About Skepticism

[william.scherk]

I like this thread's rambling quality. It rambles along noting the values and pitfalls and cast and crew of the Two Poles of Skepticism, the tome-laden approach via the lectern and scholarly missive, and the active operative agent at work in the world.

It should give great cheer to any Objectivish-minded person to more perfectly marry the 'good' in Skepticism to Rand, for she was indeed of that vast horde who are skeptical by bent. It was her ruthless criticism of The Norm in her homeland, in her home and in her school that marked her for death by Stalin.

Reclaim Rand for small-s skepticism and reclaim skepticism as an acceptable Objectivish activity? That way Objectivists of differing stripe can break bread with some great folks whose interests sometimes align with theirs, go to fun conventions and meet smart atheist ladies who could fall for a Galt. The half-love for Hitchens and Dawkins and other arch-skeptics of religion are an indication to me that the marriage would be effective.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

This ends my missionary work for The Skeptical Movement today.

Edited May 27, 2012 by william.scherk

[Mikee]

I was surprised when first discovering the Ayn Rand sites at the hostility to Popper and to any degree of skepticism. Not being a philosophical or objectivist scholar I supposed I had a different definition for skepticism. I learned that not having absolute certainty about everything appeared to some "objectivists" to have succumed to "mysticism" and "subjectism" and to be immoral.

I believe things are not so simple that we can have absolute certainty about much of anything. To pretend to absolute certainty is possible only for those who do nothing, those who never solve problems or make any decisions of any import. If you are action oriented, if you believe that your thinking must always lead to actions guided by your values, you do things. And in the doing of them know how complicated nature and people are and that we often make mistakes due to imperfect knowledge. You can only avoid knowing this if you do little or nothing.

That said, there are things we can be pretty damned certain of. Perhaps not 100%, but 99.9999%. Decisions are based on evaluating the degree of certainty of all the variables and principles involved in the decision and choosing the best path based on your knowledge at that moment.

About God: I believe the concept is made up, I don't see a need or a place in nature for a God. So though I will not say for absolute certain there is no God, I still regard myself as an atheist.

[Mikkel]

Hi Tony et al

I will try again and I hope I can do it better this time. Skeptics like me are often accused of that we claim that we know nothing. That is not true, but rather what we know only very few people would consider knowledge at all.

So here again it is:

Since I know that I exist, I might be the only mind/thing that exists. That one is easy to test, you can do that yourself.

• Stand up and turn left, now change your mind and turn 180 degrees. Easy, right!
  
• Now change that there is a monitor in front of you with the power of changing your mind turn it into something else. That ddidn't work, right! It means there is a difference between what goes in your mind, namely that which you can control and that which you can't control. The latter is something else; i.e. objective reality.
  
• Know we have ruled out ontological solipsism.
  

Now onto ontological dualism.

• If there is something which is different in the ontological sense, that I can't know it, because it exists in another reality. So everything I know though different from me as something must be in the same reality, hence we get ontological monism.
  

Now back to the primacy of existence as ontological neutral monism versus the primacy of consciousness combined with what it means to know something.

• On to the stage enters René Descartes and his evil demon. Ask yourself this: How do I know that I am really reading this and that I am not being mislead by an evil demon. In modern terms how do I know I am not a computer simulation.
  
• Now ontological realism states that when you know/are aware of that you are reading this on a monitor, then the monitor is the monitor and not you being mislead; i.e. you are not a computer simulation.
  

René Descartes and AR used the same solution just with different words: God or the universe doesn't mislead. God/the universe is fair and he/it doesn't cheat.

Compare it with this:

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the Universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the Universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the Universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.

William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.. p. 2.

My bold. Now here is my answer to what I know. I know as someone/something that this someone/something knows there is something else(objective reality), but I don't know what that someone/something or something else is as per ontological realism, I just know that it is in the abstract sense. I don't know that I am Mikkel or that you are you.

"I know one thing, that I know nothing"

Socrates through Plato

In the every day sense I take for granted that the universe is playing fair, but I don't know that.

Hi Tony

Mikkel,

"I know" is not a subjective declaration: in my mind it's as objective

as one can be. It implies that "I" am as much an existent as anything which

exists, and "I" possess the existent of consciousness.

And what does "I" know?

To put the statement "I know" in Objectivist terms: "There IS (existence)

SOMETHING (identity) of which I AM AWARE. (consciousness.)"

A question: What does the skeptic think of induction?

It is my impression from dialogue with skeptics, that they think 1. Knowledge is

"out there", to only be proven by the authentic experts - and only after exhaustive testing then available, or of value, to one. 2. That which one induces from personal observation is of zero, or little value to one, and cannot be acted upon.

(E.g. an agnostic, one who refuses to proceed upon the knowledge that he has induced, with overwhelming self-evidence - that God does not exist - clinging to the miniscule possibility that He does.)

Those are the reasons for my thinking that Skepticism, (as philosophy) is authoritarian, collectivist and immobilized.

