I don't think these preferences are motivations. I'm sometimes motivated to choose in agreement with my preferences, and I listen to something I'm very familiar with and love. I'm sometimes motivated to choose against my preferences, and I listen to something new. Are those opposing motivations also built-in preferences? — Patterner

And there is a reason you would go against your (usual) preferences. Your mood is different. You have a preference for trying new things. Whatever the reason, it is a motivation, based on your preferences. It could be at a meta-level: for example you prefer to explore occasionally.

Either the choice is made based on who you are in that moment or it has nothing to do with you at all. Then it's random. Still trying to see what this freedom is. This uncaused choosing.

I believe I am free from the physics-driven interacting constituents of my brain, and am not listening to the one I'm listening to because there was no possibility that I could listen to anything else. — Patterner

'and i am trying to get you to focus on what would lead you to choose one thing over another. If it has nothing to do with you, what would that supposed freedom be worth and how is it not mere randomness. If it has something to do with you - matches your desires, preferences motivations, than it is caused by your state.

The fact that you choose things that you haven't had a preference for earlier, does not mean that typ eof choice is not a preference of yours. There are all sorts of motivations for trying something new or different, certainly once, then possibly more.

The alternative is saying something is a choice, then saying it was the only possible outcome — Patterner

That's one other alternative. Some people would say there is no choice, that it's illusiory, and want to avoid that word. But even those who do not take that position can say that the word choice refers to when we mull over two or more actions and have the subjective experience that it could have gone either way or any of the ways, when in fact it was always going to be the way it went. So, the word 'choice' is built on subjective experience.

It there was any hint of mechanics, Brian Greene would not write this in Until the End of Time: — Patterner

He's not, there, writing about free will.
Further Brian Greene could be wrong. Notice that you hinge the truth of free will on the fact that someone says something. Further...

I'm not aware of any other scientist who contradicts him. — Patterner

There are scientists who disagree with him.

A property of matter. But, unlike things like charge, mass, and spin, it is a mental property, rather than a physical property. — Patterner

So, mental properties can cause matter to do things and there is no causation in the other direction? And why is there free will in the non-physical? What don't processes in that substance cause the next processes/phenomena to happen? Is there no causation in the non-physical, yet it can cause things to happen in the physical?

I don't. I believe it. I see no logic in the idea that conglomerates of particles that do nothing but bounce around according to the laws of physics have, for no reason, the feeling that they are something other than conglomerates of particles that do nothing but bounce around according to the laws of physics. If there was nothing but the physical and laws of physics, there's no reason that such conglomerates would have subjective experiences of any kind, much less the specific subjective experience that they are also something else — Patterner

What do you think the physical is? It seems you think the physical is particles only. Is that true?

The very notion of listening to Bach can be caused by various things. Maybe I see his name in an article. Maybe I see the word "pass", and it makes me think passacaglia. Maybe I read about Mickey Mantle's 565-foot home run, and it makes me think of Bach's BWV 565. Or, more directly, I hear a snippet of hiss music. — Patterner

[are you Swedish?] In any case, so these physical causes are leading to your decision, it seems.

But choosing to listen or not, and choosing which piece to listen to if I choose to listen at all, are a different matter — Patterner

But what is making you decide: desire, interest, curiosity, preference? ARe you by any chance thinking that determinism means only causes external to the person lead to what the person does/chooses? That's not most people's idea of determinism.

It seems to me that the mind grows as the brain becomes more complex. — Patterner

So, changes in the physical lead to choice?

I can choose between desserts I've never heard of, or between desserts that I have heard of, or some combination. — Patterner

And what do you think motivates you to choose between two desserts that you've never tried? What is the motivation? Is your choice in that situation motivated or random?

You seem to be arguing here that it has nothing to do with memory, so it is free. But what motivates the choice?

Is it random? Is it motivated by desires and goals you have? why are these causes not determined causes in a causal chain? The physical vs. mental to me is a non-issue here. Determinism is the idea that each effect is caused by what went before and in turn is a cause. Doesn't matter if these are mental causes or physical causes or some others.

Something leads to your decision/choice. If you chose because of your desires, for example, well these were causes by prior mental states and external causes also. If the choice is not caused by what went before and not caused by you and what you are, it seems a pyrrhic 'freedom' and random.

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice. No more than the boulder chooses which path to take as it rolls down the mountain. But when did that choice takes place? At different ages, under different circumstances, for different people. People learn things, and come to understand things, at different ages — Patterner

So, they learn things. These experiences become causes. How does this learning create an exception to determinism?

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice — Patterner

The problem here is you define it as something free, then use the definition to justify that it is free. We can certainly take on your definition of choice - that it's not merely a situation where a perhaps considers two or more possibilites, but rather the past does not cause what they next do. Once we have that definition, what is the justification for saying that the previous moment's state didn't inevitably lead to the next moment's state?

So, before we awakened, and began choosing, — Patterner

Are there any changes in the mechanics that lead to this awakening and freedom? What's happening at the ontological level that freedom is now allowed and how do you know this is the case?

But I can choose whether or not to listen to music at any given moment. If I choose to, I can choose whether or not to listen to Bach. — Patterner

What motivates the choosing not to listen to Bach or the choosing to listen to Bach? Is it random? Uncaused?

But when did I make my first free choice? No earthly idea. — Patterner

What makes you think there was one? What specifically leads you to the conclusion 'those actions on my part were not chosen, all those when I was younger than X, but I can know/show that at least this one, when I was ten, for exampel, while not being the first was free'?

I was mainly replying to this idea.

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing. — Bylaw

Any evidence will be called evidence that the phenomenon is physical. It made the meter shift. If affected the matter in our tech or senses, so it's physical. And then what I wrote in the previous post.

But part of my idea is that I think the terms physical and non-physical don't mean that much. Physicalism seems like a substance stance, but I don't think it actually is. If you look at the processes that people reached regarding their conclusion that everything (so far or period) is physical, you find a methodology of some kind. One that verifies what is real, rather than verifies something is physical.

As far as life after death and NDE's as evidence...
this makes me think of two things. When anecdotes started to be more widespread - given changes in our ability to resuscitate people in various catastropich medical situations - even the experiences themselves were denied. Not no an individual basis - like, you didn't experience that - but as it being soemthing that a number of people near death experience. To some extent this makes sense. It was not something doctors and scientists had heard of. But even when NDEs were experienced by a significant minority of those coming near death, it was denied, and that there were any patterns in these experiences was also denied. Obviously this does prove that the interpretations of those experiences are/were correct. My point is that even that people would experience these things was a challenge to paradigmatic assumptions.

the second thing is that how one reacts to what are now catalogues experiences, depends a lot on one's experiences. If a person has a lot of experiences that seem to or do indicate limitations of a particular paradigm, they are going to be more open evidence that also does this. Which is not a criticism of those who don't have those experiences and are more skeptical. I think both reactions are both natural and rational.

I think the work of Ian Stevenson and his followers around reincarnation are closer than the NDE research, though I have to say I haven't look at the latter research for about ten years.

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing. — Relativist

Given the pattern in scientific research and models, I can't see how there is the possibility to falsify the idea 'if we discovered something non-physical' we would change our model to include dualism or pluralism as real possibilities or the case.

