So an ID caller on your phone would be enough ? ~:cheers:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Further more, the writing on stones etc should be in actual hand writing, since using Word for example would be to easy to forge ? ~:grouphug:
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So an ID caller on your phone would be enough ? ~:cheers:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Further more, the writing on stones etc should be in actual hand writing, since using Word for example would be to easy to forge ? ~:grouphug:
To say the same thing differently:
http://muchos.co.uk/members/A.Saturn...56_7029807.jpg
I think you're conflating mediate and immediate systems. Immediate knowledge may be pre-discursive and unarticulated and yet inform both discursive and articulated statements: Socratic ignorance for example. Such may also avoid the standard correspondence dilemmas by moving the whole rubric into a coherence schema. This may have with ontic overtones: here one could think of the standard Platonic sense of knowledge or Neo-platonic metaphysics. The same might be said of a non-allegorical Christian notion that one is a child of God.Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
1 and 4.
To get reliable information about god, you must look everywhere. The bible is a good place to start, though I would not believe everything that I saw in it, because, some of the stories in there I believe where put there so man could try to make sence of certain concepts we have. But I do believe a good portion of what is in the Bible is valid and truthfull. But it's not all there, you need to talk to others about it and make your own enterpitations about it. No one can tell you everything you know about god. As in the matrix, "I can only show you the door, you are the one who has to open it.". Just use your logic and try to see what it all means.
Everyone should bear in mind I only looked at the first couple of entries, so anything else said I didn't really check through.
Sorry, I think there are just too many philosophical buzz-words in that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
There cannot be a discourse unless we assume that reason itself is flawless and anything derived from reason is certain, but anything that is not derived from reason alone, must be open for doubt. Thus, any information you possess that is not deduced by yourself from reason is uncertain, whether you call it mediate or immediate. That is, unless you DO use a coherence schema. But I reject the coherence theory of truth on the basis that it is ridiculously strong.
Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
People can and do make mistakes during discourse all the time. Rational perfection is not required to have discourse. I do agree that discourse makes appeal to a rational standard. It doesn't follow from this that non-rational appeals must be open to doubt. It may be they cannot be communicated, but this does not necessarily impact any possible veracity.Quote:
There cannot be a discourse unless we assume that reason itself is flawless and anything derived from reason is certain, but anything that is not derived from reason alone, must be open for doubt.
Sure, mistakes happen, I mean we assume that rationality is in principle flawless. If reason is followed corretly, certainty is achieved. But why should non-rational appeals not be open to doubt? Claiming standards that are not necessary for the discourse is intellectually dishonest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
If rationality is handled properly the conclusion is valid. Validity reflects the necessity of the conclusion given the premises. This does not mean it has anything to do with reality or truth. We assume reality is amenable to reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
Non-rational appeals can be open to doubt: must implies a different standard. If one questions a Zen Master about the nature of Enlightenment and he replies: "I point to the Moon and you focus on my finger". The questioner might conclude that the Master is a loon or he might conclude that Enlightenment is not subject to rational inquiry. This has nothing to do with intellectual dishonesty.
~:cheers:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Good enough for me, let´s leave it at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
That´s a different situation. If someone enters a discourse, he has to abide to the rules of discourse. Among which it stands that he may not make assumptions the other does not make. Something that is not rationally justified is only an opinion, not knowledge.Quote:
Non-rational appeals can be open to doubt: must implies a different standard. If one questions a Zen Master about the nature of Enlightenment and he replies: "I point to the Moon and you focus on my finger". The questioner might conclude that the Master is a loon or he might conclude that Enlightenment is not subject to rational inquiry. This has nothing to do with intellectual dishonesty.
I'm not sure I understood your post. Mystical appeals, which seem to operate under an intuitive epistemic, do not to attempt to communicate or replicate that experience through discourse. In fact, the view appears to be that is not possible any more than one can describe salt to one who has not tasted it. They may note the experience occurred, express that it was meaningful, or attempt some conclusion because of it etc. but the content of the experience itself remains closed to the participant.Quote:
Non-rational appeals can be open to doubt: must implies a different standard. If one questions a Zen Master about the nature of Enlightenment and he replies: "I point to the Moon and you focus on my finger". The questioner might conclude that the Master is a loon or he might conclude that Enlightenment is not subject to rational inquiry. This has nothing to do with intellectual dishonesty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
I think you can maintain a view that rejects all knowledge claims that are outside of direct rational scrutiny, but the position seems more definitional than substantial. It's interesting that all major religious traditions have mystical components that predate the rise of reason (insofar as the religions themselves are older) and have continued on through to the present irrespective of reason.
Well, ok, I agree to that, but what we were originally discussing is the question how you can exclude the possibility that a certain experience is psychotic in nature. The point I was trying to make is, if you consider the possibility of being insane, you can still not doubt the fact of your own thinking or the flawlessness of reason. But anything else you can doubt. Whatever experience you have, you cannot know for sure that it was no the result of a mental disorder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Can tasting salt be a mental disorder? I'm not sure mystical/intuitive appeals are reducible to simple psychological states. The logic of immediacy and the larger literature would suggest not.Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
I thought insanity was dependant on an inability to function in society, not by simple held beliefs.
