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Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 12:34pmSanction this postReply
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I need some help with this here.  I started the thread in dissent because reading the basic epistemology intro lecture got me quite angry, and I have nothing nice to say about it.  I feel anger because I fear I have wasted my time delving into this effort if this kind of nonsense is actually believed,  and I can't seem to figure out how someone that seems intelligent otherwise can write such nonsense.  "What are the motives?"  I find myself asking.  Anyway here's an  excerpt...

"Let's look a little more carefully at some of these [questions], to see why they might be problems. What happens if we're not directly connected to reality in any way? In other words, what happens if our senses are flawed? What if they just present a picture of the world to us, but it's not accurate? What if we only see a shadow of reality? The problem then is that you can't have real knowledge about the world. Since you wouldn't have contact with the real world, your conclusions would start off wrong, and never get better. You would be cut off from what's real, and you'd have to fill in the gaps with your own imagination. Imagine you're blind, and someone tells you about color. You could try to imagine, but it probably wouldn't be close to accurate. And what if all of your life was like that?"

Firstly...

"In other words, what happens if our senses are flawed? What if they just present a picture of the world to us, but it's not accurate?"

We know this to be true.  I don't even see this as arguable.  We can "see" optical illusions, we can hear things that aren't there, and on and on and on and friggin on some more.  Just because our senses aren't perfect doesn't mean they are useless.  What? You redefining flawed here?  Flawed=useless?

Flawed is part of our nature as humans.  We are not perfect.  Deal with it.

"
The problem then is that you can't have real knowledge about the world."

Bull-friggin-shit!  It simply means that you have something less than 100% reliability.  So what?  That's where reason comes in.

"Since you wouldn't have contact with the real world, your conclusions would start off wrong, and never get better."

What a stupid thing to say! The conclusions start off at less than 100% certainty yes, but that's all.  Never get better?? How does that follow?  Unbelievable!!

"You would be cut off from what's real, and you'd have to fill in the gaps with your own imagination."

What happened to reason, logic, intelligence, resourcefulness?  Imagination?? Bullshit!

"Imagine you're blind, and someone tells you about color. You could try to imagine, but it probably wouldn't be close to accurate. And what if all of your life was like that?"

This actually contradicts the point the author was trying to make and he doesn't even realize it.  Unbelievable stupidity.

Goddamn I'm angry with this nonsense!  I can't get around this.  Is this some kind of joke?  Am I supposed to reverse the meaning of everything and then it makes sense?  What gives??  Seriously...

Bob


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Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 12:52pmSanction this postReply
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"You would be cut off from what's real, and you'd have to fill in the gaps with your own imagination."

What happened to reason, logic, intelligence, resourcefulness?  Imagination?? Bullshit!

(Nick)Well? What about reason, logic, resourcefulness? Do they fill the gaps? Are they tools which assist with imagination? Is it your contention, as it seems to be Rand's, that we already know everything and just deny it when we are choosing be immoral? If we are cut off from the real, how do we even know there is a real from which we are cut off?

bis bald,

Nick



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Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 2:34pmSanction this postReply
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Nick,

Gaps are filled yes.  History of science shows a general increase in our understanding of reality.  Senses, intelligence, logic, resoucefulness tend to fill in the gaps.  All of the gaps?  Of course not, perhaps they will never be filled - who knows.

"Is it your contention, as it seems to be Rand's, that we already know everything and just deny it when we are choosing be immoral?"
Certainly not.  I don't know what koolaid I've have to drink to conclude this.

 If we are cut off from the real, how do we even know there is a real from which we are cut off?
It's clearly not either/or.  Our senses are fallible, that has implications that we need to think about and take into account.  I don't think the implication is that senses are useless follows at all and we can never really know anything.  Talk about baby/bathwater. 
When I stub my toe, I instantly know that I am certainly not completely cut off from the real.

Bob 


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Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 5:01pmSanction this postReply
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Gaps are filled yes.  History of science shows a general increase in our understanding of reality.  Senses, intelligence, logic, resoucefulness tend to fill in the gaps.  All of the gaps?  Of course not, perhaps they will never be filled - who knows.
I agree with this.

It's clearly not either/or.  Our senses are fallible, that has implications that we need to think about and take into account.  I don't think the implication is that senses are useless follows at all and we can never really know anything.  Talk about baby/bathwater. 
When I stub my toe, I instantly know that I am certainly not completely cut off from the real.