So far, whatever is discovered and accepted as real in science is called physical/material, regardless of its properties or lack thereof. We now have fields, particles with no mass, particles in superposition - and also 'things' like this above the microscale. We have 'things' that can be in the same place at the same time - in the quantum realm, and 'things' slipping in and out of existence. Prior to these discoveries to be physical was a smaller more restrictive set of possible trait sets. I see no reason to assume we wouldn't call anything we find, whatever it is like and not like, physical. At least in science.

If Medieval theologians realized even the fairly traditionally physical (by qm standards) neutrino was considered physical and billions were passing through us daily with no effect, they might have said, well, sure angels might be made something like that. (and just to be clear, this was not presented as evidence of angels. I was trying to show how the idea of substance as far as physicalism is not fixed. It has expanded, not just in individual 'finds' but in what can now be considered physical). We find something and it gets called physical.

Which to me indicates that what looks like a committment to a monism and a position on substance: physicalism - is actually just a connected to a methodology and means 'real' (to the best of our knowledge real). But given the old monism/dualism battle and in particular the substance position battle between science and the Abrahamic religions, a stand has been taken on substance. And I can't see why some new phenomenon regardless of its qualities would be able to falsify, given the pattern, the substance claim.

How exactly will one misapply responsibility? — Nimish

An example. You break up with someone. it doesn't feel good, you fight a lot. You don't do this meanly. You just break up. The person commits suicide. If you take responsibility for that you're making a mistake. You're applying responsibility to yourself and you shouldn't. It's misappled.

If you mocked them, and told people false stories about the person, etc., you might not be responsible for their death, but you would be responsible for that behavior.

it depends. One can blame oneself for almost anything, including good actions. So, to me it is obvious, right off, that it can be bad to blame yourself. Then it depends on what blame yourself means. If you punched someone for no good reason and you realized this didn't feel/seem right to you, and self-blame means that you feel back about this for some limited period of time, such that you don't act violently in the future....sounds good to me.

If you spend a couple of years in depression, blaming yourself and considering yourself a bad person and you never really get at the roots of your rage and reaction...sounds not so good to me.

There's taking responsibiliy, which can often be good, but might be misapplied.
There's guilt, which, in my use of the word, is not helpful to yourself or anyone.
There's regret, which, if appropriate, is a good thing.

Taking responsibility to me means realizing, knowing and perhaps telling others that you did X or you are responsibile for Y happening. That's generally good, if the 'analysis' is correct.
Guilt to me means feeling like you are bad, but without really resolving the issue.
Regret, as long as you actually did something that is unkind, etc., seems good to me. You're not focused on your own nature and drawing some final conclusion. You're focused on your behavior, realizing you don't like it, hopefully understanding where it came from, and via regret should be less likely to do it again. Not because you walk around hating yourself, but because you really looked at, felt into and regretted what you did and the urge doesn't come again.

My objection is based on 4 points: 1) the limited view of causation 2) what the argument actually does in reality 3) lack of focus on the power players. These are not distinct areas. 4) ill-defined category: need.

The connection between these criticisms could be put in a question: Who is going to listen to this argument and what does that entail?

Most people will not listen to the argument, some will. Who will those people be? Well, people who tend to feel guilt, compassion, religious duty. Will the power players, who promote consumption, profit off of it and frame the way markets work be affected? Not much, I think. Yes, if a grassroots movement arose, corporations would have to adapt, but given their control of media and focus, I think this is unlikely. What happens when people who tend to have compassion are the mains ones affected? They give up their digital devices, cars if they can, live more simply, have less resources and, I think this leads to them having less effects on the world. What does that lead to? I don't know. But we can't pretend the causation is limited to the moment money goes one way or the other. What is need? (it's ad hom to focus on Singer, but he does have three children. That third child, before he or she existed, had no needs, and all the future expense of that child could have supported at the very least a number of needy, starving already existing children. Did PS need that child? Now that's ad hom and he could have a great argument and not quite follow it, but it did lead nicely to what I think is haziness around need - and then in addition limits around what the effects of the argument, should it be widely effective, would be. Can any Westerner really justify having a child or another child? At least if we look at it in the argument's choice moment money goes here or there approach.

One other effect of the argument generally not thought of is that those who hear the argument, but for whatever reason do not follow it, may well feel guilt. One can argue that, well, they should. But 1) people feel guilt not just from useful/valid arguments 2) this addition of guilt isn't helping anyone, and that guilt is not going to bite on the power players and sociopaths. It may even have detrimental effects when decent people feel worse about themselves.

One could argue this is a deserved side effect and will be outweighed by the positive effects of the argument. I just don't think that's the case.

The argument it seems to me functions as a kind of guilt trip, I think, and affects the wrong people.

We often look at the truth of an argument as what truths it contains. A little along the lines of Reddy's conduit metaphor idea, where we see communication as a kind of container/conduit for truth. I think it is important to look at what arguments do, not just analyze them in terms of what they contain. And to not just consider the effects that are easy to track as if less easy effects don't exist so we don't need to mention them.

Of course my sense of what it will do is speculative. But then, so would postive evaluations.

Since the Republicans are turning away from the vision of the Founding Fathers towards the ancient blood royal system of governance by divine rule of monarchs, and the Democrats are holding firm to the vision of the Founding Fathers who turned away from royal blood to individual freedom, the country is now experiencing a square dance do si do, with Democrats momentarily in the role of conservators and Republicans momentarily in the role of radicals — ucarr

We have the illusion of two positions and tendencies and point taken we now have the illusion of role-switching. But behind this we have incredibly wealthy people in both 'houses' and Trump like Obama who he criticized for doing it, brought in Goldman Sach's et al, the moment he was in office last time. Even then Trump was saying he was in the opposite role, but did precisely what both sides have long done, which is to increase the power of the banks and financial sector and weaken the power citiizens have over both government and corporations.

The founders, for example, were wary of both corporate and government power. Try to find someone in either group, dems or reps, who is open to revoking corporate charters. They've long forgotten the founders' wariness of the ______________India companies. That just one example amongst many.

We have tag team politics - good cop, bad cop - and the assessment of which is the bad cop and which the good varies amongst the voters, but essentially it's all tactics.

Thwarter needs a prediction as input. Otherwise it does not run. — Tarskian

That sounds rather the opposite of free will.

But again, as I mentioned in my previous post. Oracle could give it a false input. It says you will produce two. Thwarter thwarts and says five, which is what oracle knew and whispered to the judges.
IOW you have conflated the potential for extreme restrictions on the options with oracle - it must be honest with thrwarter and undermine it's predictions, with an inability to predict the future. Ironically seeming to show that we have free will by radically restricting the free will of this tool (oracle) and its tool using owners. IOW the owners of oracle could just tell it to lie to Thwarter.

It is accepted as proof, however, that no oracle can exist that can predict what choices programs will make. — Tarskian

Couldn't oracle simply lie to the thwarter. It knows what the thwarter will do. It tells it something else.
O: You will produce the number 2.
T: [produces number 7]
Which is exactly what oracle had predicted and [whispered] to the experimenters.

It seems like the scenario is conflated a specific chain of events with an inability to accurately predict the future. Yes, that app if it is forced to say it's conclusion to thwarter might not be able to predict that one part of the future. But that doesn't mean an app couldn't predict the future - though I think there are computing power issues in making such a deity level app.

