Die Hard Christians:

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i just said that the other couple reports an identical life. if your wife once surprised you with a breakfast in bed for no reason, so did the wife of your neighbour on the exact same time. anything your wife did, for some reason the other wife did as well.

yet you consider the possibility the other wife is simply putting up an elaborate ploy to get you ...[text shortened]... the speed of light in void. not "if she makes me cookies, she loves me".

Edit: “Do you think you can judge a person and predict his/her behaviour simply by observation? Yes, your observation of your wife is more accurate than the observation of let's say, your boss's wife.”

The sole way for me to judge whatever, is my observation alone; whether or not a specific judgement of mine is false or accurate, is another story. I cannot predict with full confidence how exactly a person will react in a given situation, however I can evaluate that a person I am constantly observing acted this way or that way in the past because of a specific motivation
😵

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i just said that the other couple reports an identical life. if your wife once surprised you with a breakfast in bed for no reason, so did the wife of your neighbour on the exact same time. anything your wife did, for some reason the other wife did as well.

yet you consider the possibility the other wife is simply putting up an elaborate ploy to get you ...[text shortened]... the speed of light in void. not "if she makes me cookies, she loves me".

Edit: “Hard facts are e=mc2. the speed of light in void. not "if she makes me cookies, she loves me".”

Methinks hard facts are merely an accurate mapping of the reality as we perceive it, and they are based solely on events the way we strictly perceive them. Therefore hard facts are merely products of ours (ideas) regarding a given event in the context of a given theory of reality. We are communicating these hard facts (our ideas in the context of a given theory of reality) to each other by means of our communicative skills. Math is merely a communicative skill amongst many at our disposal. A mathematician is well able to give us the mathematical sequence that describes the motion of that black beetle I see right now roaming on his tree. However, this sequence is not the event per se, it is merely our description of the event we observed. And we have at our disposal other languages than Math which are at least as accurate as Math in order to describe accurately the motion of the scarab.

In my case, my hard fact “Maria loves me” is based on given events alone. I assure you that these -unknown to anybody else but to her and to me- events are irrelevant to my Maria’s pastry-making skills (although her cookies helped)
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Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: "And then i ask again. why is your wife any different?"

For starters, everybody is different -there are no identical persons, each individual is unique and therefore there is no way for two couples to have such a thing as “identical life”. But my wife is not merely “different” -she is also the person whose behaviour is perfectly known to me wit ...[text shortened]... ason why I said there is no way for me to know if the wife of my neighbour is pretending;
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i meant why do you behave differently around your wife.

why can you make a statement about your wife and be sure about it but cannot do that with someone else's wife? or even disregarding the other wife, you are saying that your wife loves you, should i, a third party believe you? don't you see you are being subjective. you claim to know for certain a reality based on proof only you have. and if i were to know that reality and be sure of it, i would have to have faith in you and your hard facts 😀 doesn't this sound almost identical to religion?


you are the prophet of the religion of maria. if i were to become a disciple, i would have to have faith in you. because your hard facts are not accesible directly to me.

(i may have not conveyed my message as clearly as i could, if you need, i could reformulate some portions)

Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: “Hard facts are e=mc2. the speed of light in void. not "if she makes me cookies, she loves me".”

Methinks hard facts are merely an accurate mapping of the reality as we perceive it, and they are based solely on events the way we strictly perceive them. Therefore hard facts are merely products of ours (ideas) regarding a given event in the conte ...[text shortened]... me- events are irrelevant to my Maria’s pastry-making skills (although her cookies helped)
😵

yes, you do have to observe at some point. however, the hard fact of gravity is accesible to anyone. anyone experiences it in the same way more or less. if i jump of a table i fall on a floor. or 10 stories down if you put the table on the margin of the roof of a 10 story building. however the love of maria is for you alone. you are the only one observing it. and you observe it the most. all i can do is trust your readings. and maybe do a partial reading based on how she behaves in society which is inconclusive.

so if you are the only one that can read maria, and you said you can't read your neighbour's wife which concludes i can't read maria, why isn't your reality subjective. and why should i believe you when you say you have hard facts and not believe jesus who said he had hard facts he was the son of god.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i meant why do you behave differently around your wife.

why can you make a statement about your wife and be sure about it but cannot do that with someone else's wife? or even disregarding the other wife, you are saying that your wife loves you, should i, a third party believe you? don't you see you are being subjective. you claim to know for certain a re ...[text shortened]... ot conveyed my message as clearly as i could, if you need, i could reformulate some portions)

Edit: "why can you make a statement about your wife and be sure about it but cannot do that with someone else's wife?"