Thanks for your input,

Tony

Again not just you, Tony.

• Existence exists, non-existence does not exists and the primacy of existence. Check.
  
• The law of identity and of non-contradiction. Check.
  
• Awareness and identification is identity. Check for the first one, but not the latter.
  

Why? Because that I am aware of the monitor in front of me is not the result of awareness as such (primacy of consciousness) but that there is something/someone aware of something else. That doesn't mean that there is ontological realism (one to one match) because we know there is misrepresentation build into reality. AR and René Descartes didn't solve anything by reality/God doesn't cheat, because that is begging the question. Further that I can misrepresent, but my brain(reality as such) can't, leads to ontological dualism or idealism.

Now René Descartes figured out that awareness is axiomatic; i.e. it can't be denied; but neither he nor AR could get from metaphysics to epistemology(ontological realism) without begging the question. Namely from that you as something/someone are aware of something else, it doesn't follow that awareness matches one to one the rest of reality. It only follows that awareness is a part of existence exists, but awareness is not in control. Awareness is secondary to existence exists and the primacy of existence, hence we don't know that reality exists including us as an one to one match or if we are a computer simulation.

Okay, let me try to explain it as from starting somewhere else. You know - check your premisses, assumptions, axioms and what not! Right, I know you do. That is Skepticism and nothing else and it is the sibling of - How is it known? So all Skeptics do is exactly that!!! We hammer away at everything taken for granted; what we have been told as common sense knowledge or self-evident/axiomatic. And I am sorry to say - Identification is identity is not self-evident or axiomatic. Rather it is a core assumption; i.e. Skeptics assume that reality plays fair, not that it is self-evident or axiomatic.

For the rest of your post, Tony, I won't answer it right away, because it entails who holds the authoritative truth over what is good and evil. But rather this - philosophy is also an ideal, namely always to tell the truth. In a broader sense philosophy is the combined effort of many humans over time with the use of critical thinking(Skepticism) to figure out reality; i.e. finding the correct methodology for finding the correct answers - truth.

But it involves that you take your time and check your premisses all the way down to where metaphysics turns into epistemology. As a slogan it goes like this: "Metaphysics is easy, epistemology is hard." Awareness as metaphysics is easy, it is self-evident; but as epistemology, logic and ethics it is hard, because it involves a fucking lot of checking your premisses.

With regards

Mikkel

[Mikkel]

I like this thread's rambling quality. It rambles along noting the values and pitfalls and cast and crew of the Two Poles of Skepticism, the tome-laden approach via the lectern and scholarly missive, and the active operative agent at work in the world.

It should give great cheer to any Objectivish-minded person to more perfectly marry the 'good' in Skepticism to Rand, for she was indeed of that vast horde who are skeptical by bent. It was her ruthless criticism of The Norm in her homeland, in her home and in her school that marked her for death by Stalin.

Reclaim Rand for small-s skepticism and reclaim skepticism as an acceptable Objectivish activity? That way Objectivists of differing stripe can break bread with some great folks whose interests sometimes align with theirs, go to fun conventions and meet smart atheist ladies who could fall for a Galt. The half-love for Hitchens and Dawkins and other arch-skeptics of religion are an indication to me that the marriage would be effective.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

This ends my missionary work for The Skeptical Movement today.

Nice post

As noted by Tony some skeptics are authoritarian, collectivist and immobilized. But not all, Skeptics are inherently anti-authoritarian in the collective sense, but we are not immobilized. We are hard to understand, because in the common sense we don't know anything, we only take for granted, assume and state it seems that... Yet we operate in everyday reality like everybody else, just with a different cognitive methodology that non-Skeptics.

With regards

Mikkel

[anthony]

I was surprised when first discovering the Ayn Rand sites at the hostility to Popper and to any degree of skepticism. Not being a philosophical or objectivist scholar I supposed I had a different definition for skepticism. I learned that not having absolute certainty about everything appeared to some "objectivists" to have succumed to "mysticism" and "subjectism" and to be immoral.

I believe things are not so simple that we can have absolute certainty about much of anything. To pretend to absolute certainty is possible only for those who do nothing, those who never solve problems or make any decisions of any import. If you are action oriented, if you believe that your thinking must always lead to actions guided by your values, you do things. And in the doing of them know how complicated nature and people are and that we often make mistakes due to imperfect knowledge. You can only avoid knowing this if you do little or nothing.

That said, there are things we can be pretty damned certain of. Perhaps not 100%, but 99.9999%. Decisions are based on evaluating the degree of certainty of all the variables and principles involved in the decision and choosing the best path based on your knowledge at that moment.

About God: I believe the concept is made up, I don't see a need or a place in nature for a God. So though I will not say for absolute certain there is no God, I still regard myself as an atheist.

Mikee,

Good thoughts. It's about time "absolute certainty" vis-a vis Skepticism came up.

My own interpretations here begin from O'ist ethics, looking back down the line at

O'ist epistemology.

