Felicity

Although I appreciate all that you wrote concerning the "experience" of pain and "learning" based on sensory perceptions, I think you step too far beyond the issue I am trying to resolve. I am willing to make assumptions based on what I cannot know through empirical evidence and accept what is most logical to be the truth despite concrete evidence. I can accept something as truth based upon the preponderance of indicating evidence, even though ultimately a particular question cannot be empirically proved. And, (here's the crux) I will admit to it.

My issue is with how those that refuse to acknowledge that ultimately ALL knowledge can be reduced to such an elemental state that one cannot "empirically prove" its existence, though the preponderance of evidence may point to it and you're a fool not to accept that which cannot be proven as true. The very thought that blinks into the rational mind and creates meaning within the individual cannot be empirically proved--I am not talking about the physical firing of synapses--I am talking about the "meaning" that is created as a result of the firing synapses. That meaning is and of itself something OTHER than the physical mental processes--and that meaning can be transferred to others, but there is NOTHING that directly points to its existence--we accept it as "real" without empirical evidence.

How does the empiricist justify accepting that "meaning" if material proof is supreme and the ONLY means of accepting something to be true? The whole empiricist position falls because it makes no room for transcendent reality even though a transcendent truth is at its very own foundation.

nkgupta80

you're completely right, once you reduce knowledge to those base assumptions, we can really know nothing, and thats the furthest we can go. LIke rathi said, beyond those assumptions we have nothing, because our brain isn't capable of conceptualizing anything beyond that.

A_Wise_Fool

Are you talking about relative truth or that we can never fully 100% prove something because we do not understand absolutely everything about it?


Could you give an example of how something reduces to an elemental state?
Do you not consider what we percieve through our senses as empirical evidence?

Are you saying there must be something beyond physics that allows us to derive meaning? Obviously meaning must first come from our senses. If you were to somehow convey the idea "the sky is blue" to Hellen Keller what do you think that would mean to her? And then her meaning compared to ours? It would be relative compared to our senses. She could not "know that" the sky is blue. She could however "know how" the sky is blue from people explaining the process and science to her and thus assume it as truth. But she could never Know the same way we do because the experience differs.

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

Hmmm... not sure what you want that I have not said. I am behaving in a manner that in memory, defined as a thought pertaining to a past known experience (true or not), has served as effective mental communication. For psychological philosophy, I am agnostic about free will at the moment (although in the future I believe science may very well diprove it). On the subject of emperical proof, I believe that, although nothing can be absolutely proven, we should treat something as emperical proof if it can be:

a) Observed with the five senses
b) Observed in the collective memories of all who witnessed it, proven with an absolute lie detector test.
c) Observed by the preponderance of indicating evidence (as you stated) via methods that, based on experience, work to identify past events correctly with the greatest theoretical probability.

This is probably full of holes, but I am short on time and say to you this: the essence of a thought cannot be empirically proven.

Sheesh. This is starting to sound like one of Monk-Eye's posts.

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Felicity

That's the point!

--now...do you find it hypocritical that those that ONLY accept supposed empirical evidence as the determining factor that something (anything/everything) is true ignore that their very thoughts--those thoughts that they value as so rational and so sound and reasonable--are themselves "not real" because they cannot be empirically proved? There is no tangable evidence of them.

Felicity

To put it succinctly--perception cannot be empirically proved.

A_Wise_Fool

I think I'm getting closer to understanding now. This site helped me understand a little better.


We each should have a perception, as my own perception tells me of this. Now, my own perception cannot be proven to me since I cannot ascertain that my perceived experiences are in fact ultimately *true*; as in the case of The Matrix where their brains had a false perception of reality. The perceptional lack of empirical evidence thereof should not constitute hypocrisy though.

I see this question as having two scenarios. Either I have a wrong perception, meaning you are non-existent and my perception is a *false* perception, or both perceptions are equally correct, to whatever extent that may be [both could be equally wrong], perceptions which can communicate or affect the other. Two situations which both result without hypocracy. Let me explain...

If you are unreal then my perception is the only one that matters. It is therefore not hypocritical for me to weigh perceived empirical evidence and establish truth as accurately as I can understand it, because your "fake" perception is irrelevant or non-existent (even though I would not know this). If both our perceptions were equally correct to the same degree(again I would not know this) then I have just as much right as you do to weigh perceived empirical evidence and establish truth as accurately as I can understand it, and therefore also not hypocritical since you must do the same thing. I would assume the latter is true because I perceive that you are a human and your sensory input is the same as mine, but then again my perception could be wrong.

There may be room to argue against this in the respect of varying degrees of correct perception. For instance "when I see the color green you may see blue, who is right?" lines of thought.

Lightdemon

After reviewing all of these posts, the type of logic is very similar to post-modernism or post-structuralism. Even the most objective "truth" is subjective in the eyes of a post-modernist. There is no absolute truth, and there is no way to prove that it is in fact absolute.

But seriously.....what good does it do to state something like that?

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Felicity

It's not the lack of evidence that I take issue with--it's the "stong" empiricists that deny possible realities on the basis that there is no empirical evidence.



If perception is that which cannot be proved--why do empiricist accept it as true? You keep just wanting to brush that aside--and THAT IS the point. How can you even attempt to talk of perception--there is NO EVIDENCE of it's existence?

Felicity

I deny that. I believe that there is IN FACT absolute truth, but that in order to access that, one must accept that there is a transcendent reality that goes beyond mere empiricism.

That is true, HOWEVER, evidence of the reality of a non-empirical trancendent reality can be found in the processses of the human mind as they create meaning and convey meaning. Meaning itself is of the transcendent reality--and empiricists accept that!



BTW--have you noticed the hard-core Atheists aren't touching this after the initial few posts? Why do you suppose that is?