Intuitions and inspirations: I think that I have figured it out

Naraoia said:

Hey, I finally found something we have in common.

It's not a problem to me either. (See the parenthetical in the post above.)

Haha, I highly doubt you just suddenly had the idea of a computing machine. I find it more likely that you heard about them from someone.

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But what was in the mind of the guy who made the first computer? Or the first abacus? What "evidence" gave him the idea of a computer? None, Nothing.

The Bible gives me the idea of a world-wide flood. I am now looking for evidences of it. People who do not believe will not see the evidences even an evidence shows right in front of them.

granpa said:

you missed the point entirely.
If each beholder sees something different then it does not behave exactly as if it existed out there

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Exactly. That is why atheists can not see the evidence of God.

When I see a rock, it is an evidence of God to me.

so its not really an objective reality it just behave exactly like an objective reality?
So he's not really a thief he just goes around robbing people?

it is certainly true that our objective reality may in fact be a very different sort of objective reality than we naively think that it is.
But its still an objective reality.

granpa said:

so its not really an objective reality it just behave exactly like an objective reality?
So he's not really a thief he just goes around robbing people?

it is certainly true that our objective reality may in fact be a very different sort of objective reality than we naively think that it is.
But its still an objective reality.

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When we look at the same thing, you sensed your reality and I sensed my reality. Yours is different from mine. So, which one is the true reality?

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

I am not understanding what you are saying.

Are you saying that all of philosophy is pointless? Or are you saying that up until X philosophy helps us learn about the world, but beyond X philosophy is pointless?

I have heard of some post-modern theorists asserting that objective reality does not exist, I suppose. But that is far from philosophy in general asserting such a thing, let alone assuming it.

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I think my general problem with philosophy is that I often don't see the point of arguing over unanswerable questions, or playing with hypotheticals that don't really help us understand anything. Solipsism would be an example of both - fine, it's logically possible that I'm a brain in a vat, but does that really change anything? One, I have no way of testing whether it is true, two, even if it is, my experience of the world remains exactly the same.

(Have you read Sophie's World? What struck me about that book was that every single chapter, it would convince me that yeah, this or that philosopher's idea made sense. And in the next chapter, it would do the same about the exact opposite idea. That really annoyed me, and the annoyance has stayed with me to this day. Encountering philosophers who tried to be all profound and insightful about science but just ended up sounding clueless probably didn't help.)

It is my understanding that philosopher means "seeker of wisdom".

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Yes, and "umbrella" literally means "little shade". Etymology ain't everything.

I do not understand why anybody would want to discourage the practice of philosophy in any way.

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Oh, don't get me wrong. Practise philosophy all you like. It's your right, just like it's your right to believe in God or to like cucumbers. The fact that I get grumpy about philosophy shouldn't discourage you from it any more than my dislike of cucumbers should stop you from eating them

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

No, that is not what I mean.

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OK.

What I mean is that truth/reality is a part of us--is within us. If you say that a tire is a part of a car you are not saying that you can only be sure that the car alone exists.

Truth/reality is within us. When we do things like compose music, write poetry, design a building or make controlled observations of nature (empirical science) we are becoming increasingly conscious of the truth/reality that is within us--truth/reality is being manifested in new ways.

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I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean by this truth/reality that's within us. Producing art, yeah, that kind of makes sense, since art is an expression of a person's internal world. It's where you say that by observing nature we discover something within us that you lost me. Say I've discovered something about the way my worms regenerate. You're not suggesting that the worms are all in my head. So what is it that is within me that I've supposedly understood by experimenting on them?

juvenissun said:

When we look at the same thing, you sensed your reality and I sensed my reality. Yours is different from mine. So, which one is the true reality?

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The one that can be verified with objective evidence outside of one's own personal perception.

intuition can't tell you whether something is true or not.
intuition can only tell you whether its reasonable or not

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

I have no idea what this intuition-free process of reasoning is like, to be honest.

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The closest approximation we have is the scientific method.