What is the point of Man's knowledge - and the point of a specific man's

knowledge? Knowledge of what, for what purpose, and for whom?

We know Rand's total emphasis is on the life, survival and flourishing of

the individual. From this, one can reverse-derive that for the individual, the

purpose of knowledge is the value to his own life, which is an end in itself.

How much knowledge, and how complete must it be?

With her identification of man's concept building, no knowledge is ever

ended for an individual, but expands indefinitely. Non-omniscience and fallibility

of man, is a metaphysical given.

However, imperfect knowledge does not imply uncertainty and self-doubt.

To act (I mean to think, to communicate - and to take action) what is required is

rigorous observation (and induction), classification, conceptualization,

and deduction. The checking and double-checking of premises at every step, may

be viewed as necessary skepticism - i.e. temporarily not assuming anything until

full integration has occured.

But I'm unsure of that at the moment.

What I'm getting at in a long-winded way, is I think that the desire for absolute

certainty - in any person's life - is a core component of skepticism, and is

epistemologically and morally, antithical to the life of a rational individual.

"But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."AR

In the context of the laboratory, empirical and skeptical methods are all-important, sure.

But one's life is not a laboratory experiment; we must act immediately, exclusively

on what we comprehend right at this moment, learn from the consequences of the action,

and self-correct accordingly, if in error. To know, is to know something, and that

'something' has a sole purpose in furthering an individual's life. Otherwise, knowledge

is a floating abstraction I reckon.

[BaalChatzaf]

I simply do not understand why people have trouble with Popper's doctrine of falsification. It is a simple application of modus tollens. If Hypothesis H implies prediction P and prediction P is shown to be false by experiment, then hypothesis H must be false or the reasoning that led from H to P must be invalid.

It is the same principle that Rand invokes when she says "check your premises".

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

[replying to WhYNOT]:

I don't know that I am Mikkel or that you are you.

You don't know that you are Mikkel? What makes you think you don't know it?

[Mikee]

...the desire for absolute certainty - in any person's life - is a core component of skepticism, and is

epistemologically and morally, antithical to the life of a rational individual.

"But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."AR

This clears up much of my confusion. My definition of "skepticism" regarded people who claim absolute certainty as not skeptical. Not that skeptics desire absolute certainty. Given that I don't believe absolute certainty is possible I guess I'm not a skeptic. I'm not absolutely 100% unconfused however.

But one's life is not a laboratory experiment; we must act immediately, exclusively

on what we comprehend right at this moment, learn from the consequences of the action,

and self-correct accordingly, if in error. To know, is to know something, and that

'something' has a sole purpose in furthering an individual's life. Otherwise, knowledge

is a floating abstraction I reckon.

Well put. I reckon so also.

[Brant Gaede]

I was surprised when first discovering the Ayn Rand sites at the hostility to Popper and to any degree of skepticism. Not being a philosophical or objectivist scholar I supposed I had a different definition for skepticism. I learned that not having absolute certainty about everything appeared to some "objectivists" to have succumed to "mysticism" and "subjectism" and to be immoral.

I believe things are not so simple that we can have absolute certainty about much of anything. To pretend to absolute certainty is possible only for those who do nothing, those who never solve problems or make any decisions of any import. If you are action oriented, if you believe that your thinking must always lead to actions guided by your values, you do things. And in the doing of them know how complicated nature and people are and that we often make mistakes due to imperfect knowledge. You can only avoid knowing this if you do little or nothing.

That said, there are things we can be pretty damned certain of. Perhaps not 100%, but 99.9999%. Decisions are based on evaluating the degree of certainty of all the variables and principles involved in the decision and choosing the best path based on your knowledge at that moment.

About God: I believe the concept is made up, I don't see a need or a place in nature for a God. So though I will not say for absolute certain there is no God, I still regard myself as an atheist.

I'm beginning to think the idea of "God" is a step to something else, culturally, and I don't mean common atheism. While there is obviously a lot of agricultural patriarchalism in the biblical depiction of God, I think implicitly there is a lot more, namely reality itself. A Supreme Being is for children. A supreme thing is for adults. Reality is this supreme thing. It's to be respected, not worshipped.

--Brant

[caroljane]

Yes. Food, and men to find it, was and is reality, and in millennia of lack and plenty and miraculous adventure, we still seek. And find.

[Mikkel]

[replying to WhYNOT]:

I don't know that I am Mikkel or that you are you.

You don't know that you are Mikkel? What makes you think you don't know it?

Read René Descartes. In short in the modern version it goes like this: Consider that you are a computer simulation; i.e. you are not Xray. What do you know then? That you as something know that there is something else misleading you. You don't know that you are really you, but you know this: You are something, though you don't know what you are and you are being mislead by something else.

It comes from the primacy of existence over the primacy of consciousness. That you know/are aware is a result of existence and not the other way; i.e. it is not your awareness that makes you exist. So you don't control as per existence exists that you exist, you are a result of existence exists and thus comes the question: How do you know that you came into being as Xray and not as a computer simulation?

