Love your content , *especially* the philosophy. Look forward to more. A few comments from my initial reaction..
1) A point where our views seem to diverge, that I've noticed before, regards belief as an act. I regard it as something that happens to me, but not something I directly do. I didn't choose or act to believe the world was round…
Love your content , *especially* the philosophy. Look forward to more. A few comments from my initial reaction..
1) A point where our views seem to diverge, that I've noticed before, regards belief as an act. I regard it as something that happens to me, but not something I directly do. I didn't choose or act to believe the world was round, it just happened. If I picked an issue on which I was undecided, I could do and act such as to examine evidence on both sides, and my belief might toggle back and forth as a result of that, but I'd be "doing" the evidence part and the belief part would just be "happening" to me.
2) In the example of "X=1 Y=1 hence X=Y", while I agree you couldn't enumerate all possibilities to check, why would you need to? That seems "deductively true" to me from the meaning of "=". Aren't you just expressing that something is itself? But I completely agree that at the bottom of thought rest axioms that can't be proven.
3) One concern I have with your definition of "faith" is it puts one who accepts the preconditions of thought and intelligence (law of non contradiction and other things) that can't be doubted (because doing so entails contradiction) in the same category as someone who believes they are a bird and can fly, or any number of infinite ad hoc possible beliefs. I consider it the goal of correct thinking to minimize the latter while keeping and building upon the former.
I also note on topics of both (2) and (3) you mention "can't be EMPIRICALLY proven". I wasn't sure if you were leaving room for "deductively proven" to apply differently, or just meant more generally "any sort of proof".
Having gone over your post (previously I had just watched the video), you seem to be setting up your foundational words quite a bit differently than I use them. I want to understand your points, so I'll work through it. Fortunately I have your book to help! For instance, in addition to not thinking of "belief" as an act, I regard it as mapping to the mental state of how certain someone is about a proposition. So it would range from 0 to 100% just like probability itself. And in the "rational / correct" case would match the probability "warranted by" the evidence. So I'd typically say we CAN have "knowledge" of uncertain things (probabilistic propositions), in that sense. I think this conflicts with your model. And I need to think through necessary vs contingent vs knowledge. I'll try to understand your system and restrict future comments to concise questions about its meaning. Look forward to the next one.
I say belief is an act , because beliefs are used as premises in Local Truths. And because we sometimes have to move from uncertainty to act. We must in these cases fill in missing premises with beliefs. This will make more sense when we get to decision analysis.
Yet you're right. My use of the language is a bit different than normal.
Thanks for response. You're "belief" seems to map to how I'd use "bet". I might be misrepresenting your position, but it sounds like you are reducing uncertainty in the premises / argument by moving it to "belief as act" -> "assume premise is true". But an alternative would be to keep the uncertainty explicit as part of the premises?? Just pondering, no need to respond, I look forward to digging in further!
Love your content , *especially* the philosophy. Look forward to more. A few comments from my initial reaction..
1) A point where our views seem to diverge, that I've noticed before, regards belief as an act. I regard it as something that happens to me, but not something I directly do. I didn't choose or act to believe the world was round, it just happened. If I picked an issue on which I was undecided, I could do and act such as to examine evidence on both sides, and my belief might toggle back and forth as a result of that, but I'd be "doing" the evidence part and the belief part would just be "happening" to me.
2) In the example of "X=1 Y=1 hence X=Y", while I agree you couldn't enumerate all possibilities to check, why would you need to? That seems "deductively true" to me from the meaning of "=". Aren't you just expressing that something is itself? But I completely agree that at the bottom of thought rest axioms that can't be proven.
3) One concern I have with your definition of "faith" is it puts one who accepts the preconditions of thought and intelligence (law of non contradiction and other things) that can't be doubted (because doing so entails contradiction) in the same category as someone who believes they are a bird and can fly, or any number of infinite ad hoc possible beliefs. I consider it the goal of correct thinking to minimize the latter while keeping and building upon the former.
I also note on topics of both (2) and (3) you mention "can't be EMPIRICALLY proven". I wasn't sure if you were leaving room for "deductively proven" to apply differently, or just meant more generally "any sort of proof".
Having gone over your post (previously I had just watched the video), you seem to be setting up your foundational words quite a bit differently than I use them. I want to understand your points, so I'll work through it. Fortunately I have your book to help! For instance, in addition to not thinking of "belief" as an act, I regard it as mapping to the mental state of how certain someone is about a proposition. So it would range from 0 to 100% just like probability itself. And in the "rational / correct" case would match the probability "warranted by" the evidence. So I'd typically say we CAN have "knowledge" of uncertain things (probabilistic propositions), in that sense. I think this conflicts with your model. And I need to think through necessary vs contingent vs knowledge. I'll try to understand your system and restrict future comments to concise questions about its meaning. Look forward to the next one.
aon,
I say belief is an act , because beliefs are used as premises in Local Truths. And because we sometimes have to move from uncertainty to act. We must in these cases fill in missing premises with beliefs. This will make more sense when we get to decision analysis.
Yet you're right. My use of the language is a bit different than normal.
Thanks.
Thanks for response. You're "belief" seems to map to how I'd use "bet". I might be misrepresenting your position, but it sounds like you are reducing uncertainty in the premises / argument by moving it to "belief as act" -> "assume premise is true". But an alternative would be to keep the uncertainty explicit as part of the premises?? Just pondering, no need to respond, I look forward to digging in further!