A deity level app given a self-undermining task has a problem.

I can't see where one can conclude there is free will from the odd restrictions and fantasies in this scenario.

First, if the world is simulated, why don't its 'designers' simply 'pop out' at times and leave us with some trace of their existence? Guidance through such a virtual world might be helpful, and yet there is no trace of anyone 'programming' or 'guiding' us anywhere. — jasonm

Some possibilities:
they don't want us to know
it's merely entertainment for them
they don't realize we're conscious, they think of it as more like a 3D film
the do give us guidance, but not a lot - perhaps the voices prophets hear, perhaps insights people get regarding morals or science or whatever.
Perhaps it's a work of art and the whole idea is to let it run itself.
Perhaps it is in an experiment and there are experiments where they interfere and where they don't
Then:
how the heck would we know the motives of creatures other than us and that advanced

Similarly, why don't we sometimes notice violations of the laws of physics? If it's just a simulation, does it matter if the laws of physics are perfectly consistent? This applies to any law of this simulated world, including propositional logic. Again, if you are there, leave us with some trace of your existence through 'miracles' and other types of anomalies that our world does not seem to have. And yet there seems to be no instances of this kind. — jasonm

No instances of anomalies? There are often anomalies. Perhaps in the end they will be explained, perhaps not. In any case, we now explain away anomalies even if we really don't know.

But again, you're making assumptions. Perhaps they don't want anomalies in their experiment, entertainment, artwork, whatever this is to them. It matters to them. And since they're making it.....

Third: what type of computing power would be required to 'house' this virtual universe? Are we talking about computers that are bigger than the universe itself? Is this possible even in principle? — jasonm

We wouldn't know how big the universe is. We only know what we know about our universe, which would be simulated. Whatever is outside it in which it is running would be beyond our ken. I'm sure educated, medieval people would dismiss descriptions of things we can do now as being impossible. But what did they know about humans would later be able to do? What do we know?

As far as Occam's Razor....
Probability and Indifference: Bostrom's simulation argument doesn't posit that the simulation hypothesis is necessarily simpler or more straightforward than the idea that we live in a base reality. Instead, it suggests that given certain plausible assumptions about the future capabilities of civilizations, the probability that we are in a simulation might be high. The argument hinges on three propositions:

The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (capable of running simulations) is very close to zero.
The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to zero.
The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If the first two propositions are false, then the third proposition must be true, meaning we are almost certainly in a simulation.

Reframing Occam’s Razor: Bostrom might argue that Occam's Razor should be applied to the assumptions underpinning each hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis, when considered in the context of his argument, doesn’t necessarily introduce more assumptions than the assumption that we live in the one base reality, especially given the potential vastness of simulated realities versus a single base reality.

Technological Plausibility: Bostrom might point out that the simulation hypothesis stems from an extrapolation of known technological trends. Given the rapid advancement in computing and virtual reality, the assumption that future civilizations will have the capability and possibly the desire to run detailed simulations is not implausible. Thus, it is not an extraordinary leap in assumption.

The Simulation Argument’s Structure: Bostrom’s argument is structured to show that at least one of the three propositions must be true, making it a probabilistic argument rather than one based solely on the principle of simplicity. The argument demonstrates that if advanced civilizations are likely and interested in running simulations, it becomes statistically more probable that we are in a simulation.

Not Claiming Proof: Bostrom doesn’t claim that the simulation hypothesis is definitively true; rather, he argues that it is a hypothesis that should be taken seriously given the logical structure of his argument. He acknowledges that the base reality hypothesis is simpler in some ways but insists that the simulation hypothesis has significant probabilistic support under certain assumptions.

EDIT: I could sum up on part of my objection as: his approach reinforces the idea that when someone says something it must be literal, contain truth (conduit metaphor), be a kind of permanent engraving and is not, for example, expressive, functional, meant to elicit or any other kind of including-language act. It end up contributing to a number myths about language, one of which he is trying to eliminate.

I think it's a tricky issue. In a certain abstract sense I share, I think, a number of beliefs in common with Chet. I differ about the prescription for reasons I've raised in a number of posts. He has at times taken this to mean that I give up. But my problem with the prescription of eliminating 'know' and 'knowledge' is not just that I think this won't happen. I also understand that he considers this only a part of his solution proposal. My main problem with it is that I think it actually will simply create better used car sales reps.

I'd say I also object on philosophy of language grounds: that placing so much focus on the words presumes a philosophy of language that I think is both misleading and limiting. It takes language literally - me thinking in terms of all the dead metaphors and other tropes hidden in literal language. It likely connects to the conduit metaphor for language/communication and it's biases - Reddy
[url=http://] http://www.biolinguagem.com/ling_cog_cult/reddy_1979_conduit_metaphor.pdf[/url]
as opposed to a diverse set of actions in the world, a dynamic set of options that do things, rather than or in addition to merely containing things. Along with some ideas about what truth is: mirror/representational (only).
And his approach it seems to me reinforces people's assumptions about themselves and their beliefs: such as that their beliefs are conscious and what they (the people) assert (necessarily), that our beliefs are in words, that words are literal.
I also think it implicitly understimates the problem. He may not, but I think his prescription and approach does.

It sets up a pattern of continuous 'acceptable' incorrectness that is participated in by almost everyone. — Chet Hawkins

You're making me responsible for everything. That is tucked into the word 'it' above. You are hallucinating a future where you and like-minded have managed to change everyone's mind about the use of those words AND you believe the consequences of them doing this, should you succeed, will be the ones in your mental images. You are then comparing this image with the image of what happens if this particular change does not take place and putting that on my table. k You have approaches to improving things. I have approaches to improving things. I haven't set of a pattern of continuous acceptable incorrectness. We find ourselves in the middle of a situation, with an incredible array of causes and systems. We can choose to reform or revolutionize or adjust or....and so on......different parts of the whole, putting our energy in those parts and in those ways that match our values and where we can have the most effect, in the direction we want things to move.

We disagree here. Morality is objective and people's and culture's opinions DO NOT MATTER to that distinction. Such differences only serve as arguing points where there should be none — Chet Hawkins

I haven't weight in on cultural differences.

Your example is horrendous and not relevant. — Chet Hawkins

It's extreme. I often use extreme examples to get a foot in the door. In the realm of epistemology, of self-awareness, or introspection, of intuition and so on, there is an incredibly vast range of skills sets and approaches. I am not going to follow rules, unless the consequences of breaking them are so negative, that are put in place for people who are far away from me on the spectrum in the relevant skill set.

I'm not going to stop using metaphors or analogies because many people misuse them. As a kind of parallel example.

I get what you are saying and yes the moral action is harder and that is fine and partly the point. What some idiots are still going to do is not really the debate here. — Chet Hawkins

What some idiots do is part of the real world where I live. This is not a side issue. And to be less harsh...the real world includes what happens when people are given cosmetic language based changes but don't really change. I live in that world. I am skeptical about these kinds of language-based reformations, for reasons given in previous posts on this specific language reform you are proposing.

