Reality?

[Sojourner<><]

I don't think we find certainty, in this life.

If you're talking about absolute certainty, I agree. But if we're after a relative, practical certainty I think we all lose, find and use it every day.

 

[quatona]

Forget trying to define it.

Why? I can define it the way I find the definition useful.

How do we find certainty within it?

Since you argumentate that reality is an undefined and undefinable term, I don´t even know what "certainty within reality" might actually mean when you say it.

Is certainty, once found, always subjective or objective or either?

Since certainty describes the mindset of a particular person it is as subjective as it can get.

 

[Sojourner<><]

moved

 

[Sojourner<><]

Why? I can define it the way I find the definition useful.

Aye. Getting everybody to agree on that definition is the tricky part.

Since you argumentate that reality is an undefined and undefinable term, I don´t even know what "certainty within reality" might actually mean when you say it.

I see reality as it is in a state of constant change. Since I cannot wrap my understanding around its entirety I must find something within it that I can trust enough to begin building an understanding from the ground up. I suppose that what I'm trying to outline, and vaguely at that, is solid ground so to speak. If reality were a vast ocean of change, could there be dry land? In my day to day life I find it necessary to find things certain enough for me to be relatively certain about.

Since certainty describes the mindset of a particular person it is as subjective as it can get.

I'm certain that you're right. But also I'm certain that you're certain that what you said is certain, whos certainty certainly exists independantly of any certain viewpoint.

The context of my original questioning is about how our minds work to find what is certain (relatively or otherwise) and then become certain about what is certain.

May I ask why?

Atrocities committed in the name of 'truth' are a shame to what I consider to be a very noble concept.

Indeed. Perhaps there is a catastrophic earthquake that both considerably re-orders the landscape AND knocks Fred out, so that when he wakens some hours later it is dark and nothing looks at all as he remembers, and he is also a bit disoriented and possibly had some memory loss, so that he can't exactly remember where he'd last been?

How does that work?

This is way too complex. What I have in mind is this: Fred of course still has a general understanding of the area and the original network of roads. What has changed is Fred's understanding of his understanding. In other words, he now understands that his original understanding of the roads will not be sufficient for him to plot a course to work. The only possible course of action that I can figure is that he must gain an up-to-date understanding of the conditions of the roads so that he can modify his original mental map.

I am surprised when people say otherwise. I mean, not to say that they don't assert everyday walking around practical certainty, but when they assert metaphysical or epistemic certainty.

I don't think the issue is quite so clearly delineated philosophically. I mean, personally, I think of all sense experience as being continually verified empirically, but don't see *that* sort of verification as leading to the sort of metaphysical certainty you seem to be implying. Fred could have warrant, based in experience, to place a high degree of trust in the *usefulness* of his mental model. Does this fact allow him to make absolute ontological claims about the world? I don't think so. (Forgive me if this isn't the question you're trying to investigate here, as it has occurred to me (somewhat belatedly) might be the case. If it is not, then I apologize for derailing your thread. )

This is where I think the topic becomes particularly interesting. Given that absolute certainty cannot possibly be achieved, when someone who has direct experience in some matter called 'A' says "A is true" what is he really saying? If he isn't lying he must be saying something of some importance but if he cannot be absolutely certain about the object of his statement then he might really mean "I have established a trustworthy understanding through experience that the truth of A is certain and you should trust me". As the listener I find myself naturally faced with a choice... I can trust him or not, but if I do I receive no real knowledge of 'A' until I test the truthfulness of his statement for myself. It's this inert, untested 'non-knowledge' in people that I find to be personally very aggrivating.

But then, my metaphysics tend toward the minimalist, and the sort of certainty you seem to be after is something I neither strive for nor think is possible or particularly useful, really, mainly because developing metaphysics that answer all the imponderables about the nature of existence and knowledge seems to me to invariably involve a commitment to some unfalifiable belief structure, and I just don't think it makes sense, or is particularly useful, to believe unfalsifiable things (due to considerations of parsimony, Ockham's Razor, etc.)).

I think you're missing my point a little here. The context of the thread is about practical certainty. It's not necessarily about the Absolute. I view practical certainty to be the most commonly used by all of us and is of the utmost importance. As I was talking about earlier, picture having to ponder the rational foundations of your thinking every time you had to eat or use the john.... a miserable proposition I would think; yet practical certainty is what we rely on in performing these kinds of tasks and for most of our thinking.

But then, I've been kicking around a theory that religiosity correlates with one's relative comfort with imponderables: the more uncomfortable one is with epistemic and ontological uncertainty, the more likely he is to be religious. Just a vague sort of idea I have, nothing I'd care to argue at this point.



This is an interesting area of exploration, isn't it? There is another thread in the philosophy forum wherein people are discussing whether philosophy (by which they mean, I think, metaphysics: ontology, epistemology, etc.) is really a useful endeavor.

I'm not sure it's *useful*, but it's certainly fun.

Regards,

M.

I'm finding it to be useful in understanding the mechanics behind the statements people make. I think it might also be useful in learning to deal with change more effectively. Other than that, who knows?

 

[quatona]

Aye. Getting everybody to agree on that definition is the tricky part.

Yes, it can be tricky, but then again I myself am flexible enough to follow the definition of someone else for the purpose of discussion - provided the term is used consistently in this one meaning and no false equivocations are made.