Sometimes that is the same thing..... ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Well, knowing is a psychological state. The experience of tasting salt itself cannot be a mental disorder. It is part of the phenomenological world and therefore simply what it is. But the same certainty is not there for the noumenale world. The experience of tasting salt can be the result of exposure to the chemical substance sodium chlorid or be the product of a mental disorder, thus a hallucination. The same is true for divine revelations. The experience of a mystical encounter is phenomenological. It cannot be parted from the experiencing mind and therefore, due to delusion of that mind, may be deceiving about its source.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Inability to function is often a characteristic of insanity, but not a necessarily a defining criterium. Simple held beliefs may, if obviously counterfactual and persistent, be enough to diagnose a delusion or other disorders. Hallucinations are among the major diagnostic criteria of psychosis (but not sufficient). But insanity should only serve as an example. Not all hallucinations are pathologic. But they are, by definition, counterfactual.Quote:
I thought insanity was dependant on an inability to function in society, not by simple held beliefs.
Please note also that some psychotic patients do not realize that they are socially disfunctional.
How do you define psychological state? Is it simply synapse firing or the reflective, pondering, mental component of people interacting with their environment? If it is the former would this include those with brain lesions where some brain activity is demonstrable, even if confined to lower levels?Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
Is hallucination used to refer to feelings? If a person in a hot room says they feel cold is this a hallucination? Is it correct to say: no, you don't.
Now you mention the experience of tasting salt cannot be a mental order. You tie it to the phenomenal realm. Phenomena simply means able to experience. Now if the Divine can be experienced it would be ipso facto phenomenal. Now if the base experience of salt is "what it is" why couldn't the experience of the Spirit of the Divine be the same?
If a person sincerely believes he is a Jedi, but in every other way performs normally. Is he nuts?Quote:
Inability to function is often a characteristic of insanity, but not a necessarily a defining criterium. Simple held beliefs may, if obviously counterfactual and persistent, be enough to diagnose a delusion or other disorders. Hallucinations are among the major diagnostic criteria of psychosis (but not sufficient). But insanity should only serve as an example. Not all hallucinations are pathologic. But they are, by definition, counterfactual.
Please note also that some psychotic patients do not realize that they are socially disfunctional.
I recall being told that loons when interviewed seem to know at some base level something is amuck, but may not know the source or corrective for this sense. Is this wrong?
Depends on the item you are tasting.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
Not if his name is George Lucas....Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
In a normal society, use a different identity than your actual is not nuts, just illegal....
I think synapses are irrelevant for the discussion. A psychological state is a possible form of our inner self. A perception, a thought, a feeling, those can be part of a psychological state.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
A hallucination of a feeling would be the feeling itself. Like a picture of a picture. If someone says that he´s feeling cold, we should believe him. But the origin of that feeling is important. We do not doubt a schizophrenic that he hears voices, but we doubt that these voices actually are produced by inanimate objects. Though the general experience of temperature is too vague to constitute a hallucination. If someone feels as if he´s touched by flames on spots on his body while nothing of that happens, that would be a hallucination.
The divine could affect our phenomenological world, however, we cannot experience the divine an sich. Just like we cannot experience any Ding an sich. I can see, smell and taste an apple, but the noumenale apple will always be outside my experience. The experiences that I have about the apple are a function of mental categories, past experiences and - possibly - mental disorder. Because of that, the experiences I have about the apple may be deceiving about the real nature of the apple.
Someone who believes he is a Jedi is not necessarily "nuts", no. Just like someone who receives divine revelations is not necessarily "nuts". The point is that he could possibly be "nuts".Quote:
If a person sincerely believes he is a Jedi, but in every other way performs normally. Is he nuts?
I recall being told that loons when interviewed seem to know at some base level something is amuck, but may not know the source or corrective for this sense. Is this wrong?
It is true that most patients of psychopathology notice problems. After all, most forms of psychopathology can inflict a serious amount of distress. But it can happen that this is only because they cannot function in society any longer. It is not unlikely that they attribute the cause of the problems to their environment and not to themselves. For example, I saw an interview with a man who believed that flies were breeding in his skin, no matter what he did. That went so far that he heard them sum, felt their touch and believed that they were conspiring with his mother! To him, that was entirely real and he could not even realize the absurditiy of it. Certainly he felt distress, but for him, the flies were the cause of it, not his mind.
