Category: Epistemology and Method

(FB 1550108977 Timestamp) OF METAPHYSICS, TRUST, AND LYING. — Claire Rae Randall — ‘Cogito ergo sum’ ~ Rene Descartes. ‘I think, therefore I exist’. The foundational statement of modern metaphysical philosophy. Some say it is a lie because it examines metaphysics. Can you prove that to be the case? (CURTD: you can’t prove a positive, only say whether it is tautological(meaningless), consistent(possible), or inconsistent (false). ). — Claire Rae Randall — The existence of God in this one is a sidetrack. To say that one thinks, or is aware, demonstrates that at least something, the ‘thinker’, or the experience, exists. Something is happening, something is experiencing, which clearly means that something exists. (CURTD: Short version: 1 – the criteria for existence is persistence in time. 2 – awareness of persistence requires memory 4 – experience is recreated from intermixture of sensation, incentive(‘focus’) and memory. 5 – experience of stimuli and memory is continuous recursive, reconstructive and (very) faulty 6 – reason tests experience 7 – action tests reason 8 – memory recalls the result of tests – and I learn. So the more correct answer is: “I remember, and remember remembering and therefore ‘I’ exist, because ‘I’ consist of my memories, and the body that allows me to reconstruct, experience, reason, and act upon them, therefore testing my existence. Conversely, I will cease to exist when my body will no longer sustain the continuous recursive production of experience using sense, memory, cognition, reason, and action.” This, is the short version, but operationally answers the question. There was no hard problem of cognition. there was no mind body problem. Just the continuous reaction of the old, middle and new brain by the ‘persistence of vision’ of normal chemical reactions over multiple cycles of sense-perception. ) It is not a truism, because that would mean that ‘To exist is to think’, which is clearly not the case. Even ‘I exist, therefore I think’ is not a necessary inference, as existence and thinking are not identical. The inference in Descartes is clearly an ‘If A then B’, but not ‘If B then A’. A tautology is reversible, an inference is not. I was mostly hoping that Curt Doolittle would pick up on this since he claims that all metaphysical investigation is a lie, which this statement from Descartes demonstrates to be a false statement. ( I do not make that statement. I make the statement that (a) operations consist of measurements in time that are falsifiable, subjectively testiable, and testifiable, (b) truth consists and must consist of testimony (promise), (c) what we call science consists of testimony of operations beyond the frail limits of human perception and warranty of due diligence of having done so, (d) operations are the most parsimonious and testable paradigms, (e) there are only so many grammars of paradigms, and they very from the most deflationary to the descriptive to the inflationary to the conflationary to the fictionalisms, (f) hierarchies of paradigms (networks of categories, relations and values) which are dependent upon the fictionalisms demonstrate an absence of knowledge to make truth (testimony) claims. And (g) that if it is possible to discover a motive for the pretense of knowledge (deceit), then we CAN personally, and MUST publicly (to insure others) err on the side of the attempted deceit (fraud) to defend ourselves other and the commons from ignorance, error, fraud and deceit. And it is up to the individual to defend himself from prosecution for attempted deceit. ) The next stage of investigation is the simple question ‘Is an error a lie?’ Clearly not, since a lie is a false statement, knowingly made, while an error is a false statement made unknowingly. (CURTD: This is the difference you see… 1) The optimistic test of TRUST of EQUALS which is to presume ignorance and error. 2) The practical test of DOUBT of UNEQUALS is to presume failure of due diligence. 3) The pessimistic PROSECUTION of an ENEMY is ignorance error, bias and deceit. Notice the difference between operations and sets. Notice how I use series rather than ideals Note how I use a supply demand curve rather than ideal types. In other words, plato and descartes were still using theological and ideal language. They were not using ‘real’ language: operations and testimony deflated into series, and tested by using supply and demand, which make conflation and inference of fallacies impossible. ) So, even in the event that Descartes was making a false assertion, if he did it with an honest intention, and wasn’t aware of any contradictions in his reasoning, then he may not have been ‘telling the truth’, but he certainly wasn’t lying. (CURTD: But someone who makes a descartes error today is. Because today we are failing to