Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Self evident truths, that are not self evident.

peritonlogon · 05-08-2007, 07:28 PM

you don't see the solipsism-ish philosophy argued for so passionately too often. Of course, to argue against it really isn't that difficult, impossible to refute sylogistically, but, who considers that a worthwhile standard anyway?

Anyhow, infinitethoughts, you seem to be confusing a few things, "truth" and perceptions. Once you start using the language of perceptions, that is the extent of your argument. Since you have tacitly agreed that even your logical conclusions are perceptions, since, after all, that is their basis. Which means "truth" is really only applicable to the form of your argument, and not it's content.

But, "logic," in the sense of formal, catagorical speech is really not an effective method to get at reality (is it a wave or a particle). Efficacy, input/output, predictiveness are the modern standards (scientific method would be included here) and for good reason, they work, there is little chance for philosophical "subtlety" to lead you away from the obvious. This field of study was the work of Karl Popper and is worth checking out.

So, as far as "failed logic" goes, "all or nothing", may work well in language, but it doesn't correspond to experience and it produces a model which makes counter-experiential predictions. In your solipsistic model, I should be able simply to will myself taller, for elephants to mate with fish, or for eternal salvations in the present, but these things seem to be beyond my realm of control which makes the 100% subjective argument quite suspect.

This is a pretty common problem with language. Most philosophical problems of the past really just amount to linguistics leading to strange conclusions. This is also why certain philospher's don't make that much sense translated into English, while others do. For example, in Ancient Greek there was a real philosophical problem reconciling lying since the word logos had the connotation of both speaking and logic making spoken words much more closely linked to truth. As absurd as this sounds there were actually people spending their time arguing whether or not lying is possible, (which, let me tell you it is not

(that's a russel paradox)). Also anyting involving the infinite has historically caused some problems with most languages.

05-08-2007, 07:28 PM	#12 (permalink)
peritonlogon Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 1	This really brings back memories of college you don't see the solipsism-ish philosophy argued for so passionately too often. Of course, to argue against it really isn't that difficult, impossible to refute sylogistically, but, who considers that a worthwhile standard anyway? Anyhow, infinitethoughts, you seem to be confusing a few things, "truth" and perceptions. Once you start using the language of perceptions, that is the extent of your argument. Since you have tacitly agreed that even your logical conclusions are perceptions, since, after all, that is their basis. Which means "truth" is really only applicable to the form of your argument, and not it's content. But, "logic," in the sense of formal, catagorical speech is really not an effective method to get at reality (is it a wave or a particle). Efficacy, input/output, predictiveness are the modern standards (scientific method would be included here) and for good reason, they work, there is little chance for philosophical "subtlety" to lead you away from the obvious. This field of study was the work of Karl Popper and is worth checking out. So, as far as "failed logic" goes, "all or nothing", may work well in language, but it doesn't correspond to experience and it produces a model which makes counter-experiential predictions. In your solipsistic model, I should be able simply to will myself taller, for elephants to mate with fish, or for eternal salvations in the present, but these things seem to be beyond my realm of control which makes the 100% subjective argument quite suspect. This is a pretty common problem with language. Most philosophical problems of the past really just amount to linguistics leading to strange conclusions. This is also why certain philospher's don't make that much sense translated into English, while others do. For example, in Ancient Greek there was a real philosophical problem reconciling lying since the word logos had the connotation of both speaking and logic making spoken words much more closely linked to truth. As absurd as this sounds there were actually people spending their time arguing whether or not lying is possible, (which, let me tell you it is not (that's a russel paradox)). Also anyting involving the infinite has historically caused some problems with most languages. Last edited by peritonlogon; 05-08-2007 at 07:34 PM.