Hence the problem of switched worlds and what it means to say: I know something including that I know that I am me.

With regards

Mikkel

[Mikkel]

...the desire for absolute certainty - in any person's life - is a core component of skepticism, and is

epistemologically and morally, antithical to the life of a rational individual.

"But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."AR

This clears up much of my confusion. My definition of "skepticism" regarded people who claim absolute certainty as not skeptical. Not that skeptics desire absolute certainty. Given that I don't believe absolute certainty is possible I guess I'm not a skeptic. I'm not absolutely 100% unconfused however.

But one's life is not a laboratory experiment; we must act immediately, exclusively

on what we comprehend right at this moment, learn from the consequences of the action,

and self-correct accordingly, if in error. To know, is to know something, and that

'something' has a sole purpose in furthering an individual's life. Otherwise, knowledge

is a floating abstraction I reckon.

Well put. I reckon so also.

So to the both of you, between the first and second bold you are everyday skeptics and not a pyrrhonic skeptic like me, so ask yourself this:

How do I know this is true: "But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."???

You have to understand the status of the claim:

1. For all times, past, present and future, All skeptics are so! (That is absolute certainty, by the way!)
   
2. Supposedly AR has checked that there not other possible explanations for at least some skeptics!
   
3. Since it is an universal claim it is open to replication. I.e. it is not a mystical insight, but a claim about the objective reality.
   

So you two have a positive claim for which your own rule is that you give the supportive evidence that it is so; i.e. check your premisses and how do you know???

With regards

Mikkel

[anthony]

...the desire for absolute certainty - in any person's life - is a core component of skepticism, and is

epistemologically and morally, antithical to the life of a rational individual.

"But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."AR

This clears up much of my confusion. My definition of "skepticism" regarded people who claim absolute certainty as not skeptical. Not that skeptics desire absolute certainty.

Mikee,

I'm operating here at the level of individual epistemology/morality. I doubt I have to

inform you of the irrationality of existing in an uncertain state. Not having absolute

knowledge, is one thing - not being certain enough to proceed, quite another.

Possibly it's a false dichotomy, one that skeptics, of most varieties, allow.

The Objectivist position, metaphysically/epistemologically - for Man - is that

consciousness is equal to the task of existence. Which you know, too.

I don't see any split between the two levels. Man, as aggregate, over time,

can understand the universe. In the mean time we act on what we do know, which

goes for the individual, as well.

I consider induction one of the greatest instruments we have for individual

understanding. Coupled with deduction, we are each capable of large swaths

of knowledge. If one has inductively gained say, 91% certainty, time goes by

until the point it has become 95%, then 95.2% etc. - simply because it has held true.

I think Objectivism constantly frustrates its observers as result of this.

"How could she have POSSIBLY known that??" is asked of Rand's insights. She knew inductively,

and at every stage, checked deductively - is how.

Applied across many concepts, each person always has sufficient to act upon, even

if it isn't 100% absolute certainty.

[anthony]

Mikkel, (in reply to #37 -sorry, I messed up the quote function.)

Welcome to the world of the Randian - and Objectivist - 'sweeping assertion'!

I realise it must be mystifying/irritating to non-skeptic and skeptic alike, (and by now I realise too, that you're no 'standard' skeptic - if such exists).

"How can you know that?!" -

as I was just saying to Mikee, is quite commonly heard by O'ists.

The reply -often- is 'inductively'.

And even (not that you'll get this from orthodox Objectivism)'empathically'.

For example, the Rand quote and others I posted - that intrinsicism (mysticism) and

skepticism are only different sides of the same coin - was instantly recognizable to me as a general truth. I'd already induced it independently, by observation.

Living in a society of both the religious and the liberal secular (broadly), it only took so much time before I started seeing patterns emerge, similarities and distinctions.

You know how it goes, picking up dozens of clues every day, mostly not fully consciously - which fall into place, eventually. Any how, I came to exactly the same conclusion as did Rand in these quotes; though not as eloquently put.

More of Rand: "Although skepticism and mysticism are ulimately interchangeable,

and the dominance of one always leads to the resurgence of the other, they differ

in the form of their inner contradiction - the contradiction, in both cases,

between their philosophical doctrine and their psychological motivation."

This made sense, too.

As indicated, I am learning that skeptics cover a larger range than I'd previously thought. Checking premises, deductively, I suppose...

It is probable that you, for example, are the "black swan" among a vast number of white ones! The general truth still holds, though.

And I have inferred that self-proclaimed skeptics I've met are uncomfortable with and opposed to induction.

That's why I asked for your impressions of induction in skepticism - it would be most interesting.

(BTW: Descartes is considered the arch-skeptic by Objectivism (with Kant). Just for one, "I think, therefore I am" is self-evidently 'primacy of consciousness'. How do you connect him and Rand?

