zurew

For example, in a courtroom where one needs to prove a rape case and lets say there is DNA evidence and video evidence (of the act) and the guy who committed the crime actually confess that he did it. You can still say that you are skeptical of all of that and ask, " but can we definitely know or be 100% sure without a doubt that he did it? It might be the case that the video is fake, and that they faked the DNA test or that the DNA test was wrong and that they forced the guy to confess and lie." You can do that skepticism, but then one of the entailment is that you want so high level evidence and your standard is so high that it becomes impossible to prove any case - not because its unreasonable to think that the avalaible evidence proves the case or because the guy who has a lower standard than you is a complete loser because he didn't question all assumptions, but because you have a much much higher standard for evidence. Questioning is not wrong, but be good faith and be honest about what entailments comes from questioning certain things or from having higher standards.

Whats the argument that it is not an inquiry? See I can even apply it there - I can question your assessment about what even an inquiry is. That depends on what your concept of "understanding" or what you take to be enough. But operating in this vague cloud where it isn't clear what you mean by it makes it so that you can play these skeptic games where you can never be satisfied or argued against, because you can just say "why should I accept that?" and you can always just move the goalpost. The very idea that everything needs to be justified is something that can be questioned - that everything requires/ought to have a reason and justification or that everything has a reason. The reasonable way people do this (who actually wants to question in good faith and not just purposefully want to undermine the other's position for the sake, so that they can maintain their own position without needing to deal with any pushback ) is by being okay with and being honest about some set of starting assumptions. "Okay given these assumptions, I want you to show me how your conclusion follows or why it is likely" or you can attack their starting assumptions if you want, but you have to be honest about the entailments of being skeptical of certian assumptions , because skepticism sometimes undermines its own self and leads you to certain entailments that you might not be okay with.

Oh yes it is, Im skeptical of x - go ahead establish and lay out the reasons why you think x is real or why x exist. That is an inquiry. We can play these recontextualization games forever. Its very easy to roleplay the skeptic.

How can one reasonably respond to absolute skepticism? For the sake of trolling - I can just deny that consciousness exist in the firstplace and conclude that nothing is conscious and then go around pressing people to provide and arugment why consciousness does exist and then question all of the premises that they use to establish their argument.

A moderator and the administrator are exposing themselves. The trans shadow is coming out . To max out your cognitive development , wearing a wig like that is a prerequisite.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/26/politics/kfile-rfk-jr-trump-endorsement/index.html

Because you dont just follow wherever the truth leads, and the term of being an unbiased observer is often times meaningless. The idea that you can just passively observe things - thats in and of itself rests on certain metaphysical assumptions.

Relax , it wasnt serious.

Most people here could benefit from more reading (including me). And some of the claims that are made are non-empirical, so they cant be tested.

The shadow is coming out

The response to this is that its probably better to be aware of metaphysical assumptions than not. Now you might consciously choose certain metaphyiscal assumptions that might turn out to be wrong, but its still probably better to have an understanding of the debates around metaphysics than to unconsciously go with a particular set of metaphysical beliefs (where you are not even aware that those are beliefs, you just take them for granted). There is a difference between the position of "after deeply thinking about metaphysics and after reviewing in depth the arguments around different metaphysical beliefs , I think I have very good reasons to think this set of metaphysical beliefs is true" vs the position of "I am clueless about metaphysical debates, I have 0 knowledge about metaphyiscs, and I unconsciously go with a set of metaphysical beliefs, where I am not even aware that those are actually beliefs). Now there is a third question - whether it is better to not engage with metaphysics at all vs just dipping your toe in metaphysics a little bit, without seriously engaging with it. It might be the case, that engaging with it just a little bit is worse than not engaging with it at all, because you will mindfuck yourself and you will adopt a set of metaphysical beliefs for bad reasons (this is might be what you tried to argue using Einstein). But I think you are right, in that there can be made an opposite case as well, but that case is little bit different from the way you outlined it. That case is that some philosophers tend to make false claims about science, because they often lack the scientific knowledge and other times they lack rigor. Some philosophers also like to make empirical claims and then not back those up with any empirical evidence - they like to purely rely on their armchair.

