The real discussion: Values (Humans)

by David Turell @, Tuesday, December 15, 2015, 00:21 (3017 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: I think the discussion we really *ought* to be having is more of a meta-discussion. I hate to seem to hijack the thread but...-I can't think 0f the proper way to tell you how pleased I am at you return, with your incisive mind and way of looking at things, but there it is said.
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> Matt: David clearly values faith higher than myself or dhw. Otherwise, he wouldn't be willing to leap away from science into the purely philosophical realm of an intelligent designer. (Yes he uses science to justify his opinions, but using science to justify yourself doesn't mean your opinion is scientific.) -Of course I know that my opinion is my judgment of the things I learn, not at all scientific, but I hope logical for me. 
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> Matt: Myself, faith is something that probably doesn't break my top 100 list for traits worth having. I can't talk to why David or dhw place faith where they do, but for me its because of this:
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> Life has demonstrated to me, that not only are human beings pretty bad at making judgments about probabilities, we're generally pretty bad at making judgments overall. Part of that is evolutionary short-sigtedness: evolution has determined that I should really like sweet things. But it is rarely in my best interest to indulge. The other part is that we're programmed for intuitional leaps... snap judgments that exist because in the past, making them made it more likely to live through an encounter.-From what I see you have made excellent decisions in furthering your career. Evolution may have given us tastes with negative results, but here we are noting that we can identify and control them. I weighed 203 pounds in medical school, the result of first-generation-born American parents who thought healthy kids meant fat kids. but I have a thinking brain, and starting at the end of my first year in med school I changed my approach. I am 142 lbs as I write this.-Further med school made me think like Sherlock Holmes, no emotion, precision in med diagnosis and the conduct of my life. (Remember A.C. Doyle's background.) I view my life as a fabulous adventure. I don't think we share the same view of life, but knowing your background, that is understandable.-> 
> Matt: My highest value is placed upon epistemology: How we know what we know. Skepticism tells us that the less concrete some fact is, the less value we should place on it. This basic heuristic has seen us move from dawdlers, to penultimate masters of the biosphere, in less than 1000 years. A blink of an eye in geological terms. -I agree. 
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> Matt: So part of the discussion to me seems, that with values about faith, we should discuss our values about skepticism. (Scepticism for my good British friend!) 
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> I say all this because, part of the reason I tapered off on this forum wasn't from lack of interest, but from lack of movement from the practitioners. ....Isn't the point of philosophical inquiry to arrive at the truth of things? Or is there no truth here to be gained, as was the judgment of a former member, Mr. Jeliss?-I don't think you are proposing that we can reach ultimate truth, but insghts, yes. 
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> Matt: So perhaps if we laid bare our "first principles," in regards to why we hold particular values that lie at the ROOT of our debates, we could expose those things that if exposed to light, could extinguish darkness and actually cause us to change our minds?-We are what we have become through our own inventions for our career in life. I know it is more complicated than that. I've opened up a little of mine as a background to the discussion you are beginning. Lead on!


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