I recall correctly.

It went something like, the first level of learning is rote memorization of facts, then second is learning how explain the facts, the third was to be able to critique the subject, the fourth was to be able to perform tasks on the subject with ease and maximum efficiency, and the fifth was the ability to improvise and/or expand the field of knowledge.

It seems to me that most today just emphasize the first two levels of understanding and all the rest is off scope for most people.

That is why the kind of intelligence that easily memorizes and sites facts and that is glib enough to sound good in its defense and social tactics to champion something to other people is the shallowest form of intelligence. I far prefer the ability to be successfully creative, predictive and innovative in a subject.

But whatever. We are what we are.

 

[RGCheek]

I don’t understand why you keep saying it’s generic. Did you miss that I said "Try chapter 1 of volume 3 in the classic text feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/?. Here, so you don’t need to click the link to volume 3 and then the link to chapter 1 yourself, I’ve done it for you - feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html. …You do a good job of making two plus two make five bro. I’ve linked the real info on QM, it’s up to you if you still want to take that cartoon seriously. There’s nothing else left to say.

From your own manual; “We must conclude that when we look at the electrons the distribution of them on the screen is different than when we do not look.”

Which is the exact reason I linked the animated lecture, to show the unexpected link to observation.

 

[ynotzap]

I do not see how Hume could have such a profound effect on someone’s faith, and I converted in spite of it. However, more mundane solutions such as better catechesis can act as a prophylactic against an detrimental effect that Hume’s work inflict on one’s faith. Also, many people are still getting tempted and discouraged, and the effects of those temptations and sentiments of discouragement often has a more devastating and disconcerting effect on one’s faith than the abstract nature of Hume’s work.

As for myself, Hume does not even present a ponderous stumbling block at all. But since I am a Latias, perhaps Hume’s work is like an Earthquake and doesn’t affect me (and he doesn’t have something like Mold Breaker). While I may be immune to Hume’s moves, I am still a glass cannon and fragile as I cannot take many hits, even neutral ones. There was a recent thread posted here about a more traditionalist Confirmation where the Bishop would slap the confirmed to remind them that they have to carry the burden of Christ’s cross. I often wonder if I am a pathetic Catholic, unable to carry any significant burden. One of my main difficulties is that I often doubt whether my sincerity and contrition would suffice to please God, and I often oscillate between apathy and shame.

Would you be so kind to explain what you mean when you say “I am Latias”?
As far as oscillating between apathy and shame, you are not alone. I believe if you gave it your best shot in being sincere with God, He is pleased. You are hard on yourself, when I think that way I say to God “what do you expect, I can’t give what I don’t have.” it keeps me humble. Feeling shame is a good thing, where before you might not had any shame, “that still small voice is being heard” that’s a grace.

You show a very active intellectual life style which brings with it a certain amount of aridity. After all we are not angels.- “all (intellectual ) work and no play makes Latias a dull boy” There is another part to our nature that makes for wholeness, it’s called “sentiment” as well as “convictions”, body and soul, I ask God for both.

 

[Latias]

Would you be so kind to explain what you mean when you say “I am Latias”?
As far as oscillating between apathy and shame, you are not alone. I believe if you gave it your best shot in being sincere with God, He is pleased. You are hard on yourself, when I think that way I say to God “what do you expect, I can’t give what I don’t have.” it keeps me humble. Feeling shame is a good thing, where before you might not had any shame, “that still small voice is being heard” that’s a grace.

You show a very active intellectual life style which brings with it a certain amount of aridity. After all we are not angels.- “all (intellectual ) work and no play makes Latias a dull boy” There is another part to our nature that makes for wholeness, it’s called “sentiment” as well as “convictions”, body and soul, I ask God for both.

I am Latias. I have an immunity to Ground-type moves.

I am a girl as my name suggests or location…

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I read a good portion of the* Dialogues*, Enquiry,* Treatise*, and all of Natural History of Religion. I still love his style and insights.

Hume himself explicitly acknowledges the limits of skepticism.

One reason that I like Hume is, instead of trying to expatiate a profound metaphysical disquisition, he employs skeptical reasoning to elucidate the “whimsical condition of mankind”. He does not bring enlightenment or truth, but aporia and intellectual liberation,

I do not think many of the new atheists even appreciate the implications of skeptical reasoning and radical empiricism. Ostensibly, it undermines the implicitly “rationalist” (in the context of the new atheist movement) tenet of scientific realism (that scientific inquiry can provide ontologically “true” accounts of reality). I have accepted the implications of radical empiricism and associate myself philosophically with scientific antirealism/instrumentalism. Perhaps, a major factor that I do so is that it is so novel and counterintuitive a position, but it is tenable and philosophically challenging to defend it. If I attempt to provide an antirealist perspective about the existence of atoms (or other well-established theoretical entities) while seriously considering all the empirical and theoretical evidence for the existence of atoms, it would probably be a convoluted account that would require one to discount the explanatory and practical success of the most rigorous theories of physical science. The best an instrumentalist can say is that there can be an alternative theory (not yet formulated by scientists) that does not posit theoretical entities that do not have the properties of atoms, but can also reproduce and explain the phenomenon that atomic theory explains. It is hard for a scientifically informed person to take that possibility, seriously, especially since it involves vitiating the validity and robustness of one of the most successful scientific theories that is a pillar of modern physics. Not even the theory of relativity has done that to Newtonian dynamics.