I agree with this also. A bullit hole in the gut is not imagination.

bis bald,

Nick


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Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 11:11pmSanction this postReply
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Bob, if you want people to reply to you, then you need to calm down and learn to carry on a discussion without all the invective. What self-respecting person is going to answer an insult? You can rant and rave all you want, but I don't think the person whom your ranting against is going to be inclined to indulge your temper tantrums. So, if you really do want some help here, then you need to show a little more respect for those you disagree with.

Fair enough?

- Bill

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Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 6:06amSanction this postReply
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I understand what you're saying Bill and I am indeed angry.  However what I have attacked is the argument.  I don't even know at this point who wrote it.  What angers me is the article was in the Objectivism 101 section as I recall, and I assume that this type of thing is somewhat agreed upon as a foundational component of Objectivism.  I wanted to learn about Objectivism because some of it I agree with, but the further I dig, the more pathology I seem to uncover, and I fear the time has been wasted on nonsense.  I can handle rational disagreement, but not irrational.

There seems to be a big problem here around attacks of arguments and personal insults.  If you do not wish to defend these arguments or perhaps elaborate then fine, but be clear it is the argument that I object to.  I do not apologize for being angry when I read nonsense like this. 

The article shows a incredibly profound denial of reality.  This is not acceptable for a philosophy that purports to be reality based, not acceptable at all!

Bob


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Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 2:11pmSanction this postReply
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Not that I necessarily agree with everything in Objectivism 101 (no time to study it), but I'm loving the absolutely apoplectic reactions from the old guard!

Such are upheavals. I'm too busy to participate fully, but--even though they don't apply in every way to my attitude--I think of these lyrics of John Lennon:
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round;
I really love to watch 'em roll.
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go.

People asking questions lost in confusion--
Well, I tell them there's no problem,
Only solutions.
Well, they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind.
I tell them there's no hurry,
I'm just sitting here doing time.



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Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 8:13pmSanction this postReply
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"Let's look a little more carefully at some of these [questions], to see why they might be problems. What happens if we're not directly connected to reality in any way? In other words, what happens if our senses are flawed? What if they just present a picture of the world to us, but it's not accurate? What if we only see a shadow of reality? The problem then is that you can't have real knowledge about the world. Since you wouldn't have contact with the real world, your conclusions would start off wrong, and never get better. You would be cut off from what's real, and you'd have to fill in the gaps with your own imagination. Imagine you're blind, and someone tells you about color. You could try to imagine, but it probably wouldn't be close to accurate. And what if all of your life was like that?"


I need a little bit more background to understand this paragraph:

1. What are the alternatives to flawed?
1b. Why is flawed a bad thing?
2. Why, and how, is "flawed" equivalent to "useless"? Are my eyes useless because I am really nearsighted? Evidence, please.
2b. Why, and how, is "flawed" equivalent to "NO direct connection"? Evidence, please.
2c. Why can't the author suggest "X% of the time, the sense of Y is having a direct connection to reality, according to biological state"? For example, sleeping.
3. Why is it a problem when our senses are not accurate? Isn't it possible to re-check, squint, wear contacts, get LASIK, use reasoning, collaborate with another person?
4. What does "shadow of reality" mean?
4b. How does "shadow of reality" follow from "senses are flawed"? When people experience an optical illusion, are they seeing a "shadow of reality"? If I don't wear my glasses, am I seeing a "shadow of reality"?
5. How does it follow that you *can't* have knowledge about the world (as in, zip, none, zero) from "senses being flawed"? What about my deaf aunt, who holds a job?
5b. How can one redraw the line of reasoning in #5 so that it's not 100% or 0% (false dichotomy)?

The rest of the paragraph doesn't make sense, probably because it starts off after the mistake of equivocating "no direction connection to reality" with "what happens if our senses are flawed." Bob: Is this a good example of the rest of the material?

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Friday, August 4, 2006 - 1:01amSanction this postReply
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What I think the writer means by "flawed" here is not giving us a picture of the world that's reliable. In other words, by "flawed" he means untrustworthy. Think of it this way. Suppose your only contact with reality is what someone else tells you is true, and suppose that this person lies half the time, so that you can't trust what he says. In that case, your source of knowledge would be "flawed" in the sense that it wouldn't be something you could count on. And because the source is unreliable, there is no way to confirm or invalidate the information you receive. In order for your conclusions to constitute knowledge, you have to be able to confirm them, which means that the foundation or basis of your conclusions has to be trustworthy,

Now if the source of your knowledge is your senses, and your senses are not reliable, because they can't be trusted to provide an accurate picture of reality, then any conclusions you come to that are based on sensory information must also be unreliable, in the same way that any conclusions you come to that are based on information from an untrustworthy source must be unreliable. This, I think, is what the argument is saying. Whether you agree with it or not, it's important to understand the point that's being made here.