Because I am not living with her and I don't know her, because we share no thing and therefore I cannot decode her motivations with the same confidence I have regarding my wife's motivations. Also, I will be never aware of all the events that are taking place in the environment of an other couple;



Edit: "or even disregarding the other wife, you are saying that your wife loves you, should i, a third party believe you? don't you see you are being subjective."

I never said you have to believe me. I just said I am 100% sure that my evaluation is correct. And of course I am subjective -objectivity is a delusion. However this theory of reality of mine is not a religion because I would never force you to accept and beleive blindly whatever I said. I told you earlier that I am sure solely for my wife, therefore how could I ever convince you and thus ask you to accept blindly my theory of reality in full? There is simply no way to know for yourself if I am frank. And I will rephrase it: you have at first to conduct your own evaluation in order to beleive me in full, but, since such a thing is not possible at least for the time being, there is no way for you to be 100% sure. This means that, for the time being, you could beleive me in full solely on the basis of blind faith;



Edit: you are the prophet of the religion of maria. if i were to become a disciple, i would have to have faith in you. because your hard facts are not accesible directly to me.

But you are not forced to believe blindly what I said! You can have merely indications, but even then you will never know on your own if I am really in love with my Maria or I am pretending -however Maria knows for sure that I 'm not pretending because the events we are sharing and thus our common hard facts are directly accesible and fully evaluated by her;
😵

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
yes, you do have to observe at some point. however, the hard fact of gravity is accesible to anyone. anyone experiences it in the same way more or less. if i jump of a table i fall on a floor. or 10 stories down if you put the table on the margin of the roof of a 10 story building. however the love of maria is for you alone. you are the only one observing i ...[text shortened]... you have hard facts and not believe jesus who said he had hard facts he was the son of god.

The hard facts related to gravity are accessible to everyone because the events caused by this force are also accessible to everyone -and, since gravity is factual, anyone experiences these events in the same way. Gravity has huge impact in our whole universe. But my love has huge impact solely in the micro-universe I established with my wife; the sole observers in our micro-universe are just the two of us.

Of course this reality of mine is 100% subjective -but you don’t have to believe me! Conduct your own evaluation of the mind regarding everything you observe and, when you will see on your own that there is no such a thing as “a leap of faith” implied in your arising holistic theory of reality, then feel free to trust it 100%. Then, it would be very good for you to expose your theory to as many persons as possible, for some of them may notice contradictions and thus give you the chance to re-evaluate and adjust your philosophy to perfection
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Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: "why can you make a statement about your wife and be sure about it but cannot do that with someone else's wife?"

Because I am not living with her and I don't know her, because we share no thing and therefore I cannot decode her motivations with the same confidence I have regarding my wife's motivations. Also, I will be never aware of all the ev ...[text shortened]... g and thus our common hard facts are directly accesible and fully evaluated by her;
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firstly, not all religions force others to believe. even the most fundamentalist zealots should agree that faith should come as a personal choice otherwise it would have no meaning.


i will adress the matter of objectivity as a delusion first. yes, we can never be certain we are not brains in a jar somewhere, trapped in the matrix. however we do have situations that are more objective than others. situations in which we use the word objectivity as it should be used, in a sense that matters and communicates an idea. if i say g=9.8 m/s*s i am being objective. i am not having my statement influenced by my feelings towards physics. if i say that van gogh is better than picasso, i am being subjective. i might be right as it concerns me, but i cannot prove it unless i set forth limits, conditions, descriptions as to what makes an artist better than other.
if you wish, you can consider objective reality at something experienced by all in the same way. subjective reality changes from subject to subject.

Because I am not living with her and I don't know her, because we share no thing and therefore I cannot decode her motivations with the same confidence I have regarding my wife's motivations. Also, I will be never aware of all the events that are taking place in the environment of an other couple;
doesn't that follow that one cannot replicate the love you feel for your wife? you conducted an experiment, and decided without doubt your wife loves you. if no other can replicate the experiment, what does that say about the validity of your result? if you feel uncomfortable me drawing a parallel between your love and religion because you have the odd notion that religion must force another into faith or it isn't religion how about this:
a scientist claims he has discovered a drug that halts the development of cancer. only it can only work on that scientist's cancer, not anyone else. he claims he knows why it works but so for no other scientist have been able to apply that knowledge. so far there are no sideeffects but one cannot be sure. nobody knows if this cure will keep halting the spread of his cancer in the future or if it will just kill him. or give him superpowers. do you think this is a real scientist? or simply just a voodoo medicine man who just stuffs someone with herbs until one of them might work?

