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EO Wilson on Order and Disorder.

Started by Kai, April 26, 2010, 03:12:21 PM

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Kai

QuoteI make a difference between The Truth and objective reality because what we consider to be The Truth is an interpretation of the objective reality, even in the most trustworthy cases. As I see it we will never strip away the cultural filters in knowledge completely, even when science has made a great advance in that enterprise.

The way I'm using The Truth is different than that. The Truth /is/ objective reality, and through recursive and reciprocal illumination we draw closer and closer as a sort of asymptote.

As to your final statement in that, how can you know?  :wink: You seem so sure of yourself, as if you...possess The Truth?

And yes, you can be two kinds of thinkers. A person can be one kind of thinker or two kinds of thinker, or maybe no kind of thinker at all. I would expect the majority of people don't meta-think enough to be more than one kind of thinker.

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Ikelos

Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 03:46:25 AM
The way I'm using The Truth is different than that. The Truth /is/ objective reality, and through recursive and reciprocal illumination we draw closer and closer as a sort of asymptote.

I assume you study/work in some of the natural sciences, I'm a history student the difference in how we understand The Truth could be easily explained by the demands of our respective fields of study.

Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 03:46:25 AM
As to your final statement in that, how can you know?  :wink: You seem so sure of yourself, as if you...possess The Truth?

:cry: Hell no, in fact I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and discussing about it. I'm just defending my current beliefs, that may just change in any moment in the future. I guess I can't really really know, but again, as you just said, :D we need to find patterns to develop knowledge. When studying the way people understand their world we find that what they consider The Truth isn't usually (in fact, almost never) the same that the person studying them considers to be The Truth. If then we decide that our understanding of The Truth is the correct one it is easy to disregard the way the other one sees the world (objective reality) and reacts to it as wrong. But then, if we decide that it is not wrong, but different and usefull within its own context (even if it is useless in our own) then, and just then, we can start to understand why they reacted like that to the situations they had to face. And right or wrong are moral categories, and I think we can agree that critical knowledge as we use it seeks to understand, not to judge.

So it is not The Truth, just a truth I think I can share with others that like me seek critical knowledge, simply because it allows an understanding of a greater quantity of phenomenons. Then, if we were talking about religious, mythical, daily knowledge, along with many others this thread would be completely different.

Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 03:46:25 AM
And yes, you can be two kinds of thinkers. A person can be one kind of thinker or two kinds of thinker, or maybe no kind of thinker at all. I would expect the majority of people don't meta-think enough to be more than one kind of thinker.

I guess not everyone can be the two kinds of thinkers, but I believe that to make a leap in the way we understand the world and in our knowledge about it there needs to be people who can be both kinds of thinker and don't need to rely just in the criticism of others. Just as you said, you can't be the both at the same time, that doesn't mean you can't be one and then the other and then again the first kind.

Doktor Howl

Balls.  The truth is the truth. 

If you jump off a building, you're going to fall.  Period.  That's the truth.
Molon Lube

Ikelos

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 03, 2010, 04:44:33 AM
Balls.  The truth is the truth.  

If you jump off a building, you're going to fall.  Period.  That's the truth.

:| Wow... I didn't saw that coming

Do you want me to answer?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Ikelos on June 03, 2010, 04:56:18 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 03, 2010, 04:44:33 AM
Balls.  The truth is the truth.  

If you jump off a building, you're going to fall.  Period.  That's the truth.

:| Wow... I didn't saw that coming

Do you want me to answer?

Doesn't matter.  Truth can change with time (it was sunny today, it might not be tomorrow) or with perspective (as anyone with a grasp of relativity knows) but not with opinion.
Molon Lube

Ikelos

perspective can change according to opinion

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Ikelos on June 03, 2010, 05:03:45 AM
perspective can change according to opinion

Bullshit.

Perspective, in a relativistic sense, is your position relative to the phenomena in question.  Can you opinion your way across the street?
Molon Lube

Ikelos

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 03, 2010, 05:06:57 AM
Bullshit.

Perspective, in a relativistic sense, is your position relative to the phenomena in question.  Can you opinion your way across the street?