Although we can sometimes be deceived by optical illusions, we can nevertheless discover our mistakes and correct them. If we couldn't do that, then we wouldn't be able to say that we'd been deceived in the first place. Deceived relative to what? The answer, of course, is: relative to what we really know to be the case. But how do we know it? We know it, because we can rely on the information that our senses provide us. It is only through veridical and reliable sensory awareness that we can discover our perceptual errors and correct them.

So the argument is that the senses by themselves cannot deceive us; it is our interpretation of the information provided by them that leads us astray. For example, when we immerse a straight stick in water, it looks bent - an optical illusion - but the illusion is not due to any inherent unreliability of the senses, which simply provide a different appearance of the stick in the medium of water than in the medium of air, which is something we must discover.

Still another example of what philosophers sometimes refer to as an "optical illusion" is that of railroad tracks appearing to converge in the distance, even though we know that they are parallel. But, again, their apparent convergence is simply the way our senses respond to parallel objects observed at a distance, which is something we must learn to identify.

Similarly, objects look smaller the further away they are. Is this an optical illusion? Although one might refer to it as such, the smaller appearance is not, strictly speaking, illusory; it is simply the manner in which our eyes perceive distant objects. If the objects didn't appear to diminish in size, we couldn't perceive distance. Similarly, if the stick that is partially immersed in water did not appear bent, we couldn't perceive water as having properties of transparency that differ from those of air.

There's a lot more than can (and should) be said on this subject. David Kelley, a former professor of philosophy at Vassar, has a written a book defending Rand's theory, entitled The Evidence of the Senses. It's somewhat technical, but should be accessible to the educated layperson and may be worth looking into, if you're really interested in this topic. If I get some time, I'll try to post some more of my thoughts on it.

- Bill

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Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:15amSanction this postReply
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Bill:

That is the most understandable description on the subject I have ever read. If that doesn't put the issue to rest I don't know what will.

I'll look forward to your further comments.

Sam


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Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:47amSanction this postReply
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What I think the writer means by "flawed" here is not giving us a picture of the world that's reliable.
Yes, I agree with the intent.  I see this as a self-evident truth.

In other words, by "flawed" he means untrustworthy.
That's right.

So the argument is that the senses by themselves cannot deceive us; it is our interpretation of the information provided by them that leads us astray.

This doesn't matter although I'm sure you'd disagree.  To say that it's only our thinking that can be wrong is arbitrary in many ways.  The line between perception and cognition is arbitrary.  We know that our senses are incomplete and have blind spots, limits, varying frequency responses and so on that can lead to all sorts of effects, illusions and error, but somehow that can't be the root of the deception?  Arbitrary. 

For example, when we immerse a straight stick in water, it looks bent - an optical illusion - but the illusion is not due to any inherent unreliability of the senses, which simply provide a different appearance of the stick in the medium of water than in the medium of air, which is something we must discover.

Poor example, the bent stick is not seen because of any error or limitation, but because of how light behaves.  How about when we "see" a line of light when a point source moves quickly?  We know that the line does not exist because of logic ALONE.  There is no place in the sensory chain that is privileged.  A blind person could come to this conclusion given the relevant facts.
Now if the source of your knowledge is your senses, and your senses are not reliable, because they can't be trusted to provide an accurate picture of reality, then any conclusions you come to that are based on sensory information must also be unreliable, in the same way that any conclusions you come to that are based on information from an untrustworthy source must be unreliable. This, I think, is what the argument is saying. Whether you agree with it or not, it's important to understand the point that's being made here.
That's exactly correct.  I seriously do not know how any rational person could conclude otherwise.  Conclusions are not 100% reliable, big deal, that's the way we are.  That's reality. 