Yes-ish and not really relevant. The point is being made here in the rare air for people of a quality that say they are for that sort of thing to discuss. My guess is, if such people are not ready for it, then maybe the general public is not either, and that is really sad. Still, the general idea of the point is important enough for everyone to be at least exposed to. — Chet Hawkins

My point was that I think it is misleading to propose this kind of reformation since it is not the source of the problems. Even the epistemological naivete is not.

It's precisely not cosmetic. Cosmetic is a change on the surface that means little. This is not that. It's the reverse of that. Its addressing the problem of words that poison deeper understanding, specifically NOT cosmetic. Way to get that completely wrong. — Chet Hawkins

Are there language-based reformations that have eliminated evils?

And we should never say 'know' about a bet. You're proving my point for me. — Chet Hawkins

The point we agree on.

Nonetheless, I stand behind my belief as stated. It's bound to come up and soon, in everyone's life reading this thread. — Chet Hawkins

And here you are making my point for me.
'It's bound to come up.' This is an expression of certainty. 'everyone's life'. You can tell me that 'really' you never mean 'know' but I experience you are exactly as certain as the people who do. In response to my saying the mind reading is unnecessary you use bound and everyone.

Will my interaction with you have any effects?
Will my interaction with someone who uses 'know' have any effects?

How often? Has the likelihood increased because of your attitudinal change and no longer using 'know'?

Has the attitude actually changed and in what way do we see this change in you?

How will we in Philosophy Forum notice the differences between you, in dialogue with us, and someone who uses know?

I can certainly find people who use 'know' who mind read
and stand by their mind reading and present their positions without qualification and who in response to my criticism or questioning start to tell me about my emotions and how these lead to my not accepting the truth of their beliefs. And I can find people who don't do this who use 'know'.

To boil that down. I can't even tell if it's cosmetic in you.

1) No one really knows things so just say 'I believe that ...' instead of know.
2) Just because no one knows anything does not mean that one person's ideas are not better than the other ones. — Chet Hawkins

I thought you believed this but it's good to have it clearly written.

You'd be surprised. Language effects great change. So changing language can do that as well. — Chet Hawkins

There may well be an example in the past, but if you have a specific one, share it. And, of course, even if there isn't one in the past, I'm not ruling it out, but it's not my main objection.

Greater wisdom, greater balance, is actually more of each emotion. — Chet Hawkins

I agree with this. But what this actually looks like and if someone is, as a specific individual evaluating themselves correctly...that's a different issue.

So, to focus on what we seem to agree on, we both seem to see positive things about fear, desire and anger. We wish to have these in balance. We also value intuition and my sense is we both see intuition where others think they are going on some intuitionless immaculate logic unsoiled by intuition - and likely have poor intuition about what they actually are doing in their minds.

These are not small agreements, so I think it's good to emphasize them.

Intuition and emotions are often denigrated in philosophy forums, directly or implicitly.

And there can often be this implicit or explicit post-Enlightenment judgment that really it's best if these things are weeded out of everything from epistemology, science, politics, interpersonal interactions, discussions and so on - and with some real-world horrible trends where actually modifications through social pressure and even technology are trying to be put in place to eliminate emotions and intuition.

I simply agree and in fact, one is well advised that wisdom, being far trickier than knowledge alone, is something handled in far worse ways than only knowledge is. I admit that up front. This is the first such accusation leveled and I simply acquiesce.

But we cannot immorally throw our hands up and start just cutting bait. Fishing is the real task. The 'throw your hands up' and cut bait approach is only fear side Pragmatism. "get er done' usefulness IS NOT the way. — Chet Hawkins

And you haven't said I am throwing up my hands or suggesting we should. But just to be clear, I am not saying that and.

If any of my emotions is not ringing a low hanging bell of alert, but instead is ringing a highly hung bell, then I must attend that ringing. — Chet Hawkins

I think we may be close in approach when you say something like this. You are using intuition, perhaps even, for example, Interoception to do an ongoing monitoring. Fine. I appreciate when people can be up front about this. I think it is a problem when people think there is no intuition involved in their reaching of conclusions. That somehow they manage to do deduction, only, for example. Some kind of clean bird's eye view logic alone.

I don't find it useful to follow rules that might good for most people to follow.
— Bylaw
That is a horridly immoral position to take. — Chet Hawkins

No, it would be immoral to pretend that guidelines and rules must be universal. No one should drive because some have Parkinson's (metaphorically speaking).

Do you understand how that hierarchy is wrong? It is only really desire, fear, anger; as additive. That is the behind the scenes wrongness of that model. That is a fear-centric model. — Chet Hawkins

Right or wrong it is present. So, you come out with your prescription. Some follow it. Now other people hear wisdom regularly instead of knowledge and the same problems arise. Or the problem is driven underground: correct words are used and the exact same interpersonal, intra-personal dynamics continue. You can wag dogs in the short term, but you're not really changing anything but the surface. And wagging parts of the body is actually more intimate than wagging the choice of words.

The same problems seep out of the undealt with unconscious patterns and imprinting.

Perhaps you have a program to deal with these also, but so far I see a focus and to me fear of certain words. They can certainly be problematic, but changing them is consmetic.

Again, and for the thousandth time in this thread it seems, I will say that the usefulness of the distinction is the problem. It IS an expression of probability and not truth. — Chet Hawkins

Sure. Probability of what, however?

We all have to place our bets on the actions and beliefs of others, as well as ourselves. It is no violation of trust to suggest that each of us is not perfect. — Chet Hawkins

Sure, that's a given in my outlook.

Correct. And suffering becomes greater with awareness. Now that I have warned you and that situation exists in the world, you will begin to see and understand more where it comes into play. It will rankle and tease you as an idea from the sidelines, until you make a better choice on its veracity. — Chet Hawkins

I think predicting my internal states - so, not even mindreading me in the present, but telling me what I will be thinking and feeling - is unnecessary and, in specific often confused.

You seem to have met certain kind of resistance to your ideas and then assume you understand what anyone is like when you encounter them.

There are people out there who use the word know, but also rapidly realize that what they thought they knew they didn't.

So, when I encounter then, sure, they come at me with assumptions, but then they have feedback loops which lead them to rapidly get off their positions.

You can have people who religiously avoid 'know' for example. But end up continuing the pattern of assumptions. They don't recognize anomalies very quickly, despite their epistemological position and use of language.

This is sets off warning bells in me.

I appreciate the situation's effects: online, words on a screen, philosophy forum - the last entailing tendencies to have positions on logic, reason supposedly versus intuition, what parts of the brain are honored and so on.

Your need for certainty comes out clearly in this suggestion that allowing for certainty in others that are equally deluded in its existence harmonizes with. You like those that are like you, all fear. The comfort of similar beliefs is dangerous. — Chet Hawkins

Completely missing the point.
They do not have the same beliefs and this is reflected in their language.
To me it's like you want to teach used car salesmen (taking that metaphorically) NLP and more cognitive science.
And given that those people already exist, I get my warning bells despite whatever cosmetic dress up they are wearing.
To me focus on the dress up is fear based because it assumes we need people to use certain words. I get it: raising the issue around words may help some people begin to notice a pattern you and I notice. It can be a starting point to question not just practice but what is going on in them.

But the project is not actually noticing what is going on. It presumes this kind of reformative dialogue could EVER get at the roots of the problem.