do due diligence. ) — Claire Rae Randall — I’m concerned that you’re making it more of a problem than it needs to be. All I’m seeking to establish is that investigation into consciousness and underlying realities is a legitimate endeavour and does not necessarily involve lying. Really, it’s that simple. (CURTD: There is only one means of doing so and that is science (operational language). Because science is the only means of doing so without failing a test of due diligence and therefore lying. If you use another means and the means is fictionalism, and a the fictionalism provides incentive, then you are in fact lying, whether conscious of it nor not. We lack agency. We negotiate on part of our genes unconsciously. We are forever lacking agency, for this reason. We can therefore: Lie by design; or Lie by failure of due diligence. (convenience) Because to lie mens to testify. And to testify means performing due diligence. All truth claims are in fact promises. (testimony) Because there is no ‘truth’ it’s not possible. Instead, wea either speak truthfully or not. And to speak truthfully requires due diligence against ignorance, error, bias deceit, and malincentive. ) You often seem to conflate things that are not within the parameters of what I consider to be ‘Metaphysics’ with the subject itself. And some things cannot be materially tested, but can be examined with language and logic so as to find out what that yields us. (CURTD: Metaphysics “after the physics” If metaphysics consist of something other than cognitive science then please tell me how. I understand metaphysics to consist of is almost entirely of experiments in the construction of paradigms of internally constant relations but incompatible external constant relations. In other words I cannot find any discourse on metaphysics that is not ‘word play’, entertainment, and an attempt to deceive, escape, or defraud. Conversely, we know many paradigmatic systems of education and transfer of meaning. Much of philosophy consists of fictional experiential literature whose effects are caused by stimulation using vocabulary to induce free association of imprecise and highly loaded terms. sort of a drug for nerds. Just like poetry. or comedy. or fictional literature. ) I certainly have little truck with postmodernism (my forthcoming book is almost a non stop attack on the vile plague) and am no advocate of supernatural authoritarianism, since if ‘supernatural’ beings exist (I’m not keen on the term ‘supernatural’) then they should abide within terms of some law and don’t need to be authoritarian. About rationalism, well I don’t want to constrain things within artificial limits, but at the same time we do need to be rational. (CURTD: dream, daydream, free association, think, reason, rationalism, calculation, computation. This spectrum is available to us. With increasing demands on short term memory and rigidity of categories. rational(choice), rational (logical) ) — Claire Rae Randall — I’m anxious not to confuse Metaphysics and Theology. If someone thinks that Metaphysical inquiry is in some way dependent on Theological assumptions then they are making a mistake. ( CURTD: No. Metaphysics gives license to theology. and all fictionalisms. Because it claims (falsey) that there is suspect causal relation between perception and reality. Only outside of human scale. ) Also, lying is knowingly telling a falsehood. Examining ideas and establishing postulates which have not been proven false is not lying. ( CURTD: This is demonstrably not true since most people are lie-carriers and repeat lies simply because it is in their self interest to repeat lies, because they have not done due diligence to insure they are not lying in matters of self interest. We do not know whether you lie by intent or not. We only know you tell a lie by stating a falsehood that you cannot testify to. Your intention not do perform due diligence (via negativa) is the only test we have of whether you lie by intent, or by incentive. (excuse) Baiting in to moral hazard is how ((()))) we were destroyed by jews (christians), marxist, postmoderns. If we raise the standard from high trust to low trust we end their ability to lie while claiming just thinking. In other words you are to blame whether you intend to state a falsehood or not. So stop letting your cultural ‘metaphysical assumption of the necessity of high trust’ make you a sucker like the rest of our people. 😉 Liars take advantage of us. Because we don’t do due diligence because we trust – because we didn’t evolve lying – they did. and we are vulnerable to it because of our trust. Stop being illogical. Stop trusting rather than doing due diligence. ) — Claire Rae Randall — Ok. I need to solve this problem for a lot of people so I’m going to move this to the main page and we’ll work through it.