Who wrote in rebuttal: "I am, therefore I'll think".)

Tony

[Mikkel]

Epistemology according to AR is in part to account for words connect to the rest of reality. Now if reality overall is objective, which I accept, we can still ask the following question: Can the word subjective in any sense be connected to the rest of reality???

The short answer is yes.

of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective

The shortest version is this: If objective in the above usage means independent of the mind and you accept that the mind is the brain (primacy of existence and not primacy of consciousness) then subjective means: Dependent on the brain!

In broader terms it means this:

• For the group of living organisms named zoo-plankton there are some species who display the following behaviour: When the amount of ultraviolet radiation becomes high enough the individual moves downward; i.e. it moves to a lower depth in the water.
  
• Now take a sufficient high number of dogs or cats and subjected them to the following general situation: Throw a toy. If the number of observations is high enough you will observe the following: In most but not all cases the dog or cat will chase/play with the toy, but not all. The explanation is this: The toy itself doesn't not cause the dog or cat to chase/play with it. You have to look inside the mind/brain of the individual the dog or cat to explain that; i.e. subjective as dependent on the individual mind/brain.
  

Now between the different senses/meanings possible for the pair of words objective and subjective it means that the following "mistake" is possible: When we look from the outside (third person) at another human and overlook the following; namely that human is objective to us as he/she as existence independently of our minds/brains, but he/she as to his/her mind/brain doesn't existence independently of his/her mind/brain.

In other words for the metaphysical usage of the words objective and subjective; i.e. primacy of existence(objective) versus primacy of consciousness(subjective); the words change when we shift to epistemology; i.e. for the abstract to the concrete or if you will the everyday world.

The traditional source of the law of noncontradiction is Aristotle's Metaphysics where he gives three different versions.^[11]

1. ontological: "It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect." (1005b19-20)
   
2. psychological: "No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be." (1005b23-24)
   
3. logical: "The most certain of all basic principles is that contradictory propositions are not true simultaneously." (1011b13-14)
   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction#Aristotle.27s_contribution

So when we account for ~(P and ~P) watch out for the difference between logic and psychology(epistemology). It is simple once you can spot the difference. There is a reason why (at the same time) is written as it is. In the abstract for any P that in concrete everyday life for any given individual human holds concrete significant positive value, that human can't just hold ~P as also having equal concrete significant positive value. If P is a corner stone in that humans worldview, you check for how he/she handles ~P.

Now I am going to say this in straight forward words: Just because some irrational idiot holds P and claim you can't hold ~P, it doesn't make it true. But what is true is this: He/she will either claim that you will die because you hold ~P or that you can't have a really good life!!!

But this has nothing to do with Objectivists vs. non-O's, nor any other standard label including skeptics, scientists, religious/atheists, left/right or what not. It has to do with common sense or folk psychology and ethics.

It goes like this: Someone about someone else: I hold P and I can't hold ~P and since you hold ~P, you will die because of that and until that happens you can't have a good life.

Yes, I know, I am not nice. But I am never nice when I do philosophy, I just tell the truth as I see it.

The marvellous thing about being wrong, is that one won't stay there long.

Reality will take care of that, if one's corrective thinking doesn't.

So there is the standard Internet meme:

Someone who doesn't give evidence for his/her claim is wrong!

1. Transcribe into a syllogism: P1 - There are humans, who don't give evidence for their claims. C - Therefore they are wrong. Note the syllogism is not valid, though the premiss is sound.
   
2. Shift to the soundness of another human being wrong and ask the core skeptical question - How do I know that???
   

The rest is a "fucking" lot of words that boil downs to the fallacy of reification inherent in claiming that another human can be wrong.

So what objective ethics??? Well, AR got that one partially right, it is rational self-interest, but not as the highest value to any life form is the life form itself. When you check also; i.e. check your premisses and AR's; you check here:

In other words for all life the claim of "the highest value to any life form is the life form itself" is in a sense the fallacy of primacy of consciousness over the primacy of existence.

So back to this:

"But, psychologically ...the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist [mystic] who,

having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute..."AR

Yes, that is true for some of some, but not all.

So with that it entails for rationalization after the fact, here is at least some after the facts facts about my life:

1. I was born into a western secular society, which is only culturally and nominally Christian.
   
2. I was raised secularly by a mix of predominantly culturally Christians and atheists/agnostics.
   
3. I was never told that I had to believe in God.
   
4. The first time it really came up was when my grandmother, an evangelic Christian, told me that when she was younger she had have a kidney failure, which could have killed. She told me that she had prayed to God and that the Light of God had filled her and cured her. My initial reaction was of disbelief; i.e. it doesn't make sense.
   
5. So why am I a skeptic? As far as I can tell I have never believed in anything supernatural. Well, part of it has to do with what I was taught as a soldier. It is a mix of western culture and military culture and is German in origin. It goes like this (with strong induction in mind): Any complex plan Will break down when it meets reality, ... That is practically applied skepticism if you like.
   