I don't think you understand the fear not being noticed in your assessment of the situation. This approach is not going to get at the roots of the problems.

In part because they are not going to listen. But also the why, the what is going on ontologically that keeps them from listening AND why if they listened we just get a new layer over the problem. We get slightly more sophisticated problem makers.

I hear a lot of 'this is your fear'. But I experience someone who has not even faced certain fears, lecturing about fear. Fear denial is a problem.

And yes, I see that you are confident in you system of feedback. You'll hear those warning bells from fear also. But the denial is built into the model your presenting. And then the moment you are denying fear you are also denying anger and desire. For example. I am not saying that is the only direction these denials flow.

None of this means that I think nothing can be done or hands have to go up in despair or a sense of futility or that mine do.

If it is not the certainty part of knowing that you are advocating for, and instead only that this 'knowledge' thing is 'special' in some way, then what way is it special? To me the idea that we (anyone) should credit anyone's knowing with something more impressive than only any other belief is dangerous and so prone to error that I almost can't believe I am having to defend the notion. — Chet Hawkins

But you are prioritizing assertions. You choose a set of assertions that you send to me. You even called some of it wisdom. You may not label that group, but you have a group. You consider that group of assertions more likely than others that you or someone else might assert.

It has served me so well in terms of efficient tracking of problems in almost all cases that I had decided and maintain that it is useful for others to adopt that strategy as a part of general wisdom. — Chet Hawkins

In my world 'wisdom' is at least as loaded a term as 'knowledge'. I use that one also, but I notice a lot of people have a hierarchy belief, knowledge, wisdom. With the last term being the best. Of course this is not necessarily a spectum of certainty and an indicate type. But It seems to me allowing oneself to categorize 'my beliefs X and Y are wisdom' is as easily misused as doing that with the category knowledge.

The trouble is that when most people say 'know' most others that have not already come to doubt their knowledge incorrectly assume that matter is settled.

I'm not close to anyone who does this. Assume it is settled, period, shall not be questioned. There are many situations where I just move forward with what they've said as the case. And I like having, for example, my wife using think and know - or some other similar categories. I don't assume when she says know that she cannot be wrong, but I work with it in a different way from 'think'. I think I shut off the stove. I know I shut off the stove. Yes, she might have hallucinated or shut off something else and been confused. But she's got a great record when sure and I find the distinction useful. I certainly don't want her walking around saying I believe regardless of her certainty. If she says she knows, but I am aware of things that put this in doubt, well, I may well go back up and check. She just got terrible news. She's had a couple of shots - she doesn't drink, but just showing some obvious examples of things that might affect me - and also might keep her from saying she knows also, given her self-awareness.

The trouble is that most people stop caring or thinking when that word is used and they forgo the other 30-15% that is where the real value is

I don't find it useful to follow rules that might good for most people to follow. Also I think if most people stopped using those words, they wouldn't stop thinking they knew, nor would they stop conveying that they are right and you go against their belief at your own danger.

I mean, you responded to me by saying that in the future I will suffer if I don't do as you believe we all should here, advice you categorize as wisdom.

So, while adhering to your own guideline you spoke without qualification what you classify as wisdom and predicted that I would suffer in the future.

I mean, honestly. I'd rather someone said 'I know.' I don't assume either one of you is correct, but in a sense of I feel like the other person is being more honest even if they are incorrect about being right and infallible.

Well, you provided not evidence for your claim. But the evidence I found was through https://www.amazon.com/When-Elephants-Weep-Emotional-Animals/dp/0385314280 and his references/sources. I can't put that here, unfortunately. I've done a little googling to see what is online. This abstract gives a hint.
https://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/arc/subject-experience-animals/
If I ask various AI online they agree that it was taboo to assert that animals had subjective experience before the 60s and 70s and mention things like this

Donald Griffin: He was an influential figure in the study of animal cognition. In the 1970s, Griffin published "The Question of Animal Awareness," which argued for animal consciousness and challenged behaviorist views.

Note that in 71 it was consider a question.¨
And if I shift the wording around using terms like sentience, subjective experience, animals as experiences, the answers I get all start around the 70s.
And one might ask why as late as 2004 there would be an article with the title
Subjective experience is probably not limited to humans:
The evidence from neurobiology and behavior
https://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/assets/papers/2005/Baars-Subjective%20animals-2005.pdf
The abstract here points out how behaviorism eliminated even interest in animal sentience for most of the 20th century.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159106001110
And given Behaviorism's dominance

Although the foundation was now in place, the emergence of modern animal welfare science was delayed through the first 70 years of the 20th century by Behaviorism, which eschewed any consideration of subjective experiences. It took a controversial book by a layperson, Ruth Harrison, to stir both the scientific and philosophical community into developing theories of animal welfare and a book by an ethologist, Donald Griffin, to make it acceptable to study the feelings of animals.

https://www.fondation-droit-animal.org/proceedings-aw/animal-welfare-a-brief-history/
Me, I'm basing my opinion on my experience with the scientific community and given my age this includes experience before, during and after the transition. Unfortunately I can use my memories here. But it's part of why I will be extremely skeptical, not just unconvinced, about your claims in the post I responded to.

I'd like to add that while people in science, like Darwin, did talk about animal emotions, the idea that these include subjective experience were not accepted for much of the 20th century.
Obviously people outside of science have long understood that animals have subjective experience and likely many scientists in their private lives acted and believed they did. But until the 70s the default position coming out of the dominance of behaviorism (and then of course speciesism) in science was at best agnostic and given how tricky it is to prove another mind is experiencing, rather than another organism is behaving, the default position was problematic to go against.

Does anyone in the west think that animals are soulless automatons nowadays? From that whole discussion around Descartes that we had, it seemed that that wasn't close to a dominant view even centuries ago. — Lionino

It was actually the dominant default in natural science up into the early 70s. If you officially and/or in papers referred to animals and having motivations, consciousness, desires, etc. you were putting your career on the line. It wasn't exactly that the line was they don't have it, but the default was we don't know and people are confused if they think we do. You could say scientists were allowed to be behaviorists and talk perhaps about drives, but not to assume animals were experiencers.

Then you are thinking about things wrongly, is my assertion. And that false confidence born of fear and not anger properly, WILL cost you. — Chet Hawkins

Merely labeling it (so far at least) as thinking wrong and telling me I will suffer doesn't really interact with the ideas or move things forward

Incorrect. As a volleyball coach I know that my players are being trained as well as might be. But my knowledge is flawed. Their knowledge is flawed. The game is a flawed construction. Being sure via fear is delusional and will cause great troubles. Instead I coach confidence. You have trained. You have listened. You have practiced. You have played many times. Resolve within yourself to take on all challengers and see what you can do. Certainty is a dread enemy. It is the player who thinks they know. It is the coach who thinks they know. It is the game that pretends to be the best. Self-delusional lies are not wisdom. — Chet Hawkins

But I wasn't advocating certainty. Doubting vs. Certainty is a false dichotomy.

Instead, stand. Decide to face the unknown. You must push back fear that you are not enough, that you do not belong. You did the things. You mean it. Now fight. Show the universe that you are not afraid, that you are not so foolish as to 'know'. — Chet Hawkins

So, I should, for example, when in the shower and I've seen (or is it merely that I thought I saw) the soap where it usually is, not simply reach out to grab it, but question myself and focus on the possibility that I might be wrong this time about the soap. Or is it OK to just continue letting the water hit my face, and with confidence reach out to where I saw (or thought I saw the soap)?