Originally posted by black beetle
The hard facts related to gravity are accessible to everyone because the events caused by this force are also accessible to everyone -and, since gravity is factual, anyone experiences these events in the same way. Gravity has huge impact in our whole universe. But my love has huge impact solely in the micro-universe I established with my wife; the sole ...[text shortened]... ictions and thus give you the chance to re-evaluate and adjust your philosophy to perfection
😵

ah yes, you spoke truly. your love. you see the result of your love. you are sure of it. you see both the effects and the cause.

however you only see the effects in maria's case. what is the cause? is it love? is it her job as a russian spy who needs a cover? you will never know. but you will forever trust her. the result is the same really, it is just a matter of semantics.


my faith in god and jesus is the same. it is subjective. it is a micro reality between me and god. kind of like how it is with you and maria. i have less of your "hard facts". god doesn't speak to me. doesn't make me cookies. however i trust in his existance nonetheless. i see the complexity of the universe. i see the beauty of earth. the fine tuning. i see effects like you see effects in your relation with maria. and i choose that the cause of those effects is god. you choose the cause to be love. you still can't see any similarity?


maybe i will be proven wrong, but again, like you, the alternative is less appealing. and since the alternative hasn't exerted itself as reality, i choose the most pleasant "reality" even if i lack evidence.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
firstly, not all religions force others to believe. even the most fundamentalist zealots should agree that faith should come as a personal choice otherwise it would have no meaning.


i will adress the matter of objectivity as a delusion first. yes, we can never be certain we are not brains in a jar somewhere, trapped in the matrix. however we do have si ...[text shortened]... just a voodoo medicine man who just stuffs someone with herbs until one of them might work?

Edit: “firstly, not all religions force others to believe. even the most fundamentalist zealots should agree that faith should come as a personal choice otherwise it would have no meaning.”

Regardless how faith evolves in a religious context, it is still strictly based on a blind religious core belief that must be accepted by the believer as is.


Edit: “i will adress ...makes an artist better than other.”

I disagree. If you state that g=9.8 m/s*s you are not “objective”. You merely describe accurately by means of Math the essence of your own subjective observation regarding a specific fact based solely on given events that you experienced. Your cognition does not conform “objectively” to objects located in an external world; to believe that your observed object g pre-existed in the world and that you have the ability to come to know what exactly your object g is and thus describe your theory of reality regarding this matter by means of Math, is a delusion. Methinks your mind interacted actively with your object g by means of doing something with it during the time you experienced it -and the nature of your mind imposes its way of knowing upon the object it perceives. Therefore, when you state “g=9.8 m/s*s” you merely organize actively your own experience regarding your object g. In my opinion the process of thinking involves both receiving impressions through our 6 senses and conducting judgment regarding whatever we experience. All in all, you interpreted and you brought up your own meaning through your perceptions and your experiences regarding g, which by the way is an invention of your mind.
Therefore, your personal truth (that you consider objective) regarding your object g cannot be considered objective because in fact it does not reflect correctly an independent agent separated from you. I discard your ontological assumption and I argue that your mind alone invented the reality of the object g. Then I argue that your mind related efficiently this reality to an internal-subjective perspective and, then, it related this whole plexus of your perception to a larger theory of reality that, due to the fact that it is not refutable until this very moment, it became equivalent to solid knowledge. Of course this way of achieving knowledge discards notions like “absolute truth/ objectivity” and it is evolving constantly by means of new ways of knowing;



Edit: “if you wish, you can consider objective reality at something experienced by all in the same way. subjective reality changes from subject to subject.”

Since knowing involves understanding reality strictly as we experience it, it is merely an empty (relative) human product and as such it can never be “objective”.
Why you claim that our descriptions of our empirical world are “objective” since all of our descriptions are possible solely when we are using strictly our internal perspectives and our experiences? When we agree or we disagree regarding a specific issue we are never “objective” but we merely share our subjective opinion regarding the accurate description of a given reality that we perceive and we experience, and then we evaluate whether each opinion regarding the reality in question is accurate or false etc. I fail to see how and by which means this collective subjectivity of ours could be considered “objective”.