So compare these two humans as to this:

The marvellous thing about being wrong, is that one won't stay there long.

Reality will take care of that, if one's corrective thinking doesn't.

1. http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/Images%20of%20Berkeley/Berk_life.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
   
2. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_aynrand_timeline
   

Now do it in general and ask yourself this for all of humanity: If wrong Always gets humans killed, how come that are still humans?

"You can't eat your cake and have it, too."

Yes, I am not nice but still with regards

Mikkel

[Mikkel]

Hi Tony.

In short: Our posts crossed! And I do owe you an answer.

No, I am not uncomfortable with induction. But I can tell as a "Black Swan Skeptic" (I like that one) that White Swan Skeptics are uncomfortable with induction.

Claim: I will be alive in two days.

1. "The words "I will be alive in two days" is what makes it true." That is magical thinking; i.e. it is the words that causes it to be so.
   
2. "I can see the future from the present." That is a contradiction as I understand reality.
   
3. "I have a direct link to the Ultimate Reality"; i.e. not necessarily God, but also some supernatural/mystical insight. I don't consider that possible.
   

Now in general induction of everyday life works for a sufficient number of similar instances in that you can predict that the underlying pattern will continue to be so. But always take into account any possible variations, which in principle do not violate objective reality. It doesn't stop there though: Imagine this - there is an underlying factor in the universe that will make the universe stop from existing as we know it 2 days from now!

1. Is that true? I don't know that!
   
2. Is it false? I don't know that!
   
3. Is it probable? I don't know that!
   
4. Am I going to act if as it will happen? No, I have no reason to do so, because I will take my chances that it won't happen!
   

In general every time you run into an universal claim of two factors, where the one is true and the others is false. I.e. claim - induction never works - thus you check. So yes; induction works sometimes, but not always.

Mikkel,

Welcome to the world of the Randian - and Objectivist - 'sweeping assertion'!

I realise it must be mystifying/irritating to a skeptic, (and by now I realise too, that you're no 'standard' skeptic - if such exists).

"How can you know that?!" -

as I was just saying to Mikee, is quite commonly heard by O'ists.

The reply is 'inductively'.

And even (not that you'll get this from orthodox Objectivism)'empathically'.

For example, the quote above and others I posted - that intrinsicism (mysticism) and

skepticism are only different sides of the same coin - was instantly recognizable to me as a general truth. I'd induced it independently by observation.

Living in a society of both the religious and the liberal secular (broadly), it only took so much time before I started seeing patterns emerge, similarities and distinctions.

You know how it goes, picking up dozens of clues every day, mostly not fully consciously - which fall into place, eventually. Any how, I came to exactly the same conclusion as did Rand in these quotes; though not as eloquently put.

More of the same; "Although skepticism and mysticism are ulimately interchangeable,

and the dominance of one always leads to the resurgence of the other, they differ

in the form of their inner contradiction - the contradiction, in both cases,

between their philosophical doctrine and their psychological motivation."

As I said, I am learning that skeptics cover a larger range than I'd previously thought.

It is probable that you, for example, are the "black swan" among a vast number of white ones.

But I have inferred that self-proclaimed skeptics I've met are uncomfortable with and opposed to induction.

That's why I asked for your impressions of induction in skepticism - it would be most interesting.

(BTW: Descartes is considered the arch-skeptic by Objectivism (with Kant). Just for one, "I think, therefore I am" is self-evidently 'primacy of consciousness'. How do you connect him and Rand?

Who wrote in rebuttal: "I am, therefore I'll think".)

Tony

I like your insides and I feel we have somehow gotten off on a wrong foot. For my part I apologize for my part in that and try not to claim that you have done anything wrong.

In general I have come to appreciate rational self-interest more and more, though I disagree about how that connects to objective reality as such.

As for Descartes vs. AR. They both still faced the same problem and so do we. Remember possible worlds which in principle don't contradict what we know about objective reality - I have yet to hear any good reasons why in principle we, right now, are not inside a computer simulation. Yes, it doesn't make true, false or probable. It makes it unknown from our point of view whether we are inside objective reality or inside a computer simulation inside objective reality.

With regards

Mikkel

[anthony]

No. You misread my "Reality will take care of that,[being wrong] if one's corrective

thinking doesn't."

Consequences of mistaken actions don't necessarily, and seldom, mean death.

As "self-directed" beings, we change direction at every turn in accordance with

reality. Cognition, extraspection and introspection, add up to volition.

[Mikkel]

No. You misread my "Reality will take care of that,[being wrong] if one's corrective

thinking doesn't."

Consequences of mistaken actions don't necessarily, and seldom, mean death.

As "self-directed" beings, we change direction at every turn in accordance with

reality. Cognition, extraspection and introspection, add up to volition.

Right now Real Life is biting me in the ass, so I will have do it short.

Isolate the following two reasons for living.