Although we can sometimes be deceived by optical illusions, we can nevertheless discover our mistakes and correct them. If we couldn't do that, then we wouldn't be able to say that we'd been deceived in the first place. Deceived relative to what? The answer, of course, is: relative to what we really know to be the case. But how do we know it? We know it, because we can rely on the information that our senses provide us. It is only through veridical and reliable sensory awareness that we can discover our perceptual errors and correct them.

Here's where the problem lies.  You could drive a truck through the holes in this argument.  We know we have been deceived, but only because we have used our rationality and other sensory evidence (although still not 100% reliable) to conclude this to some acceptable level of certainty - whatever that may be.  Sometimes we know we're deceived, but probably not always.  Or at least there's simply no way to know that we're not being deceived with absolute certainty.  This does not make me a skeptic in the strong and derogatory sense that Rand liked to insult.  This is just a reflection of reality.  If you can be deceived EVER, it is not possible to EVER be 100% sure that deception is absent - that's basic logic/common sense.  It is a recognition of reality.  Anything else is denial or worse.

Sliding in the foundationalist infallibility of the senses is crazy!  You just admitted above we can be deceived, then arbitrarily conclude that at some point further down the chain there is no chance of deception!  Bunk!  Clear contradiction. Totally arbitrary and illogical.  At what exact point do our senses turn magically infallible?  Never. I guess Objectivism must NEED this to be true, but it ain't.

I guess my personal philosophy has elements of empiricism and coherentism, although I still see problems in those approaches as well from what I have read.  I refuse to accept that which doesn't correspond to reality.  However, I do realize that my conclusions could change with new information.  I certainly have not seen any argument yet that would lead me to think differently.

Still another example of what philosophers sometimes refer to as an "optical illusion" is that of railroad tracks appearing to converge in the distance, even though we know that they are parallel. But, again, their apparent convergence is simply the way our senses respond to parallel objects observed at a distance, which is something we must learn to identify.
That is not an example of an optical illusion.  That's just a physical implication of 3 dimensional geometry.


Bob

(Edited by Mr Bob Mac on 8/04, 7:05am)


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Post 11

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:54amSanction this postReply
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Sam, I agree with you but for the following correction...

That is the most understandable description on the subject I have ever read. If that doesn't illustrate how foolish this position is I don't know what will.
Bob


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Post 12

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 7:00amSanction this postReply
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Quick question.  Both of these situations happened to me in the recent past.  In a deep cave, all the light sources were turned off.  Did I see nothing?  No, I "saw" the optical noise I guess you could call it and and flashes of colour etc.  I certainly did not see "nothing" or blackness.  I also was in a soundproof booth and yet I heard background "ringing".

How are these errors in interpretation?  How does the admittedly "bad" info not arise from the senses?  Seriously.

Bob


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Friday, August 4, 2006 - 7:20amSanction this postReply
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Bill:
Suppose your only contact with reality is what someone else tells you is true, and suppose that this person lies half the time, so that you can't trust what he says. In that case, your source of knowledge would be "flawed" in the sense that it wouldn't be something you could count on.
Here you're creating again a straw man: nobody claims that our perception is wrong half the time. But while it may be correct most of the time, it isn't always correct, so it is flawed. And as Bob and Jenna already said (and Nicholas agreed): flawed is not the same as useless.
Now if the source of your knowledge is your senses, and your senses are not reliable, because they can't be trusted to provide an accurate picture of reality, then any conclusions you come to that are based on sensory information must also be unreliable, in the same way that any conclusions you come to that are based on information from an untrustworthy source must be unreliable.
First, the fact that sensory information is not 100% reliable does not mean that we can't obtain reliable knowledge about the world. We can compare information from different sources and check which information is consistent and which model of reality works in practice. That's the way we discover that such information is sometimes wrong, we need no such thing as a "direct perception of reality"; if we think that such a thing exists, we're the victim of the user illusion.
So the argument is that the senses by themselves cannot deceive us; it is our interpretation of the information provided by them that leads us astray. For example, when we immerse a straight stick in water, it looks bent - an optical illusion - but the illusion is not due to any inherent unreliability of the senses, which simply provide a different appearance of the stick in the medium of water than in the medium of air, which is something we must discover.
Always that "stick-in-the-water" example; why don't you address real illusions, like seeing a concave structure as a convex structure, or seeing colors where none exist? They are incontrovertible evidence that our sense can deceive us. Even the knowledge that our perception is wrong does not change the perception itself. That's also the reason we find such illusions baffling. It's like seeing a good magic trick: although we know that we are fooled, we still are fooled, in the sense that we perceive something happening that should be impossible.


