Re: dhw--Epistemological Framework (Order of Rank?) (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, February 03, 2011, 02:44 (5041 days ago) @ dhw

dhw,
> This is an interesting post. ... and your post already emphasizes this ("I accept explanations that are 'most likely' to be true" [most likely in whose eyes?]; "I make certain assumptions"; "knowledge is king"). And yet, rather strangely, in the last section you've misunderstood what I wrote, and you talk about the subjective part of your nature as if it were separate from the other issues. I didn't ask how you valued it. I asked if it might not reflect phenomena beyond the reach of scientific materialism. I'll return to this in a moment.
> -Consensus. Shades of empiricism. These are the only things that can meet "most likely."-I assert that rank begins with knowledge. (This should be clear!) You've asked a few times about the role of subjectivity in my thinking; I've said many times that it is normative epistemology that causes disagreements between people on the issues surrounding agnosticism... Q.E.D?-> ...But if you're looking for a universally recognized "order of rank", you'll never get one. You say that you consider this part of a framework. "We've got the skeleton, but no meat..." A framework is just that ... a skeleton. And my skeleton says boo to your rank meat.
> -*chuckles*-I'm sorry that my meat is rank to your bones! A framework tends to be more than a skeleton... for example in my line of work a framework refers to infrastructure that we tend to repeat over and over again. So we don't want to write it more than once. My goal in beginning the epistemological framework thread was to ultimately build to an attempt at solving the problem of rank.-As for the billions of people being served by theistic philosophy--I never started this with the common denominator in mind. -> Although you misunderstood my reference to the subjective part of your nature, what you've written is also revealing. You "concentrate on the oneness in all things; the only truth is that there is only one reality, only now ... yesterday gone ... tomorrow a whisper!" For some reason you've narrowed your focus to time, but oneness is not confined to time. The oneness in all things as a concept is untestable and unknowable, but in your Buddhist moments perhaps you sense that you're related to invisible galaxies, the sun, the forest, the earthworm. This illustrates the very point I was trying to make, which is that as a guide to whatever "the truth" may be, an intuitive or spiritual experience (e.g. of oneness) may be just as reliable as inferences drawn from views through a telescope, microscope or agenda-tinted spectacles.
> -You relate to time... and you hit the nut within Zen but with an erratically wild arrow!-Precisely because time isn't recognized, "oneness" is as you say. But oneness is testable, knowable: both subjective and objective... aren't we made of the same "stuff" as everything else? Don't we all share ultimately the same feelings and emotions? Doesn't paper require sun, wood, and people to process it for you to use? The interconnectedness--the oneness--of all things is really one of the few immutable truths revealed by science. Buddhism stirred within me the only spiritual concept of science that I'd ever encountered--while simultaneously crushing it. Because another truth is that human experience can only be pantomimed with words; therefore science will not capture--indeed cannot capture--everything. But how utterly odd if the dualist perspective is correct and God himself is nothing but mind...-> And so to your "deeper" question: "Does a whisper compare to a rose in your hand?" It's a great question, and I fear my answer is nothing like as poetic. In terms of day-to-day living, of course the present moment has the priority. But in terms of philosophy, I don't need to make such comparisons. I can whisper and believe what I like about the future, the past, God, design, chance, consciousness, ethics etc., and still have the rose in my hand.-Philosophy serving only you! If we mean it to serve other people, we must sacrifice some things. The rose or the whisper...-Perhaps the greatest "perspective" of all is this:-IN translating philosphy to all, we dilute perspectives to feed the lowest common denominator... and the philosophy for ourselves is the only philosophy that is divine--only we reveal to ourselves!-Philosophy that serves all serves none--yet philosophy that serves yourself serves no one else. Where is the perspective in that?-P.S.
I thank you for catching the drastic difference in styles: simple logic to poetry... I was hoping to convey a deep meaning, and I think you got it!

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"