1. I do so in honour of God.
   
2. I do so in rational self-interest.
   

Now ask yourself this for #1, if any individual does so, does it follow that reality will correct that???

With regards

Mikkel

[anthony]

No. You misread my "Reality will take care of that,[being wrong] if one's corrective

thinking doesn't."

Consequences of mistaken actions don't necessarily, and seldom, mean death.

As "self-directed" beings, we change direction at every turn in accordance with

reality. Cognition, extraspection and introspection, add up to volition.

Right now Real Life is biting me in the ass, so I will have do it short.

Isolate the following two reasons for living.

1. I do so in honour of God.
   
2. I do so in rational self-interest.
   

Now ask yourself this for #1, if any individual does so, does it follow that reality will correct that???

With regards

Mikkel

Umm, not sure you haven't proposed a bit of mutual exclusion, here.

A partial one, mind.

For starters, for people who actively seek truth, reality is the best teacher.

And it is seldom a punishing lesson, for them.

For #1: the theists, they too, of course, live rationally and selfishly - up to a point.

They would not survive if they lived in complete congruence with their faith.

Holding 'mixed premises' ensures they live.

With#2; living as rational egoist doesn't presuppose one does not feel exalted

by Nature and existence; nor, admiring, respectful and uplifted by the creations of

mankind: this he shares with the religious, but without their mystical reverence.

Then in general, we are nearly all of us born into a support structure, of family, society, civilisation and so on. Not to forget the benefits of productive thought and creativity of all those who went before us.

Therefore, we are shielded from reality, but not indefinitely.

[Yeah, we cool, man. You haven't seen me when I take off!

Far as I'm concerned, if you can't hold your ideas passionately

why hold them at all? That's a sign of honesty in my mind, and what I

appreciate and look for.]

[Xray]

[replying to WhYNOT]:

I don't know that I am Mikkel or that you are you.

You don't know that you are Mikkel? What makes you think you don't know it?

Read René Descartes. .......

<respectfully snipped>

It comes from the primacy of existence over the primacy of consciousness. That you know/are aware is a result of existence and not the other way; i.e. it is not your awareness that makes you exist.

This is to be understood as a clear rejection of Descartes' position then?

Consider that you are a computer simulation; i.e. you are not Xray. What do you know then?

Isn't "You are a computer simulation" a contradiction? For either I exist in reality or I don't.

So in case the audiovisual symbol 'Xray' did not refer to me as an individual existing in reality, it would not be 'me' that is "a computer simulation".

[Mikkel]

[replying to WhYNOT]:

I don't know that I am Mikkel or that you are you.

You don't know that you are Mikkel? What makes you think you don't know it?

Read René Descartes. .......

<respectfully snipped>

It comes from the primacy of existence over the primacy of consciousness. That you know/are aware is a result of existence and not the other way; i.e. it is not your awareness that makes you exist.

This is to be understood as a clear rejection of Descartes' position then?

No, because I think, therefore I am doesn't mean that because I think it is when makes it is so that I am. Rather I think means something is thinking.

Consider that you are a computer simulation; i.e. you are not Xray. What do you know then?

Isn't "You are a computer simulation" a contradiction? For either I exist in reality or I don't.

So in case the audiovisual symbol 'Xray' did not refer to me as an individual existing in reality, it would not be 'me' that is "a computer simulation".

The question breaks down into these two parts:

• Do you, Xray, and I, Mikkel, exist as Xray and Mikkel directly inside reality with one to one correspondence. I.e. when you read this, then the monitor is front of you is a monitor and you are you?
  
• Or do you, Xray, and I, Mikkel, exist as something else? That is not directly inside reality, but rather inside a computer, which is inside reality. It means that you are not you as with one to one correspondence, because you don't exist as you, you exist as a computer simulation inside a computer, which is inside reality.
  

So the end point of Descartes considerations is this (not in right order between 1 and 2, but that doesn't matter):

1. There exists something. This something is dependent on something else (reality as such).
   
2. This something knows this but that is what it knows. Axiomatic or self-evident if you like.
   
3. This something can't know anything else with certainty because anything else it knows is dependent on reality as such and not something it controls itself.
   
4. Awareness is passive, i.e. epiphenomenal, in that awareness doesn't control what it knows and how the relationship is with the rest of reality.
   

So that is metaphysics. That, which is axiomatic!!! Now I am a skeptic, because that is what is known. For the other usage of know, namely I know that I exist as I, I don't know that. I take that for granted or if you like - it seems so... Descartes and AR did something else; they both claimed that God/the universe/reality doesn't cheat. That is in philosophical terms a dogmatic claim; i.e. it is neither true nor false, but rather it is taken for true without evidence that it is true.

With regards

Mikkel

Post edit:

In short:

P1: Axiomatic and self-evident thus sound: Something exists, that is aware of something else.

C: Therefore I exist as I and I am aware of the monitor in front of me as the monitor.

That is not valid, because it doesn't logically follow from something that it is me nor that something else is the monitor.