Would you advocate for the idea that scientists need to take at least 1 class on philosophy of science and one class on metaphysics?

You can, its more like - you cannot do science without a set of philosophical assumptions. You probably agree with Thomas Kuhn's take on science, but agreeing with him doesn't prevent you from having a different definition for science and for philosophy.

@Leo Gura I know this is a complex question, but given that we have these two variables (one is spiritual development the other is cognitive development) and lets say for the sake of simplicity that these variables can only take on two values (low or high). I wont define what I personally mean by spiritual development and cognitive development - use your personal definition for them ( you don't need to spell out your definitions , its more than enough if you can engage with the model) We can create a small model like this: Person 1) low spiritual development - low cognitive development Person 2) low spiritual development - high cognitive development Person 3) high spiritual development - low cognitive development Person 4) high spiritual development - high cognitive development Can you describe the differences between each person? Like what would be the difference between person 3 and person 4? Your answer doesn't need to be extremely precise and extensive , I just want to get a general picture of how you use these concepts.

Do you take cognitive development to necessarily entail some kind of moral development? Cant you imagine a 200 IQ systems-thinker, who is a complete psychopath and completely selfish?

Yeah I guess we would need to flesh out what we mean by "not being careful about one's rhetoric". By not being careful I would personally say not being clear about the conclusion you try to establish and you let the audience to fill the inference gap (to make inferences for themselves from the premises that you lay out). Also qualifying your statements sometimes is probably good, if you know that a good chunk of your audience is prone to misinterpret your content in a particular way. I think that certain people cant be "saved" and will misuse your content no matter what , and those people cant be persuaded - so catering to those people is definitely the wrong move. Those people will weaponize your arguments and statements no matter what. Given that those people exist, is that alone a good argument to not have public talks and debates about certain topics? Probably not, only if there is a very good argument that can demonstrate that it has much more negative effects than good effects. There are other groups though (saveable people), where doing some mitigation (that I listed above) can be more than enough to significantly lower the chance of them misinterpreting your statements . So I think it is fair to ask for that.

Yeah, I have argued extensively against the favoritism of some of these people in other threads . I have a very low opinion on Bret Weinstein because of his incredibly misleading and sometimes outright wrong takes on covid vaccines. I have low opinion on Terrence Howard (when it comes to him being a revolutionary math guy or scientist - but he is an okay actor). I have argued against Terrence Howard in other threads. With respect to Eric Weinstein - I cant engage with his ideas in depth so I cant comment on that - but my general assumption is that people probably have a good reason to reject it. I dont have a personal issue with Dave , I also have no issue with acknowledging and admitting the great effects of his work. I think his rigor is very good and a lot of people lack that. I have issue with him being dismissive of certain things , or strawmanning certain things - and those things are mostly related to philosophy and not to science.

No I dont try to claim that, my claim was specifically aimed at people who incorrectly use the "but science works though" talking point to dismiss new potential theories (this point stands even if the theory in question is garbage - the point is not about how valid the theory is, it is whether the argument that used against it makes sense or not) or they use it to dismiss any kind of criticism of science. This is why I said that suggesting a new theory doesnt entail that science wont work and making a criticism of science (for example about methods) from that doesn't necessarily follow that science wont work (since you dont attack the parts of science that gives you the ability to send a rocket to the moon). I dont have any data on how most scientists react to new potential theories or how they engage with criticism of science, so I have no comment on that.

Thats a very good faith summary of what I said. A+ level engagement right there. Once you calm down a little bit and once you are ready to engage in good faith - there are reasonable ways to reconcile disagreements. Tell me when you are ready.