I see reality as it is in a state of constant change. Since I cannot wrap my understanding around its entirety I must find something within it that I can trust enough to begin building an understanding from the ground up. I suppose that what I'm trying to outline, and vaguely at that, is solid ground so to speak. If reality were a vast ocean of change, could there be dry land? In my day to day life I find it necessary to find things certain enough for me to be relatively certain about.

I don´t seem to understand why one would try to find solid ground in something that she assumes to be constantly changing. I have always had problems with the habit of reifying processes.
As for me, for entirely practical and pragmatic reasons I see pretty solid ground in that which most everybody agrees upon to be real. That´s why physical phenomena and reality are often seen as related, I think.

I'm certain that you're right. But also I'm certain that you're certain that what you said is certain, whos certainty certainly exists independantly of any certain viewpoint.

No, in this case it´s just a matter of the definitions of the terms used. I explicitly made my statement in regards to the traditional meaning of certainty, in which it is defined as the subjective experience of an individual. No certainty about ´what is´ was part of my statement.

I don´t seem to care much for certainty. That´s why I often like questions better than answers.

 

[Marz Blak]

Atrocities committed in the name of 'truth' are a shame to what I consider to be a very noble concept.

I understand what you mean, I think. But perhaps it is the case that a retention of epistemic doubt is what *prevents* people from committing such atrocities? What's the saying? Bad people are just bad, and good people are just good, but it takes a really bad idea to make good people do bad things? Something like that? (I know I'm sort of paraphrasing, but the original saying singles out religious belief and I think that atheistic versions of Absolute Belief are just as dangerous -- Stalin and Pol Pot being Exhibits A and B.)

In other words, isn't it possible that maintaining an understanding of the distinction between truth and Truth is what keeps people from committing horrid acts in the service of their ideologies at least in some cases?

This is way too complex. What I have in mind is this: Fred of course still has a general understanding of the area and the original network of roads. What has changed is Fred's understanding of his understanding. In other words, he now understands that his original understanding of the roads will not be sufficient for him to plot a course to work. The only possible course of action that I can figure is that he must gain an up-to-date understanding of the conditions of the roads so that he can modify his original mental map.

OK. So Fred starts with what he still believes to be valid knowledge and builds from there. Say, for example, he knows that since he hasn't moved, he's still in the same position with respect to his intended destination point. Only the routes with which he is familiar are no longer available, right? So now he knows he has to plot an alternate course, right? And this makes him realize that he isn't as sure of the relative positions of his current location and his intended destination as he thought he was? Something like that?

This is where I think the topic becomes particularly interesting. Given that absolute certainty cannot possibly be achieved, when someone who has direct experience in some matter called 'A' says "A is true" what is he really saying? If he isn't lying he must be saying something of some importance but if he cannot be absolutely certain about the object of his statement then he might really mean "I have established a trustworthy understanding through experience that the truth of A is certain and you should trust me".

I think that when *reasonable* people say "A is true," what they are saying is really what you have quoted above. Unfortunately, though, not all people are reasonable, and a lot of them are saying something much less reasoned and much more an assertion of absolute knowledge.

As the listener I find myself naturally faced with a choice... I can trust him or not, but if I do I receive no real knowledge of 'A' until I test the truthfulness of his statement for myself. It's this inert, untested 'non-knowledge' in people that I find to be personally very aggrivating.

Everytime one hears a truth proposition, he evaluates it inductively against his own experience, in a lot of ways and at a lot of levels. Does it comport with one's own understanding of similar propositions (based on his own direct observations and previous propositions he's heard from others that he has come to infer were correct)? How reliable are people in general when speaking about this sort of proposition? How about this particular speaker? Has he shown himself to be reliable in the past? Has he shown himself to be a subject-matter expert about whatever it is he's speaking on? Etc.

We make literally *millions* of such evaluations every day, I think. So it might be true that one has no *direct* knowledge about the truth of the "A is true" proposition until he tests the statement himself; but I don't think it's true that only *direct* knowledge is *real* knowledge.

After all, far more knowledge/understanding is derived indirectly than directly, and necessarily so: if one accepted as knowledge *only* those things he'd been able to verify directly, he'd have a hard time knowing whether to get out of bed every day, wouldn't he? He'd certainly be at a loss everytime something personally unprecedented presented itself to him.

This all said, are you saying you find it annoying to have to rely on indirect knowledge and inference to such a great degree?

If so, what's the alternative?

I think you're missing my point a little here. The context of the thread is about practical certainty. It's not necessarily about the Absolute. I view practical certainty to be the most commonly used by all of us and is of the utmost importance.

I "absolutely" agree.

As I was talking about earlier, picture having to ponder the rational foundations of your thinking every time you had to eat or use the john.... a miserable proposition I would think; yet practical certainty is what we rely on in performing these kinds of tasks and for most of our thinking.

Indeed. I don't need to have a thorough understanding of General Relativity and the principles of aeronautics to throw a curveball.

I'm finding it to be useful in understanding the mechanics behind the statements people make. I think it might also be useful in learning to deal with change more effectively. Other than that, who knows?

I think that having some demonstrably well-working theory of knowledge is certainly better and more useful than not having one.

Or rather, I think that understanding the processes one uses all the time (more or less subconsciously) to evaluate information for truthfulness can certainly help him refine his methods and become better at making such evaluations.