Discourse with athests on the Nature of Knowledge.

This is from an exchange on carm some time back. It begins with a discussion about phenomenology. they are still too lazy to read the Stanford article I keep linking to. When I mention it as an alternative to scinece as the only form of knowledge they begin treating it as though it's auditioning to replace science as a new kind of scinece as though there can only be one kind of knowledge and any other would have to be a copy of scinece.



Originally Posted by TeabagSalad View Post

So it is science but not science, having been trained and worked in science I have a fairly clear idea of what science actually is. Would you care to explain how it differs from science?
did you read the article form Standford? That should explain exactly what phenomenology is.

Here is the first paragraph (since you wont read it) it says exactly what Phenomenology is:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions."

You can do that as a philosopher or a scientist. you can do it in a systemic way using scientific methods or you can do it as a philosopher. But the major difference in Heideggarian phenomenology (which is different from Husserl's) would be to allow the sense data to dictate the categories into which you group phenomena.

You can't do that in scinece because scinece is the preconceived selection of categories.

So that's one major difference in phenom as philosophy and Phenom as science.

Science provides us with an understanding of the universe because it is based in and supported by evidence. From my perspective any form of philosophy provides us with ideas, nothing more.
But your evdience is selective. you use the method to include what backs your ideology and you use reductionism to exclude what you don't want. That's why you don't accept religious experience studies because you "I can't have that being scinece that would mess up my ideology of fact-based anti-Godism." why can't you see these words on the screen? why do you ignore what I'm saying? I've these words 100,000 times and you are still saying the same slogans without thinking about what they mean!

You are not allowing the sense data to shape the categories you are forcing them into categories you want it to be in.

Teabag

Until a philosophical idea is supported by evidence it can be dismissed without evidence just as easily.

That's an ideolgoical answer. It what the ideologue says when he's doing damage control.


There are all kinds of philosophical evidence. I've given of it over and over again.

A cannot be non A same place/time

A is contradicted by not A

therefore, not A is not the answer

that's evdience. it can be, depends upon the situation.
you don't want it be evidence because it proves what you want proved. So you just pretend it's not evidence.e you screen out the evidence you don't like and pretend you are doing scinece. It's called 'reductionism.'

make up all sorts bs to cover it and pretend like it's a valid method. its' called "losing the phenomena."

anything can be philosophical evidence. You can use physical evidence in philosophical argument. you can use logic. you can use emotion, anything can be evidence it depends upon the case, and the rules. The rules can be discussed they are not just anything you wish you have to think them through.

Teabag

Once however it is supported by structured evidence it becomes knowledge - but also, by virtue of the fact that it is supported by evidence it also becomes part of the scientific understanding and this science.

Knowledge is anything you know! anything given in sense data is Knowledge. science doesn't control sense data.

That is fascism! It's only knowledge if it fits my method. It's only knowledge if it backs my ideology and my views--can't you see how incredibly fascist and controlling that is? do you not see what you are doing? my God all your doing is trying to control minds. You are saying 'you may not view the world as you view it you can only accept the world as I say it's true."



Look, anything I read think or say is knowledge. My mother loved me that's knowledge I have knowledge of what love is, that is knowledge. you cant' tell me it's not knowledge just because it doesn't come through your little jaundiced method that set up in advance to bless your ideology and God hated to screen out my values and what I want.



there is a yellow flower in my back yard, it makes me feel good to see it. that is knowledge. It may not be major knowledge, it may not be important knowledge but it is knowledge none the less. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and "My kinsmen Major Molenoux" by National Hawthorne are both American irritation myths. that is knowledge. I don't care if you exclude it from your reading list, you can't make it not be knowledge just because it doesn't come from your silly little ideological deceit.

the literary concept of initiation myth, or any other literary knowledge, is knowledge! "The heart" is a metaphor for the center of desires, is knowledge!

Teabag

Erm...I have lived and worked in Europe and as far as I can tell there is little or no difference between the way in which European philosophers thing about science. It's still hypothesis, experiment and theory.

I don't see much evidence that you know jack about philosophy. Do you even know there is a difference between Brit/American and Continental philosophy? That's just fundamental. If you don't know that you don't know anything.

Teabag

I am not sure what you are trying to say here as that is not a proper sentence (can you see now why taking care of what you write is important?). I am fairly well versed in physics what with having a degree in it and having worked in a University physics department.
you have a degree in verifying what you want verified and excluded what you want to exclude. You have a degree in trying to control other people's ability to apprehend reality.