I think Dave's (be careful about your rhetoric, because you will fuel pseudoscience and science denialism) argument about scientist who criticise science has some merit and it can be used as an argument in favour of not having public debates/talks about certain topics (because of the broader negative effects on the population and because people are not mature enough to engage with certain content without misinterpreting it or without being misled by it). The question comes up - whether academia gives enough space and opportunity to academics where they can provide their criticism. And the follow up question is, whether academics are incentivised to not provide criticism (inside academic settings) , because if thats the case, then its not a surprise that they will eventually air out their grievances on other platforms.

Yeah - because of the lack of rigor , there is an equivocation going on, where people use a specific meaning for the term "Absolute" and then in the next sentence suddenly "Absolute" means something completely different. I have seen this trick being used in the context of a formal argument ( premise 1: if p then q; premise 2: p Conclusion: therefore q ) where 'p' in premise 1 means something completely different than what it means in premise 2 and because of that, the conclusion doesn't actually follow (but if we only look at what phrase is used 'p' - it could seem like the argument is valid) This method of randomly switching up the meaning behind how one use a particular a phrase, makes talks and debates about spirituality and philosophy impossible or at the very least unnecessarily confusing.

1) Im saying that Dave's attitude is irrational and dogmatic and sometimes doesn't make any sense. Especially his reply video to formscapes didnt make any sense. Formscapes provided very similar arguments to what Leo provided in his Myth of science series . He created a compact video where he brought facts about the replication crisis, he also gave a comprehensive argument about physics, he provided arguments on the limitations of certain ways of thinking about science and about the philosophy of science. Dave after seeing that video sperged the fuck out of his mind , made a bunch of accusations that he couldn't substantiate and provided 0 counter arguments to the issues that were brought up about the limitations and issues with philosophy of physics (inlcuding the assumed metaphysics and including the limiations of certain methods) 2) Im also saying that the reply of "but science works though" doesn't engage with a specific type of criticism thats aimed at a more broad and more abstract things like "there havent been any significant physics breakthrough in the last 50 years ". Attacking the foundations of physics doesnt entail that you need to reject some set of laws that will make science unfunctional to the point where we wont be able to build any tech anymore. One can provide a new theory that is consistent with those more pragmatic set of laws, while also offering solutions to other challenges. (hence why I brought up the example about Newton and Einstein). And my point is that if Dave wants to reject a new theory, or if Dave wants to reply to the lack of breakthrough criticism - saying "but science works though" isn't gonna cut it, because that is completely unresponsive to those criticisms. - Btw this isn't just aimed against Dave, because other people have used the "but science works though" argument in a context where it doesn't make any sense. 3) " What exactly do you believe scientists should be doing? " I personally think they should re-examine their methods and have debates about what kind of methods they should be using and they should collectively make a deep analysis on the effectiveness of their current methods and they should find a good explanation for the replication crisis and find a good explanation for the lack of breakthroughs in physics. They should also sometimes re-examine what science is and they should re-examine the set of exact principles and justifications that they want to use differentiate between pseudo science and science. This is consistent with the proposition that 'we should re-examine our methods '. The very fact that it is more and more difficult to make breakthroughs probably give some reason to be more sensitive to some change or to make a systemic analysis of all the mistakes and failures - analysing all the instances where scientist were wrong and where their reasoning failed and where the theoretical predictions turned out to be false.

Do you think the main reason why people don't eat healthy food in general is because they cant afford it? I don't think so , but even If I grant you that premise thats going to be more of an economic issue. Sure he can do that, but Im not sure what % of the health issues that will solve - I reject the premise that the main reason why people buy toxic food is because they cant afford more healthy food.

The way I use those words that sentence doesn't make much sense. What do you mean by terms like 'reality' and 'illusion' under which saying 'Reality is a true illusion' is a coherent statement?

People make comments about prevention but most people dont give a fuck about it. Lack of prevention doesn't happen because people dont know how to do it, people know about the basic methods but they still dont do them. Making a diet and lifestyle change is compatible with the current system right now and yet people dont do it. RFK wont suddenly solve that issue.