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Post 14

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 8:01amSanction this postReply
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Jenna wrote:

Bob: Is this a good example of the rest of the material?
Not sure what you're asking.  Do you mean indicative of rest of the material in the 101 section? 

I haven't gone through it all.  Let's just say I got a little "stuck" at the Epistemology one and didn't read further yet.  If you mean the rest of the material in the same article, I'd say yes, it's the foundation of the argument.

Edit: FWIW, the questions you ask are precisely what an independent and logical thinker cannot escape. 

The rest of the paragraph doesn't make sense, probably because it starts off after the mistake of equivocating "no direction connection to reality" with "what happens if our senses are flawed."
Exactly.  It is indeed nonsensical.

Bob

(Edited by Mr Bob Mac on 8/04, 8:10am)


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Friday, August 4, 2006 - 9:13amSanction this postReply
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Bill wrote:

David Kelley, a former professor of philosophy at Vassar, has a written a book defending Rand's theory, entitled The Evidence of the Senses.

More good stuff from the 101 lectures:

Lots of other goofy stuff on the bent stick straw man, but then this.
Now this brings us to one of the main thrusts of Kelley's book. The senses provide us information, but we interpret the information. The fact that we perceive the same thing in different ways due to different context doesn't invalidate our senses. On the contrary, it gives us more information....




Ok, that's one way of looking at it, no problem, but what if our senses gives us info that isn't there.  No, not a hallucination with origins in the mind, but a ringing in the ears because of a loud concert.  This arises from inner ear stress or trauma, not in the mind and not from external reality (there is no external ringing object) - or there could be and we might conclude wrong, so we seek more info.  Using our senses again (with logic) to get more info, adds evidence to a certain conclusion, it does not provide proof that the senses are infallible or refute the fallibility argument at all.

More...

If I drew a sketch of what I see and gave it to you, you'd have my version of things, which might not be accurate. But if you see it for yourself, you don't have the middleman who picks and chooses what you see. All of it gets to you, and since there's no selection process along the way, there's no room for mistakes. I hope that makes sense.

One version of things is "inaccurate".  The other version has "no room for mistakes".  But neither is "unrealiable".  Hmm...

Bob

(Edited by Mr Bob Mac on 8/04, 9:33am)


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Post 16

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 10:31amSanction this postReply
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The first thing is that it's not necessary that I (or anyone) must accept this argument, as presented from the paragraph Bob posted. Basically, I hold my own counsel. (Separate from that, though, it is fun to unpack an argument to see how one element follows another.) I trust my senses AND trusting my senses is compatible with the evidence that my senses are fallible. My basis for understanding this is biological, so whether the above argument that Bob posted is true or false or in between doesn't touch what I already have learned from experience and evidence:

Human visual physiology works by detecting photons (down to the level of a photon). The wavelength determines the color of light, the amount of photons determines the intensity/saturation (of light). That's my direction connection to reality-- light hitting my rods and cones. From there the information is taken to the visual centers in the brain to be processed. But along this pathway, we have a blind spot called the optic nerve. We get around that by constantly moving our eyes all over the place-- the only time we may see a blind spot is when we don't move our eyes enough. We "see" optical illusions-- and that is the result of the brain "filling in" visual information received when photons hit our eyes. We get around that by learning about what role the brain has in processing visual information. We may see a stick that looks bent when half of it is in water, but that is because of the way light (photons) behaves-- called refraction-- in water than it does in air.

It is possible to have our eyes to be healthy, but still be blind, seeing double, blacking out, etc.-- results of brain injury, physiological problems/responses, tumors, etc. However, we have more than one sense organ; more than one way of knowing the world-- it isn't just visual. So even if vision isn't reliable, a person still has touch, hearing, tasting, balance, proprioception, etc.

It is this that allows me to trust all my senses as my only way of knowing the world, yet also know that they have variable limitations. It's the combination of them that allows me a direct, individual understanding of the world; even if I am nearsighted, my hearing, visceral sensations, and touch are more sensitive. I do trust whatever I can see, and I trust that with glasses or contacts, the gradation of "flawed" is much lessened-- simply by the evidence provided when I wear my glasses versus not. When I don't wear corrective gear, I use my sense of touch and hearing more acutely-- this also happens when I am in a dark environment. For me, "flawed" does not necessarily connect to "unreliable", because due to the many complex systems that a human being is made of, there are alternative pathways to knowledge that can be strengthened and compensate for a less-than-normal ability.