It is currently easy for one to be an “antirealist” regarding the ontology of the Higgs boson, dark matter, grand unification, or the RNA world, but it is much more difficult for one to maintain the credibility of such a position regarding theoretical entities from more established scientific theories and that are more amendable to observation (however defined, since antirealists would often quibble over the definition of “observation”).

Have you given any thought to Thomas Aquinas? If not, why not?

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Lucretius]

I am Latias. I have an immunity to Ground-type moves.

I am a girl as my name suggests or location…

Doesn’t Latias travel the entire map until captured or defeated?

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[ynotzap]

I am Latias. I have an immunity to Ground-type moves.

I am a girl as my name suggests or location…

Thank you for your response. Do you mean that you are immune to earthquakes, or ground tremors? This immunity is new to me. I have a constant degree of vertigo from a stroke. What do you mean by not being able to take many hits? If you don’t desire to respond, that’s O.K. thanks anyway. Wish you healing in this area, if possible, remember you in prayer.

 

[Latias]

Have you given any thought to Thomas Aquinas? If not, why not?

Pax
Linus2nd

I didn’t give him much thought. I was always influenced by nominalism.

I think the most “Catholic” author that I read the most is Saint Augustine. Although a few months after I was confirmed, I devoted much of intellectual energies to radical empiricism (and to devising some competitive battling strategies on Pokemon Showdown),

 

[ynotzap]

I read a good portion of the* Dialogues*, Enquiry,* Treatise*, and all of Natural History of Religion. I still love his style and insights.

Hume himself explicitly acknowledges the limits of skepticism.

One reason that I like Hume is, instead of trying to expatiate a profound metaphysical disquisition, he employs skeptical reasoning to elucidate the “whimsical condition of mankind”. He does not bring enlightenment or truth, but aporia and intellectual liberation,

I do not think many of the new atheists even appreciate the implications of skeptical reasoning and radical empiricism. Ostensibly, it undermines the implicitly “rationalist” (in the context of the new atheist movement) tenet of scientific realism (that scientific inquiry can provide ontologically “true” accounts of reality). I have accepted the implications of radical empiricism and associate myself philosophically with scientific antirealism/instrumentalism. Perhaps, a major factor that I do so is that it is so novel and counterintuitive a position, but it is tenable and philosophically challenging to defend it. If I attempt to provide an antirealist perspective about the existence of atoms (or other well-established theoretical entities) while seriously considering all the empirical and theoretical evidence for the existence of atoms, it would probably be a convoluted account that would require one to discount the explanatory and practical success of the most rigorous theories of physical science. The best an instrumentalist can say is that there can be an alternative theory (not yet formulated by scientists) that does not posit theoretical entities that do not have the properties of atoms, but can also reproduce and explain the phenomenon that atomic theory explains. It is hard for a scientifically informed person to take that possibility, seriously, especially since it involves vitiating the validity and robustness of one of the most successful scientific theories that is a pillar of modern physics. Not even the theory of relativity has done that to Newtonian dynamics.

It is currently easy for one to be an “antirealist” regarding the ontology of the Higgs boson, dark matter, grand unification, or the RNA world, but it is much more difficult for one to maintain the credibility of such a position regarding theoretical entities from more established scientific theories and that are more amendable to observation (however defined, since antirealists would often quibble over the definition of “observation”).

William James states that theories shouldn’t incorporate supernatural or transempirical entities because it wouldn’t be fruitful to talk about them even though he doesn’t deny the possibility of their existence. So close and yet so far from the truth. As I stated many times that to an empiricist who just values sense experience, if it isn’t physical it isn’t real. At least radical empiricism doesn’t deny the existence of the spiritual. This is the hang-up of the material earth bound empiricist. But for the radical empiricist, I see some hope.

How would a radical empiricist explain the real phenomenon of mental cognizance , the abstraction of ideas from sense impression, and the abstraction of ideas from ideas, and still maintain contact with the real world. How would they explain the power of reflection, bending back on oneself, of self- awareness, and I know, that I know? Newtonian science deals with part-outside part. Self-awareness can not be duplicated by physical science. I guess that’s why James explored psychology, maybe looking for the answers but not finding them My guess is that they can’t explain these phenomena for the reason that empiricists and radical empiricists do not transcend from the physical to the spiritual St.Thomas Aquinas answers many of these questions.