Because if my hand finds not soap there I can pull my head from the water and check. Or must I always be treating every situation as completely up in the air? Or does the specific situation affect how much I consider things up in the air?

Exactly! You speak of fear unbridled or desire unbridled. Only anger brings the balance. Natural athletes are usually anger types. They are balanced. I see this all the time. The fear types are in their heads and some form of old school smack has to happen to get them out of there. If they do not get out of their heads, they WILL fail. Trust to the body's memory. — Chet Hawkins

Exactly. So, I get to trust. I get to act as if it is knowledge in many situations. Of course it might not be correct. And I am a natural athlete, while we're on the topic. In practice I may focus on a habit, a kind of physical assumption and tweak it, but in a game, I trust my body. I act as if I know.

I know (ha ha). So you already agree with my point, really. — Chet Hawkins

Sure. I agree with the point but the prescription.

But nothing in the statement 'knowledge is only belief' is wrong. — Chet Hawkins

I think 'only' is wrong. I think its a poor heuristic. I do fine without that word. I remain unconvinced that changing my words the way you think I should is necessary or an improvement.

You're right. Its also a container for deception/delusion. Will you now defend that? — Chet Hawkins

Of course it's also that. But it's not just a container for truth or assertions or beliefs, it is something else often also and someone only these other things/functions

Yes and all are beliefs and choices, some of them to delude; and some to promote more resonance with wisdom and truth. — Chet Hawkins

No, language is not always a conveying of beliefs. It can be also or only an act. An eliciting.

Confidence and certainty are NOT the same thing. — Chet Hawkins

I think you give too much power to your particular interpretation of words. Our minds are not all the same. You are acting as if you know what happens when everyone uses those words. You are acting like those words mean one think and you know what it is and you know what happens in other minds than your own when they use those words. I think language and minds are vastly more complicated and varied

Inept teachers make wrong adjustments all the time. They should do better. — Chet Hawkins

But I feel they were making the same cosmetic mistake that you are.

I always get assigned the tasks no one else can solve, because what they know is not correct, and I do not assume what they know is. So I, often alone, can solve it. I have been ordered off tasks where that method was being used by me and then called back and that with me having to tell the CEO or interested parties that I would be assuming what they know was not true and if they wanted me to work on it they would have to allow for that. In almost every case my original assessment was correct. What they knew was the problem and was not true. It was not all the time, but by far most of the time. So, even the practical implications for what I am suggesting are wise. — Chet Hawkins

This deals with a situation where professionals have failed to solve something and it arrives on your desk. In such a situation I would be on high alert (so to speak) that conventional approaches are probably not working and something new, lateral, unexpected is going on or is needed. I would be in a more exploratory state than when I reach for the soap on the soap holder in the shower. Or when I see the back of the head of a blond woman - my wife - sitting in her chair in the living room. I'll just reach out: I'll just start talking to my wife before walking around to see if another blond woman broke into my apartment. I happen not to use the word 'know' a lot in my communication. I'd be more likely to say I'm sure. Which does not mean to me that I can't possibly be mistaken, but it means that I consider it extremely likely that X is the case. I have degrees of certainty and for practical purposes I am not questioning a lot of things, each day. I choose to question in response to indications something is interesting, not what it seems, failing to be accurate and so on. Then also there is a range of issues, I keep exploring. But a lot of things every day, I assume are the case. This doesn't mean I think I couldn't possibly be wrong.

One reason to not fussing with many things each day is because they are very much like taking a jump shot in basketball. I am rising up in the air, my opponent is trying to block me....and I don't start reassessing things 'perhaps my right hand should be placed more towards the top of the ball, perhaps I should draw the ball further behind my head. Those are issues that could come up in practice, when being coached, if something has gotten worse in my %ages, if I have decided to improve and want to retrain and so on. Or, heck, not being a pro player and just wanted to enjoy a weekly pick up game, I'll be exploring other things that are more important for me to improve outside that game.

Enforcing a kind of 'not knowing, not being sure' in a lot of my daily moments would actually reduce my skills.

I'd also want to avoid infinite regresses: is this the right moment to try to improve my shot; do I have the right information to make that evaluation; am I actually playing basketball; what are the phenomenological differences between fantasizing, dreaming and actually playing basketball and how certain am I which one this is: is my sense of the % of moments/actions a good heuristic: should I develop a logically arrived at heuristic or base my choices to explore on intuition or some combination; was that the right question to ask.....and so on until they are closing the gym and ask the b-player lying on his side ratiocinating on the court to go home.

Different beliefs on my part get categorized differently. Some I consider knowledge, but I do not consider knowledge infallible.

I don't consider language just a container for truth. Now that's categorized as knowledge so I cannot notice counterexamples, must defend that belief the to death, must never listen to someone who is questioning it - of course in some instances I will not want to discuss whether I exist. That's not something I will allow a toll booth operator to question with my participation. Going to work, find a philosophy forum guy, gotta go. If the toll booth operator thinks there is small fire in the back undercarriage of my car and I think he's wrong, I'll probably still get out to check.

Language is also eliciting things, prioritizing, instigating.......

I've been around people who qualify what they say, avoid stating things with certainty...and they are so damn sure it oozes out of their pores. Or they don't come off like that, but for all their supposed open mind, and their ability to entertain alternate ideas, they never change their minds. They would easily admit they can't be sure, or they don't know. They can say those words and even mean them honestly. But it doesn't really matter. Nothing really gets at the beliefs they have except perhaps when catastrophic events slam them out of their beliefs.

I know people who do use the words knowledge and know who have changed their beliefs about what they consider knowledge. Because they don't think those word indicate absolute perfection and infallibility. And many of these people don't have to go through catastrophic failures to move off positions.

I remember working in an alternative preschool that did not like negative words. So, if a child did something 'wrong' they would say to the child that their action wasn't in harmony with the other children or some such.

Well, lack of harmony judgments went into children's bodies and did that same thing as the words the school was supposedly avoiding. Words just being sounds, and the children picking up with dynamic regardless. Now a different sound meant what they did was wrong.

Adding to what you say we could equally fail to cosmetically remove the word 'know' from our lexicon while continuing to tread the spiritual path Chet Hawkins seems primarily concerned with. — Janus

I make no claim that I understand his schema. He laid out some information above, but I felt like it would take more time than I am willing right now to suss it out. That said, it seems to me that his communication often looks extremely certain. Things are often bluntly stated and if this was a different thread or I just came at those posts, I would likely assume that he is on the high end of thedamn well sure he is correct and sharing knowledge spectrum. Despite not saying he knows X or Y.. Presumably, behind the scenes he does not think he knows. My point being however that I don't think removing the words know and knowledge is either necessary or effective.

In addition, I don't think there is a problem with having moments of certainty. I don't think we can or should organize out minds that way. In part because it takes language so literal and final. I see language as expressive, ad hoc, context dependent and having all sorts of uses. Telling my kid it's a bad idea for them to keep a bottle of toxic pesticide on a shelf in their bedroom and that I know this is a bad idea, is to me not a problem. And I wouldn't spend a moment debating over whether I merely believe it's a bad idea. Yes, it may be possible that it's somehow not a good idea is some scenario I can't imagine right now, but I don't have time to unravel what seem like minute possibilities. I gotta make breakfast and go to work.