What we have found in science is that the natural world can work in ways that are counterintuitive. For example, we don't feel the Earth moving, and we can see the Sun moving through the sky. Intuitively, we thought that they Earth was stationary and that the Sun moved about the stationary Earth. However, we found new ways of scientifically testing this intuition, and it turned out to be wrong. Quantum mechanics has brought on a whole new host of completely counter-intuitive explanations, such as light being a wave or a particle, but not both at the same time.

It seems to me that formal science is probably the same way. Scientists may not call it intuitions or inspirations--they may call it something else, such as a hunches--but the same thing is probably going on.

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Actually, we call them hypotheses. What separates a hypothesis from an intuition is that when you construct a hypothesis you do so with experiments in mind. You don't have a hypothesis until you figure out a way to test it. What is interesting to me is that Nobel Prizes are not usually given to those who come up with a hypothesis. They are instead given to scientists who figure out a new way to test a hypothesis. For example, Einstein never won a single Nobel Prize for his work with Relativity. The only Nobel he won was for his experiments on the photoelectric effect which demonstrated the particle nature of light.

The main idea here is that reality does not conform to fit our beliefs. Instead, we must conform our beliefs to what we find in reality.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

Those are beliefs, not intuitions.

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What's the difference?

But the scientific method is used to falsify hypotheses.

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The scientific method is also used to confirm hypotheses.

Inuitions are affirmed.

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So the intuition that the Sun moves about the Earth was affirmed?

But we are not talking about beliefs. We are talking about intuitions.

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They are one in the same.

Scientists, through rigorous observation and experimentation, may falsify hypotheses, beliefs, perceptions, etc., but I would argue that intuition is their ultimate guide through that process.

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Ultimately, those intuitions are checked agains the world's data. Intuitions that are proven wrong are thrown out, and those that line up with the world's data are kept and tested further. The ultimate guide is the reality around us. Intuition is the inspiration.

Probably no two people have many of the same intuitions, but I sense that whatever intuitions each person has are his/her ultimate guide with respect to truth/reality.

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They would make very poor scientists.

granpa said:

intuition can't tell you whether something is true or not.
intuition can only tell you whether its reasonable or not

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My version:

intuition can tell you whether something is true or not.
intuition can not tell you whether its reasonable or not

bhsmte said:

The one that can be verified with objective evidence outside of one's own personal perception.

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I do not know such thing ever existed.

You tell me one of your version, I can tell you one of my version.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

Our intuitions are not to be trusted, we are told. Only reason can be trusted, we are told.

I have no idea what this intuition-free process of reasoning is like, to be honest.

It occurred to me this evening that this is likely how I function intellectually:

1.) I am motivated by and driven by deep intuitions and inspirations, probably sub-consciously most of the time.

2.) As I act on those intuitions and inspirations through such activities as finding reading materials, asking questions, formulating theories, having discussions with others, etc., reason and logic act as a filter.


In other words, reason and logic are not how I seek and find the truth. Rather, they are filters employed to make truth/reality--including the truth/reality of intuitions/inspirations--more intelligible and manageable.

It seems to me that formal science is probably the same way. Scientists may not call it intuitions or inspirations--they may call it something else, such as a hunches--but the same thing is probably going on.

I think that we need to clarify what reason and logic are and their role in the process of seeking and discovering the truth.

It seems to me that truth/reality is within us rather than something external. We use the external to confirm what is within us. Reason in general and reason according to certain rules (logic) are simply tools employed in that process and should not be mistake for truth/reality itself.

If I am correct, then, uh, reason would seem to dictate that truth/reality can be known through non-rational and probably extra-rational means.

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Well spoken. The heart and its intuition is where the faith, hope, charity, beauty and truth meet; or their antitheses, in the malevolent.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:

I would argue that intuitions always reflect truth/reality.

If "the evidence" shows that an intuition is "wrong" then that means that the conscious mind mistook what the intuition is telling it. It is the conscious mind's take on the intuition, not the intuition itself, that is wrong.

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That's an interesting idea. How would you go about testing it? Can we extract intuition from the subconscious before the conscious mind could interpret it, and determine its truth?