One source that is unreliable does not mean it is necessarily useless. That source can very well be partially reliable or partially trustworthy, such as a dictionary. This can also be true of humans-- a person may speak falsely about one topic due to a multitude of factors (such as limits to a person's knowledge about a topic, bias, personal experience, etc.), but not about another topic. But, then, is this person the only person/object that one has to use as a source? Therefore, Bob, if you find the argument you posted lacking in something, it is not beyond you or any human to use a plurality of pathways for the goal of understanding. I find that it is within an individual's choice to find someone(s) who "fills in the gaps" for you in a way that elicits understanding, you filling in the gaps yourself, and/or, better yet, you creating your own argument for yourself. :)

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Post 17

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 11:03amSanction this postReply
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Jenna Wrote:

One source that is unreliable does not mean it is necessarily useless. That source can very well be partially reliable or partially trustworthy, such as a dictionary. This can also be true of humans-- a person may speak falsely about one topic due to a multitude of factors (such as limits to a person's knowledge about a topic, bias, personal experience, etc.), but not about another topic. But, then, is this person the only person/object that one has to use as a source? Therefore, Bob, if you find the argument you posted lacking in something, it is not beyond you or any human to use a plurality of pathways for the goal of understanding. I find that it is within an individual's choice to find someone(s) who "fills in the gaps" for you in a way that elicits understanding, you filling in the gaps yourself, and/or, better yet, you creating your own argument for yourself. :)


I agree with this and in general the rest of your post too.

Now about seeking understanding, yes that's my basic goal.  However, at the moment, the understanding that I am seeking is more related to how self-desribed rational people believe and support the type of thing I have quoted and are satisfied with this forming a basis of other arguments.  I just don't get it. 

Obviously this will not be welcomed here with open arms.  Barbara Branden wrote these words that I (and not just I) need to think about..
We may feel bewilderment that a particular person fails to see the logic of an idea when we have explained it so clearly and carefully, and when the evidence appears to us everywhere to be seen—but our failure to understand this does not constitute knowledge that the person is evading.
and
No one says to himself, as seems implicit in Rand’s description of evasion: “I’m not going to think about X because if I did so I would have to recognize truths that I am unwilling to recognize.”
I must admit I find myself jumping to this conclusion when I read what I conclude is nonsense and outline what I see as clear evidence of the error. 

I pointed out a similar tendency in Rand's writing in another thread and was accused of being a troll.  Is that evasion?  I think so but maybe not I guess.

also
We do not knowingly evade. When evasion occurs—and of course it does occur—it is on a level that involves only minimal conscious awareness, perhaps only the discomfort of a nagging uneasiness.
Pointing this out to somebody will rarely if ever be mutually agreed upon (or admitted).  Assuming that's the case, a softer approach might be warranted, but on the other hand, it is very often the tough issues that are worth discussion.

Eventually I'm sure I'll tire of the foolishness and never return, but until then I'll have fun and learn a few things along the way. I do want to learn, but am having a real tough time with some of the basic problems as I see them and have not yet heard any compelling arguments that would even begin to sway me on some of my fundamental objections.

Bob

(Edited by Mr Bob Mac on 8/04, 1:17pm)


Post 18

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 4:41pmSanction this postReply
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What you'll learn is that you can fool some of the people all of the time, but not all the people all the time...

Post 19

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 5:58pmSanction this postReply
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Bob wrote:

However, at the moment, the understanding that I am seeking is more related to how self-desribed rational people believe and support the type of thing I have quoted and are satisfied with this forming a basis of other arguments.


Well, you're talking to a hardcore individualist, so my usual answer to that is to first worry about what you think, and not so much about what others think, believe, support, etc. I am perfectly fine with the fact that the paragraph you quoted works for some people, and not for others. I can get what the paragraph is trying to get to (thank you to Bill), but it didn't work for me as well as for others. So I find my own way, and know that others will be doing the same.

I do want to learn, but am having a real tough time with some of the basic problems as I see them and have not yet heard any compelling arguments that would even begin to sway me on some of my fundamental objections.


I'm not sure how to help/respond here... because I don't know what kind of problems you have. Why are you thinking about being swayed? Do you think you need to be? Whatever problems you see, have you found solutions?

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