You really should try and rise above the line linner approach to discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by bmolsson
A message doesn't always have to contain fancy words to be distributed and understood. Also I wouldn't want to rock the current balance on this forum...... ~;) :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
OKQuote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
I don't think there is anything in mystical literature that makes appeal to a noumenal realm. The whole tenure of the knowledge claim is phenomenal. Further, and perhaps more to the point, the experience is immediate. This may or may not mean the experience could be discursive, but the logic of the event is that phenomena itself necessarily precedes any formulation as the formulation is dependant on the phenomena. For example: if one says 'A is B' the "is" is presupposed.Quote:
A hallucination of a feeling would be the feeling itself. Like a picture of a picture. If someone says that he´s feeling cold, we should believe him. But the origin of that feeling is important. We do not doubt a schizophrenic that he hears voices, but we doubt that these voices actually are produced by inanimate objects. Though the general experience of temperature is too vague to constitute a hallucination. If someone feels as if he´s touched by flames on spots on his body while nothing of that happens, that would be a hallucination.
The divine could affect our phenomenological world, however, we cannot experience the divine an sich. Just like we cannot experience any Ding an sich. I can see, smell and taste an apple, but the noumenale apple will always be outside my experience. The experiences that I have about the apple are a function of mental categories, past experiences and - possibly - mental disorder. Because of that, the experiences I have about the apple may be deceiving about the real nature of the apple.
How is loon status determined?Quote:
Someone who believes he is a Jedi is not necessarily "nuts", no. Just like someone who receives divine revelations is not necessarily "nuts". The point is that he could possibly be "nuts".
Medical science and legal system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
There I go thinking that a "loon" was a type of bird.Quote:
Originally Posted by bmolsson
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i0070id.html
I´m not sure why you consider the formulation important. 'is' is indeed presupposed because the possibility of an identity relation is an axiom. Logical considerations would hardly be possible without it. But that is not the case for the origin of experiences. It all comes down to the question whether the experiences refer to something outside themselves. If not, there is no problem. If they do, then it should be clear that the experiences may not reflect the real nature of that which they refer to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar
First of all, we do not speak of 'loons', normally. Someone has a psychosis or another disorder. Whether this is the case is usually determined by applying the DSM-IV. If someone fulfills the relevant criteria, he or she is considered psychotic or otherwise mentally ill. Delusion is a symptome of several different disorders. We speak of delusion if a person is preoccupied by ideas that are clearly counterfactual and cannot be convinced by any sort of evidence and are not common for the culture the person lives in.Quote:
How is loon status determined?
But of course, the DSM-IV is a tool for the practicioner. Practical considerations are important for it. It does not necessarily hold the truth about insanity. We do not know enough over the ethology of mental disorders to base a classification on it. But obviously, there must be an ethiology for insanity. So if we want to know for sure whether our jedi is really insane, we would need to know the ethiology of his conviction and that of obviously insane ones. Maybe then we could identify "insane" convictions. But we aren´t so far yet.
As I understood your position you were appealing to a kantian formula to critique the epistemic basis of mystical claims. You did this by referencing the nouminal realm and the transcendental. I pointed out that mystical claims do not make nouminal appeal and that irrespective of any formulation (transcendental or otherwise) experience is always already there. Experience has logical priority: such may be mediated, but does not necessarily have to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
Whether experience is self-generated or not and whether such properly reflect reality is a separate question. I know you have opted for a correspondence critique, but I don't think that is the proper formulation of the standard mystical appeal. It seems, particularly given the ontic overtones, that a coherence formula is more accurate. Further, should we restrict ourselves to correspondence positions I don't think mystical claims are any more vulnerable to critique than other experience. If one accepts basic empirical appeals as a basis for knowledge claims then mystical experience would fall within those bounds.
If etiology is critical to make a diagnosis and no etiology is forthcoming then it doesn't appear possible to label our Jedi or mystic nuts based on a singular belief or claimed experience.Quote:
First of all, we do not speak of 'loons', normally. Someone has a psychosis or another disorder. Whether this is the case is usually determined by applying the DSM-IV. If someone fulfills the relevant criteria, he or she is considered psychotic or otherwise mentally ill. Delusion is a symptome of several different disorders. We speak of delusion if a person is preoccupied by ideas that are clearly counterfactual and cannot be convinced by any sort of evidence and are not common for the culture the person lives in.
But of course, the DSM-IV is a tool for the practicioner. Practical considerations are important for it. It does not necessarily hold the truth about insanity. We do not know enough over the ethology of mental disorders to base a classification on it. But obviously, there must be an ethiology for insanity. So if we want to know for sure whether our jedi is really insane, we would need to know the ethiology of his conviction and that of obviously insane ones. Maybe then we could identify "insane" convictions. But we aren´t so far yet.
Sorry to barge in at this stage, but here it is:
There is no God!
Any claim to the contrary is either a lie, or uttered by someone who is mislead or delusional.
Any religious experience is either caused by a misunderstanding, trickery or a psychotic incident.
I could elaborate further, but I think that's really all you need to know about God right there! ~:) ~:grouphug: ~:grouphug:
Logically this is an untenable position. It also shifts the focus of discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Peru
Why is it logically untenable? Epistemologically denying the existence of God is problematic , but I see no self-contradiction in Paul's statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pindar