Also, I see language as eliciting things, not just containing things. Oh, that assertion might contain something that could possibly be false. Sure, but I wasn't - in some other scenario - presenting a portion of my Bible of unquestionable truth that we can mount on a wall. I was seeking to elicit things. If we look at truth models there are problems with language mirroring reality and correspondence theories of truth. Language is a very versatile set of tools - containing information being one, but only one of many.

And then, if we are to avoid claiming we know because we might not know then this includes judgments that one should never use know.

And the moment you get to where you are judging people as bad or immoral or evil for not using words the way you believe they should, you might as well be making a knowledge claim. I mean, you went that far. (you in the general sense, not you in the Janus sense)

The distinction you seem to point to is that many people feel certain about things they obviously cannot be certain about. — Janus

There's certainly that, but my point was more that I think many of us use the word 'know' while generally understanding that we might be wrong AND then there are people who don't use the word know (on a specific occasion or in general) but who think they are infallible in what they consider true.

We can cosmetically remove the word 'know' but easily continue with what CH is concerned about.

1) Admit to the greater truth behind the assertion. It is dangerous to speak in terms of 'knowing'.
2) Realize that all of us are guilty of this trouble, when we allow that pattern to continue.
3) Challenge yourself to do better by first recognizing when you are failing morally by using such words and phrases. — Chet Hawkins

So, these are mainly attitudinal. Which is good information for me. I just want to separate it out from the practical changes to the language itself. Numbers 1 and 3 mentions 'such words and phrases' and 'knowing' and 'know' is clearly on the dangerous list.

4) Actually correct the words used in speech and in writing from yourself.
5) Begin to realize when others do this same thing. Note the abundance of the wrong pattern.
6) Challenge the pattern when the mood is right to be a discussion where progress can be made by those thus challenged.
7) Fit all of this into a model of the way you live to make it a consistent part of who you are, your beliefs personified. — Chet Hawkins

And this gives a kind of plan along with the first ones.

But I was wondering more about this part:

What other changes are needed? What are the signs or problematic communication? What are the signs of communication that are more harmonious with the truth? — Bylaw

For example, in a philosophy forum, we have the words on the screen. The people writing may have similar attitudes - potentially even when they use the word know, not taking this at all to mean it is necessarily infallible. And/or when they avoiding knowing and know, they may be utterly certain that what they say must be correct and never will need to be revised.

So, what way should people write to be more harmonious with the truth beyond avoiding 'knowing' and 'know'.

I am not denying the importance of the attitudinal shifts, but give the specific danger of 'know' and 'knowing' in your schema, it seems like the actual language use is important.

Are there other things to be avoided or added to avoid the danger?

Yes, so you have stated the real pattern. But at no point was certainty involved. We should become comfortable with that and speak and write that way to be more harmonious with truth. — Chet Hawkins

So, how does one do this?
I understand that eliminating 'know' is a good idea from your perspective. What other changes are needed? What are the signs or problematic communication? What are the signs of communication that are more harmonious with the truth?

Yes, well you are now proving that it's hard to get people to understand. I am apparently not a great explainer, who knew. Sticking just to the erroneous colloquial definitions of emotions will not aid you in any way. — Chet Hawkins

If you can link me to where you have other definitions or give me a description here, it would help. Otherwise sure, I'm going to assume colloquial definitions or ones from psychology. You might as well make up words for them, then at least we'll be pretty sure we haven't the slightest idea what you mean.

Remember that I consider 'knowing' a moral failure, more akin to certainty seeking, expression an imbalance between anger and fear by definition. So defenders of that wording are like to over-express fear, ... is my forecast. — Chet Hawkins

In my experience people who are afraid tend to be less sure and people who are angry tend to express more certainty.

Fear is synonymous with order. — Chet Hawkins

I can see fear leading to order and rage leading to order. The law and order crowd often seems very angry. Fascists and other dictators who enforce extreme order often seem rather angry to me. In any case.

Anger holds its ground against everything. — Chet Hawkins

Anger can be defensive in this way, but it also can be offensive.

Readiness to change stance is critical. Anger knows this. — Chet Hawkins

If anything I would say fear is more ready to change stance. In any case we often use anger to bolster our stances rather than feel the fear that we might be wrong and might well need to change (be open to something else or something new).

I don't understand your schema, but perhaps starting with something specific like what I quoted above might help.

I see both emotions having their place, dependent on context.

Something like 'knowing' can really get in your way amid such a process. — Chet Hawkins

I didn't suggest 'knowing', I suggested referring to that set as better beliefs. You referred to some things as wisdom. That is also a category distinguishing some beliefs from others.

No. Existence is being in essence, mass, anger. A fear based approach would prefer to categorize things. My inclination is just to refuse, as anger simply stands for itself using mass to make its argument. — Chet Hawkins

You refuse to categorize things? Are you not categorizing with your fear, anger, desire schema? For example.

Anger's sin is laziness. In the righteous rejection of immoral desire and the challenge for a fight towards immoral fear {see here now}, anger is doing its part. But often enough, anger or the lazy exemplar avoids conflict and moral choice suffers.

Peace is delusional. It is not what anyone that advocates for it thinks it is. Any and every task is hard by a rough parallel to its worthiness. There is no long term respite. Indeed anger suggests that to be finally moral, one must learn to never need rest. Of course medical practitioners aplenty will disagree and chastise the righteous for their sense of moral duty. And they are like most fear path types, more right than not, as in, probability is on their side that the anger type will fail, not being perfect. But this ignores the real truth, the hidden mystery, of perfection. Perfection transcends all cases, and we must practice for it. That means that finally, rest cannot be needed. It is a tautology if one understands or comes close to grasping without knowing the nature of perfection itself.

Every act one or we take, must be maintained by constant vigil. This is the nature of 'no rest'. But there is maybe a way to properly rest amid the approach such that fallibility is taken into account in the best way possible. Each unit (us) must take turns manning the wall. Surround evil on all sides and chant! Maintain a pure discipline. Re-commit each day, each hour, sometimes each minute, to the pusuit of truth and the GOOD.

You had best martial your anger, indeed! — Chet Hawkins

Would you categorize this as knowledge?

And wouldn't this better way include a collection of assertions that you think are better than pragmatist assertions? Aren't you dividing the set of beliefs into those that are better and those that are worse? — Bylaw

I have made nothing but assertions. — Chet Hawkins

Yes. I didn't say anything about you not making assertions.

If you are just ignoring my many statements because they are not formally numbered, that would laughable. — Chet Hawkins

I was responding to your statements not ignoring them. And I said nothing about their being numbered or not.
I asked above two questions you quoted.
Aren't you dividing beliefs into those that are better and those that are worse? If so, would naming those that are better, better beliefs be delusional?

I do still number some of them as above quoted to assist in fear types understanding. ;)

Assertions themselves are a prison, a logical or fear based path artifact. Take in all streams that are delivered via experience. It is precisely the ones you are not skilled at that will inform you more. — Chet Hawkins

I didn't understand this section.