Edit: “doesn't that follow that one cannot replicate the love you feel for your wife? you conducted an experiment, and decided without doubt your wife loves you. if no other can replicate the experiment, what does that say about the validity of your result?”

No other can replicate the "experiment" because there is no way to have Maria and myself and our micro-universe replicated. However the validity of my reality holds perfectly for me and for my wife because we have at our disposal events -and we have no other reality than ours.



Edit: “if ...might work?”

I don’t feel uncomfortable at all. In fact I heartily thank you, for you are bringing up constantly strong points that force me to organize my opinion effectively and to check in full my thoughts once more.
Regarding your question, methinks this scientist would be not a scientist at all but a charlatan. He should know for starters what exact type of cancer he was diagnosed, and what is the exact synthesis of his pill, etc etc. However I fail to see the relevance between our “scientist” and myself. I offer neither "absolute truth" nor "salvation", I offer solely my full confidence that the reality I perceive along with my wife in our micro-universe is perfectly illustrated as I described it on the basis of our experience and our evaluation of the mind alone. And I always keep in mind that, this is merely my knowledge and it works perfectly solely for me
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Originally posted by Zahlanzi
ah yes, you spoke truly. your love. you see the result of your love. you are sure of it. you see both the effects and the cause.

however you only see the effects in maria's case. what is the cause? is it love? is it her job as a russian spy who needs a cover? you will never know. but you will forever trust her. the result is the same really, it is just ...[text shortened]... xerted itself as reality, i choose the most pleasant "reality" even if i lack evidence.

The cause is that I share my life with her, therefore I see constantly and I evaluate constantly her behaviour. I don't have "faith" that her acts are pure indications of love; I will trust her solely for as long as I will evaluate her behaviour and her acts as pure indications of her love.

Your faith to god is not at all similar to my knowledge that, until this very moment, my wife is existent and she loves me. It is not, because you have at your disposal neither events nor hard facts like I do. It is not, because it is by far more logical and simpler to conclude that my wife behaves the way she does out of love and not because she is a Russian spy etc.
I do see the same complexity of the universe as you do and I enjoy the beauty of Earth as much as you do, however I don't have the slightest event/ fact at my disposal that could prompt me to take the necessary "leap of faith" in order to beleive that the cause of those effects is god. I don't know the cause of those effects, and I am not eager to speculate and then accept that these speculations of mine are the "absolute truth". You still can't see the difference?
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Originally posted by Zahlanzi
ah yes, you spoke truly. your love. you see the result of your love. you are sure of it. you see both the effects and the cause.

however you only see the effects in maria's case. what is the cause? is it love? is it her job as a russian spy who needs a cover? you will never know. but you will forever trust her. the result is the same really, it is just ...[text shortened]... xerted itself as reality, i choose the most pleasant "reality" even if i lack evidence.

Edit: "maybe i will be proven wrong, but again, like you, the alternative is less appealing. and since the alternative hasn't exerted itself as reality, i choose the most pleasant "reality" even if i lack evidence."

I could well be proven wrong too in the future, but at least I shared until now with my wife superb experiences and a fine life full of good times and bad times. This is my sole reality and I am thankful. If in the future my bond with my wife will be broken, I will accept thankfully that reality too.
My reality is given and I can do nothing more than living my life in full; however it is solely me the one who attributes meaning to my reality.
It's only Us😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: “firstly, not all religions force others to believe. even the most fundamentalist zealots should agree that faith should come as a personal choice otherwise it would have no meaning.”

Regardless how faith evolves in a religious context, it is still strictly based on a blind religious core belief that must be accepted by the believer as is.

...[text shortened]... s keep in mind that, this is merely my knowledge and it works perfectly solely for me
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what you are doing here is murdering language.
language is supposed to convey messages. that is why we have different words for unequal ideas. one can say everything is beautiful in its own way. the followup is that we no longer use the word ugly. we only have beautiful. how then do you convey the idea that something is in fact less beautiful. or more? your baby is soo beautiful. your crap is less beautiful than a blind hunchbacked leper midget who is less beautiful than susan sarandon who is less beautiful than jessica alba. there is a point where you must use the word ugly. the same with objective/subjective. ultimately yes, we do perceive the universe with our senses. but there is a difference between experiencing how sulfuric acid reacts with lye (or whats it called, NaOH i mean) and experiencing how a van gogh painting is so darn beautiful. that is objective/subjective. nobody can say that if you pour sulfuric acid on naoh you will get anything other than water and NaSO4 without sounding idiotic/ignorant/insane. that doesn't depend on our senses. however you can experience a monet differently. or a picasso. you can say a picasso sucks and another can say it is awesome without either of you being wrong.