[Xray]

... when you read this, then the monitor is front of you is a monitor and you are you?

I trust my perception and cognition enough to answer wih a definite "yes" to that.

Or do you, Xray, and I, Mikkel, exist as something else? That is not directly inside reality, but rather inside a computer, which is inside reality. It means that you are not you as with one to one correspondence, because you don't exist as you, you exist as a computer simulation inside a computer, which is inside reality.

Sounds a bit like those Russian dolls where there is always another one inside ...

[How do you know that you came into being as Xray and not as a computer simulation?l

I think the premise is wrong: For I definitely did not come into being as 'Xray'.

'Xray' is a linguistic sign I chose, many years later, as a poster name on a philosophy forum.

If my brain can't misrepresent (hallucinate), but I can misrepresent, then I am ontologically different from my brain.

But misrepresentation is the result of brain actvity as well.

[Xray]

I agree with Mikkel above that "skepticism" enbraces a range of assumptions and claims. Pyrrho ("Pyrrhus" in Latinized form) founded the philosophy c. 300 BCE. He doubted everything and began sentences with "It seems..." But at root, SKEP only means "to see" because the skeptic demands evidence. ...

In other words I as a Pyrrhonian skeptic don't doubt everything exists, I just doubt what it means to say I know. And I properly ought to start every claim I make with "It seems..." or "I take for granted that...", but I don't, except when we do philosophy as here.

Even when doing philosophy as here, it would sound awkward (to put it mildly!) if one used "It seems" all the time.

Imagine for a minute conversing like this in a post: :

"Here on OL - which, it seems, is a forum - there is, it seems, a post - on what seems to be this thread - by someone whose poster name seems to be Michael M. Marotta, and who wrote what seems to be something about a philosopher who seems to be called Pyrrho. "

Proceeding like that would result in a commmunication breakdown.

Well, skepticism traditionally means that you go against unproven claims.

This is a rational skepticism, quite different form a skepticism where it is claimed that everyone and everything has to be doubted. Such extreme skepticism is self-defeating because the premise implies that the person who makes this claim is to be doubted as well.

Imo it is fallacious to attack skepticism in general without differentiating between its various forms.

[edited to remove an unfinished sentence I had forgotten to delete]

[anthony]

Even when doing philosophy as here, it would sound awkward (to put it mildly!) if one used "It seems" all the time.

Imagine for a minute conversing like this in a post: :

"Here on OL - which, it seems, is a forum - there is, it seems, a post - on what seems to be this thread - by someone whose poster name seems to be Michael M. Marotta, and who wrote what seems to be something about a philosopher who seems to be called Pyrrho. "

Proceeding like that would result in a commmunication breakdown.

Well, skepticism traditionally means that you go against unproven claims.

This is a rational skepticism, quite different form a skepticism where it is claimed that everyone and everything thing has to be doubted. Such extreme skepticism is self-defeating because the premise implies that the person who makes this claim is to be doubted as well.

Lumping these different forms of skepticism together and making a

Imo it is fallacious to attack skepticism in general without differentiating between its various forms.

Well, on this forum, I didn't think it was necessary to differentiate between

personal or methodological - and philosophic - skepticism. Maybe you're right.Perhaps it was needed.

As school of thought it has been highly influential, and has bred I think, many variations - insidiously permeating the levels of political, scientific, societal, and individual approaches and attitudes.

At heart, it is pure subjectivism and primacy of consciousness.

The connection from intrinsicism to skepticism (and back again) reveals and explains a lot: from failed and disillusioned Revelation of Knowledge - to casting uncertainty on existence, and one's mind to comprehend it; from 'Man of faith' - to 'doubting Thomas'.

BUT, with one constant in common, I think - a subjective desire for the perfection of oneself and mankind, in some god-like, absolute knowledge.

In politics, I think there's a parallel (if not more) with another false dichotomy: of religious conservatism and secular progressivism.

(You are right that much of skepticism is "self-defeating". It can be refuted by the fallacy of the stolen concept. "Rational skepticism" as you use it, however, is no

more than demanding evidence for someone else's claims - it's too self-obvious

to need mentioning.)

"Fallibility does not make knowledge impossible.

Knowledge is what makes possible the discovery

of fallibility."

"If man cannot grasp "X", then "non-X" stands for nothing."

[Leonard Peikoff.]

Objectivism is skepticism's (as philosophy)deadly enemy: O'ism, simply, "reclaims the self-confidence of man's mind."

[Xray]

"If man cannot grasp "X", then "non-X" stands for nothing."

"If man cannot grasp "X", then "non-X" stands for nothing."[Leonard Peikoff.]

But from the inability to grasp "X, there does not follow a claim that non-X is the case.

Example: We humans cannot (yet) grasp the "why" of quantum entanglement (which Einstein called "spooky action at a distance").

But from this non-grasping of X (= quantum entenlgement), "non-X" does not apply since the existence of quantum entanglement is not disputed.