In general, you are discussing what I call the path of anger, of being, which is what empowers real confidence. Of course, if you understand my model, which admittedly is not yet fully revealed here, — Chet Hawkins

Yes, I don't understand your model and I didn't really understand this post of yours.

Thanks for the quotes and search. It was mainly that word 'evil' I was surprised by, but I looked through the search and found some odd and interesting quotes. I couldn't get a handle on the anger issue: if this was positive or negative in his view. But seeing posts more generally instead of just his responses to me it struck me that despite being one of those seeing all beliefs as mere beliefs, his beliefs are expressed with a great deal of certainty and judgment. But perhaps the idea is that as long as you say everything you say is a mere belief, you are then allowed to plow forward without qualitification. Is that the anger?

Granted that Pragmatism can enjoy this position and that most people will not have the courage to argue against its workable everyday ways. In other words most people are both 1) Willing to accept that when you say you know that knowing is possible. AND 2) That its ok to say you know if you have done some UNKNOWN amount of justifications, especially if some reasonably thought-of-as-known(not really known) authority (group of bozos wearing the same orderly clothing and using the same orderly practices) says so. THAT is Pragmatism.

I adhere to a better way. — Chet Hawkins

And wouldn't this better way include a collection of assertions that you think are better than pragmatist assertions? Aren't you dividing the set of beliefs into those that are better and those that are worse?

You have your way of thinking about it, and I have mine, and the twain shall never meet, it seems. I think we know many things, as I've said, but I admit there is no perfect, absolute, context-independent knowledge, and since such a thing is impossible, I find it to be an absurd inapt principle by which to attempt to assess and understand our concepts. — Janus

I tend to agree with this. I think using 'know' and 'knowledge' is fine. I don't take assertions put in those categories as impossible revise. Yes, it can happen and has happened. But I don't need to walk around doubting everything all the time. I think I remember that I boil the water first before I put in the egg, but then perhaps my memory is false and I don't know that that works. And then working is working getting my egg boiled the way I like it. What if my liking it that way is actually not liking it? What if I am someone else? and so on. Having a category we call knowledge works well. Yes, you might run into problems if you consider all things considered knowledge unrevisable. But the opposed danger of thinking every belief is a mere belief and it's wrong to divvy that set up into subgroups seems to instantly create a mass of problems. Like today, now, in the next few minutes dozens of problems will arise and any moment of decision becomes an infinite regress.

It's not clear to me he is saying we have to doubt everything (all the time?) or that he doesn't categorize beliefs into better and worse groupings.

I don't share the optimism that changing the words will make much difference. And people assert things as if they are certain all the time without using the verb know or the noun knowledge.

As is the contention that those who do not accept his ideology are evil - that those who think they know things are angry and cowardly. — Banno

wow. Do you know where that post is in the thread?

That is to say, it is better to use 'I am aware of some aspects of this subject' rather than I KNOW this subject. In every way, the former is more accurate. — Chet Hawkins

Yes, but people can manage to assert things in ways where they seem certain, without using know or knowledge. And they do all the time. In fact, I'd say this is more common. People asserting things without qualification. Rather than saying I know this subject, they act like they know the subject. I don't hear that formulation much 'I know this subject'. Instead one gets a lot of blunt statements.

You can call it whatever delusional thing you prefer to call it. It still is actually JUST belief. — Chet Hawkins

So, if you or I labeled some beliefs that we thought were more likely to be true than others, that label would have to be delusional?

We cannot KNOW or be certain of anything. — Chet Hawkins

Presumably including this and that any label for beliefs we consider better justified would be a delusional label.

If I said that believing asking my bicycle chain to repair itself was a less well justified approach than replacing a broken chain with one I buy, I would be delusional? IOW if I break my or someone's beliefs down into well justified and other beliefs.

We need a better way of expressing ourselves that allows for doubt, the unpleasant condition, to be maintained with less need for the false comfort of the delusion of certainty. — Chet Hawkins

I can manage to use a lot of formulations, even 'knowledge' without feeling that there can be no doubt belief X is correct.

2) Knowledge in the colloquial sense is really only beliefs. — Chet Hawkins

Is there another sense where it means something else?

2) The word and its ramified terms, 'to know' is not well used often. It is taken most often to mean certainty, which is wrong. — Chet Hawkins

I don't take it that way. I guess I'd need to know the context to know if it is most often taken to be certain (and then perhaps what certain means - does this mean that someone is infallible when they categorize something as knowledge? I can't say I know how many groups would answer, but it seems like there are quite a few people who think knowledge may end up getting revised and are aware that this has been the case in most fields in the past. But I don't know numbers.

The set is or is not accurately believed as 'related in the sense of what defines the set' Sets do not include better or worse members until we filter or intersect them, — Chet Hawkins

again
given our purposes. If I look at the set of beliefs and my purpose is to find a range of unique suggestions/strange seeming ideas, I will view different members of the set as better or worse...for my purpose. If I want to know how deal with a loose chain on my bike, because I really want to fix it, some beliefs about this will be better than others. They're all peachy members of the set, if the only issue is, does it belong in the set. But my purposes will lead to some members being better than others. And given that knowledge is part of the topic, that often leads to purposes, for me, around how to navigate my way around life and the world. Some will be better or worse for that, given my purposes. And I have critieria for determining which I will try - whose beliefs I am more likely to try out myself, for example.

So that is only the meat of the argument, as in what is needed to explain the relationship between certainty and belief. Beliefs are most commonly accepted as uncertain, by definition. Knowing is sadly not understood to be only a matter of belief. Therefore many and most people treat 'knowing' as if the believer is certain — Chet Hawkins

As if the believer is certain or as if the belief is accurate. Do you mean that people assume that if someone says they know those people falsely assume the person is certain or they falsely assume that what that person claims to know is correct?

In any case THAT is the problem. The reason it is a problem is one that I have qualified over and over and over again in these posts. That is ... people use it as a stand in for certainty — Chet Hawkins

I don't. I am aware of scientists that consider knowledge to be open to revision. We have rigorous criteria, they would say and if something passes those it gets considered knowledge, but they are aware that it might be revised later. I know people in other fields who have similar ideas. As I said earlier I can't really speak to numbers, but I find this a fairly common position. Of course, sometimes it is the official position but this gets forgotten in the specifics.

Well, I did qualify it. But at least you and I are in agreement on that point of knowledge not being certain and therefore being ... yep ... merely belief. — Chet Hawkins

There is the whole knowledge is JTB camp and in discussions in other threads some people, myself included, objected to using the T. I think that objection is fairly common in philosophy forums.

In any case THAT is the problem. The reason it is a problem is one that I have qualified over and over and over again in these posts. That is ... people use it as a stand in for certainty. Maybe you don't. But you are participating willingly by your own admission in a cultural practice that spreads confusion. That confusion is allowed or caused by the situation that people object to or TYPICALLY intend for the word 'know' to mean certainty. And it is being OK with that nonsense, that is the root problem. It is not wise. It cannot be wise. It is wise to challenge people to stop doing that. It is wise to NOT be happy to use that word as long as so many people use it that way. So very many communications are confused by this concept. — Chet Hawkins

So, if you do decide that some beliefs are more likely to be true or better justified, what do you call that set of beliefs, if you call it anything?