:? maybe the problem is in how I use the words. I don't know, I'll need further definition or simply leave it for another time...  :aaa: Dok, you are mean, I salute you :cainftw:

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Ikelos on June 03, 2010, 05:16:08 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 03, 2010, 05:06:57 AM
Bullshit.

Perspective, in a relativistic sense, is your position relative to the phenomena in question.  Can you opinion your way across the street?

:? maybe the problem is in how I use the words. I don't know, I'll need further definition or simply leave it for another time...  :aaa: Dok, you are mean, I salute you :cainftw:

I'm not mean, I'm a big goddamn teddybear1.  I just get aggravated when people try to make the language all stretchy for no reason.



1 Granted, a teddy bear with the mange, rabies, terminal brain flukes, and a bowel infection, but a teddy bear all the same.
Molon Lube

Kai

I'd argue that in history there still is an objective reality (The Truth), it's just much harder to get at than in biology. But you can STILL test hypotheses, with congruence of data.

Also, thanks Dok. I'm not into arguing goddamn relativistic semantics over a word I've already defined.


Ikelos, I think you're using "truth" to mean a person's deeply held beliefs or opinions. That's definitely not what I mean when I use it.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Placid Dingo

If you've read Herodotus's histories, you begin to really appreciate the mess of fiction, fact, narrative and bias that is history.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

Ikelos

Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 12:30:28 PM
I'd argue that in history there still is an objective reality (The Truth), it's just much harder to get at than in biology. But you can STILL test hypotheses, with congruence of data.

Yes, there is an objective reality (the facts, the processes and the phenomenons), but then we can only know it from the sources, which usually don't describe the event the same way... but most of the time we can't consider them to lie... just understood it differently... And then the ways they understood them are by itself part of the historical reality (and a really interesting part, if you ask me).


Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 12:30:28 PM
Ikelos, I think you're using "truth" to mean a person's deeply held beliefs or opinions. That's definitely not what I mean when I use it.
Not exactly... it is more something like how people understand reality based in their beliefs, opinions and cultural context (mentality and ideology), but I get your point here.

Kai

Quote from: Ikelos on June 03, 2010, 03:27:02 PM
Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 12:30:28 PM
I'd argue that in history there still is an objective reality (The Truth), it's just much harder to get at than in biology. But you can STILL test hypotheses, with congruence of data.

Yes, there is an objective reality (the facts, the processes and the phenomenons), but then we can only know it from the sources, which usually don't describe the event the same way... but most of the time we can't consider them to lie... just understood it differently... And then the ways they understood them are by itself part of the historical reality (and a really interesting part, if you ask me).

Take sources and statements. Use them via consistency to develop models/hypotheses of patterns/situations/events/etc. Test models with congruence with additional sources and statements. Rinse, repeat ad infinitum. Thats how we do historical sciences such as comparative biogeography, paleontology, geology, astronomy, systematics, and historical anthropology, also known as *gasp* history.


Quote
Quote from: Kai on June 03, 2010, 12:30:28 PM
Ikelos, I think you're using "truth" to mean a person's deeply held beliefs or opinions. That's definitely not what I mean when I use it.
Not exactly... it is more something like how people understand reality based in their beliefs, opinions and cultural context (mentality and ideology), but I get your point here.

The point should be, I'm using my terms in a very specific way. I have described and defined my terms clearly, and you obviously know what I mean. But right now, you aren't attacking my argument, you're playing with semantics even though there's no need because I clearly defined my terms. The reason isn't because you don't agree with it, it's because you don't LIKE it.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Kai

Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 03, 2010, 12:56:41 PM
If you've read Herodotus's histories, you begin to really appreciate the mess of fiction, fact, narrative and bias that is history.

Next you're going to tell me that people have conducted poorly designed experiments before.  :lulz:
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Ikelos on June 03, 2010, 03:27:02 PM

Not exactly... it is more something like how people understand reality based in their beliefs, opinions and cultural context (mentality and ideology), but I get your point here.

No, that's opinion.
Molon Lube