2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: What are you trying to do?
Therefore what are you trying to accomplish by posting on this sub?
Interesting question. Mainly, a combination of intellectual-dialectical fun + challenging hypotheses/convictions and seeking new suggestions/ideas.
Secondly, understanding.
Despite believing that one of the clearest truths (and perhaps the only empirical, observable lesson to be drawn from the phenomena “history of human thought”) is that ***truth is not compelling ******... I also think that the deterministic universe vs universe with free will is the fundamental debate.
if we disagree on this point, we potentially disagree *on everything*. These are two radically incompatible worldviews, and this incompatibility makes very complex to discuss a lot of key aspect of life (ethics, justice, interpretation of nature and biology, politics, etc.) because the axioms of each "side" are almost irreconcilable.
Therefore (despite the fact that there will never be unity of views, see above) it is important to at least UNDERSTAND the axioms and assumptions from which counterpart starts, because if there is not even such understanding, any discourse on other issues becomes in fact a debate between the deaf.
Comment by diogenesthehopeful at 09/09/2024 at 11:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
if we disagree on this point, we potentially disagree *on everything*.
This sounds like the difference between rationalism and empiricism. I guess that is why I like Kant. I think he was a rational empiricist. I mean I really don't understand why anybody thinks the truth is not compelling. I mean I watch this window rotate[1] every few months or so because if frustrates me to no end that I cannot "see" it rotating even though I know it is rotating. It is obvious that I cannot control those synapses in my head to the extent that I can convince myself that the window is rotating even though my mind knows it is rotating. That is an **obvious** disconnect between my mind and my brain. Nevertheless the physicalist will insist that we can conflate mind and brain and I cannot convince him of anything otherwise.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBap_Lp-0oc
Clearly the reductionist will say it is just an optical illusion and move on whereas somebody like me might look at something like that and see a relevance that I need to understand before jumping on social media telling other posters what's what.
Therefore (despite the fact that there will never be unity of views, see above) it is important to at least UNDERSTAND the axioms and assumptions from which counterpart starts, because if there is not even such understanding, any discourse on other issues becomes in fact a debate between the deaf.
Yes. The steel man argument is often used to show the opponent that you understand the best version of his argument so you can clarify to him his own version of his argument and hopefully he will understand that he isn't even taking the best tenets out of his own position. Unfortunately the person on this sub who avoids philosophy doesn't even understand when he has already lost a debate. If a person cannot see the fallacies in his own argument, he may be unaware that what he is saying if filled with non sequiturs. I often try to explain the difference between a sound argument and a valid argument and it is like I'm speaking irrelevancies to somebody that just wants to jump to the conclusion and then downvote because we don't agree.
We can be confronted with the clearest, most obvious, inconstable truth of facts, and yet we have the power to say, *no, I don't agree, this is not the way things are, and I'll tell you why.*
Assuming you mean incontestable truth, I have to agree with this, with the caveat stipulated that "truth" is the facts put into context. For example if I say I'm standing still, it is commonly referred to the context of my motion relative to the surface of the Earth as the Milky Way is racing toward the galaxy Andromeda or some crazy context like that.