subjective doesn't mean "experiencing something with your senses". it means "allowing your senses to influence the experience of reality"



the scientist in my example is perfectly confident that his pill works. in fact i said that the pill does in fact cure his cancer. but it cannot be replicated. cannot be described. nobody knows how it works. the scientist might have an idea but he cannot convey that idea in a manner that would allow others to replicate the pill. so yes, to me the scientist is very much like you.

" And I always keep in mind that, this is merely my knowledge and it works perfectly solely for me"
i agree with that. that is exactly the way my faith in god works. only you seem to dismiss my reality (my micro-cosmos) as merely a leap of faith and you consider your reality a certain hard fact. Which by the way, is another mark of a true fundamentalist😀

Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: "maybe i will be proven wrong, but again, like you, the alternative is less appealing. and since the alternative hasn't exerted itself as reality, i choose the most pleasant "reality" even if i lack evidence."

I could well be proven wrong too in the future, but at least I shared until now with my wife superb experiences and a fine life full of ...[text shortened]... ull; however it is solely me the one who attributes meaning to my reality.
It's only Us😵

and good for you. i am not trying to lessen your reality. i am trying to show you the way you reached your reality is in not much more logical than how i reached mine (the fact that god is real and is a pretty good guy)

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
what you are doing here is murdering language.
language is supposed to convey messages. that is why we have different words for unequal ideas. one can say everything is beautiful in its own way. the followup is that we no longer use the word ugly. we only have beautiful. how then do you convey the idea that something is in fact less beautiful. or more? you ...[text shortened]... eality a certain hard fact. Which by the way, is another mark of a true fundamentalist😀

Edit: “what you are doing here is murdering … …your senses to influence the experience of reality"”

How am I murdering language!? I explained you as briefly and clearly I could the essence of constructivism!
And what exactly is the difference when the (always different that any other, thus unique) observer is interacting with any object s/he observes? At every given level this observation (regardless of the object the observer observes) is strictly subjective, regardless if the product of this observation is false or accurate or whatever. Whatever you observe, your mind alone eases you to observe it -and whatever you observe is dependent on your senses alone;

I ‘ll try it also from another perspective: methinks we should understand first how we know, because this is the way to evaluate the essence of our knowledge. Over here I will join hands with Staver and I will agree with him in full that knowledge is adaptive and functional; our perceptions are constructing a coherent, viable and functional system that we are using it for understanding whatever we encounter; the purpose of our cognition is to serve the individual’s organization of his/ her experimental world, therefore cognition’s purpose cannot ever be the discovery of an objective ontological reality; since knowledge is a higher form of adaptation, we are using it as a tool in order to bring up a viable construction of a workable framework in order to understand reality; our frame of mind pre-creates and pre-determines our finds when we are searching for answers to problems.
I fail to see the slightest trace of “objectivity” at this procedure, I recognize solely subjectivity. If you disagree with this approach or if you see objectivity in it, kindly please comment;



Edit: “the scientist… …very much like you.”

Why the pill cannot be replicated? And why it cannot be even described? By which means and by whom the specific cancer was diagnosed, what was the full diagnosis and what was the exact type of the cancer, etc etc?
On the contrary, since I can describe in full my reality and I am able to present one by one all the changes and thus all the events that took place in my life with my wife by my side, I argue that there is nothing similar between our “scientist” and myself;



Edit: “agree with… …Which by the way, is another mark of a true fundamentalist”

No, I am not a fundamentalist, because I am not preaching my "truth" as “absolute truth that sprung from the word of god” that must be accepted as is and all that jazz. I merely shared my story with you, and I am fully aware of the fact that "truth" is empty -my truth included. What exactly you gonna do with this truth of mine is a question related solely to your own evaluation of the mind
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Originally posted by black beetle
But my love has huge impact solely in the micro-universe I established with my wife; the sole observers in our micro-universe are just the two of us.

In my experience relationships consist of two nearly independent micro universes and the two participants have very different beliefs about about what those universes consist of. It is sometimes easier to communicate your views to someone outside of the relationship than to your partner.