Originally Posted by TeabagSalad View Post

I was going to write a long and detailed answer that addressed all of your points but the further I got into you post the more offensive you became and the less inclined I was to want to continue the discussion.

That's how you deal with arguments you can't answer and passion for truth that you can't match.


Teabag

I read the article you posted from Stanford and it was very enlightening and interesting. After that you just became more and more offensive. Until you got to the point where you were just being rude.

why? Because I don't like being told everything I've read is non-knowledge and only someone that had your education and your beliefs and criteria knows anything worth calling "knowledge?" that's not insulating at all is it. When I say it to you it is, you have say to me it's rational hu?

Teabag

I will address one point. You make the comment that I reject the studies on religious experience because you say that I think it would mess with my ideology. This is not the case, I do not reject the studies but I reject the way in which you interpret them.

now explain why it is the the major researcher who wrote the M scale and several other major figure in the feild say my interpretation is right? I have at least three major researchers who did major studies in that 200 and they all say I got it right.

you haven't read one so how can you even know?

The studies quite clearly show that for the most part "religious experience" can be beneficial to the well being of a human. You go on to use these to promote the idea that there must be something "supernatural" granting this benefit.

Now teabag here is one of your major misunderstandings. I do not say that the studies prove supernatural. I don't say the experiences are supernatural. I say the experience are exactly what the term supernatural was originally about. The experiences are the supernatural! What you understand he supernatural to be is not the supernatural! see? you have the wrong concept. you don't use the right concept. What I say about the studies meaning is totally different than what you think I'm saying because you have hte wrong idea about that SN is.

This is a massive assumption and dismisses the possibility that the benefit is purely psychological.
No it's not. That might be the case if what you think SN means was what I'm saying the studies mean. Since that's not the Case then your point is moot.

why do you think I quote one of the researchers, Abraham Masclow in my signature? read what he says there.

"Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, fromPeak Experience"

--Abrham Maslow

(sacred, eternal, symbolic=SN)


He was an atheist. he' snot speaking of ESP and Remote viewing when he says if you can't see the SN you are blind. He's saying the Experiences themselves are the SN.

That means the existence of the experience proves the SN a prori, but not in the form you think it takes.

As an atheist one of the most difficult and stressful things to deal with is the fact that when you die that is it, quite a few of us worry about that quite a lot and it can be very depressing.
Most atheists deny that. I've always known its true because I was an atheist. I suspect it's also true that most atheists are scared to death about hell. But atheists deny this.

Religion on the other hand often promises eternal life or reincarnation (etc) thus removing that worry thus making people happier. People are amazing things and all they need to do great things is to put their mind to it, there doesn't need to be a supernatural power to make it happen just removal so self doubt - something religion is quite good at.
you are contradicting yourself. Obviously. Since belief in SN is motivating the experiences they are what lead to life transformation and remove that fear of death (the studies show it does) then obviously you do need it! that's just prove a prori all you are really saying is "I refuse to accept this.

since the experiences constitute exactly what the original mystics said the supernatural is, they do prove a priori. Even if it's just chemicals in your head it would still be superatnural beacuse they orignally said the SN is!


As for the rest of your post....well if you had been polite I might have bothered to respond to it at length. However I'll just post this link as I think it illustrates my point quite well:

http://www.xkcd.com/808/
But you are not being fair because you trying "politely" to control the theater of argument that to the text that I don't know anything because things I study aren't knowledge. No who has spent a life time of learning is going to sit still for that.


Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post To HRG

I am really amazed that an adult, presumably who went to college doesn't know about the metahpr the heart in relation to feelilngs and inner life of the mind. It's silly.How could this be. How did you go through not knowing about this concept?

HRG!

I know very well about the metaphor. That does not mean that it should be used for vague phrases like "inner life of the mind".

Isn't it time that we stopped referring to the views of people who lived 2000 years ago and thought that the brain is just a cooling device ?

So telling, the atheist thinks the inner life of the mind is a veg phrase that hold no meaning for him. That's because they don't think. They just spout slogans form the template. The attitude toward timeless truth< "they didn't nkow some obscre fact about scinece so they can't know anything. But he's just as wrong about the brain becuase he totally ignores the top down causation evidence that proves the brain/mind distinction.