• ddarko
    4
    Hello everyone, I don't know anyone of you yet, but I am concerned about defining myself so I found this forum through a Google search, so I figured this will be my first thread and post here.

    I have used some time and found out that I should be able to call myself an empiricalistic agnostic antireductionistic epistemologist (any grammatical errors in this? I'm not native english speaker).

    Empiricalistic agnostic antireductionistic epistemologist
    Do you find any paradox in that composition?
    How would you define an empiricalistic agnostic antireductionistic epistemologist?
    Or perhaps you know a better word or a better composition of words to describe me?
    Are you interested in hearing how I define myself/this composition of words? Then I will try to explain.

    Thanks in advance (:
  • T Clark
    13k


    As I said in my brilliant response that you so heartlessly erased, don't ask us to help you figure out what you are. Show us what you are and we'll help you find out why you're wrong.
  • ddarko
    4
    Sorry, and no hard feelings :D I had posted my first thread in a wrong topic and I didn't know how fast mods would react, so I just edited the thread asking for it to be deleted, and then I reposted the thread right here where you are looking at it in Metaphysics & Epistemology.

    So yeah I'm not well educated, which doesn't mean anything other than perhaps I would be able to explain myself better.

    Why do I define myself with such a long sentence? And what do I mean by it? Why is it necessary for me to define myself?

    So when I was younger I thought I was an atheist or perhaps I was, I don't remember. Then I found out that I'm more like an agnostic. But at that time I would say "I don't believe in anything not even science because theism and science is unknowable to me, but I don't deny theism or science, I just simply don't believe in anything fully."

    But then a paradox with agnosticism creeped up on me (or atleast my way of agnosticism). How can I know that it's unknowable? (In my opinion I can't). So the word agnosticism wasn't good enough in itself. It has too many meanings that doesn't fit me.

    So I read and found out that to add some openness to my agnosticism I added empiricism to emphasize my position on withholding judgement on existence of gods/deities.

    I added antireductionism to define my openness to antiscience, because I simply don't believe anything fully.

    But I had to add one more word, because it was still a paradox in the way that I define my world view. I added epistemology to counter the paradox on the scientific side(antireductionism), explaning myself that I can't know that I know that the origin of the cosmos/universe is unknowable so therefore I believe or think instead, that it is unknowable.

    empiricalistic(the part that fix the paradox so that I'm not a close-minded agnostic, and at the same time shows that I'm not an agnostic atheist, it's almost the equivalent to epistemologist but on the theism part of this thing that I define myself as), agnostic(the part that deals with theism existence/nonexistence of gods/deities), antireductionistic(the part that deals with my view on science being unknowable so kinda like agnosticism but on the other side, dealing with science), epistemologist(the part that counters the paradox with knowledge. To express that I don't know it's unknowable but I think it's unknowable till it empirically has been proven to me which may or may not be possible).

    This whole thing is because I want to think logically and open-minded and as I see it theism and atheism is not very logical/open-minded. It would be much easier if there just was a word for all the 4 or so above statements that I made, because using one word only doesn't describe how I think or it becomes a paradox in the way that I think.

    I like it when things makes sense. And if there's something for me that seems to be impossible to make sense of or impossible to be truly known (for example the origin of the universe and consciousness), then I don't bother to claim that I know. All I want to know(which is a paradox again) is how I should define myself.

    Thank you for reading (:
  • T Clark
    13k
    So, you're open minded but unwilling or unable to commit to any position about what you know or can know. Why do you think you need all those words to say that?

    You've sort of painted yourself into a corner there. Are you familiar with that metaphor? How do you use that? What does it tell you about how you should live your life? About how you should make decisions? About what choices you should make? About the difference between right and wrong?

    It sounds like it would lead to sitting alone in a dark room forever. I'm guessing that's not how you live.
  • BC
    13.2k
    I like it when things makes sense.ddarko

    It will probably help you to abandon the plank in your platform that "I don't believe in anything fully". It will help you if you at least believe in yourself, fully.

    Science is the best bet we have for making sense of the world. "Science" is a big field, and you don't have to be a master of any of it. It helps a great deal if you can make use of scientific findings. You don't have to be a climatologist to understand that the climate is warming up, for instance.

    I am concerned about defining myselfddarko

    As well you should be. It is one of the primary tasks of people.
  • MikeL
    644
    Hi Ddarko, you sound like a thorough thinker. You will probably like this site a lot. My advice is to jump into a thread and don't worry if your logic doesn't hold from all sides. In fact I find the best way to find the faults or strengths in your thinking is to challenge other people's ideas. They have a fantastic habit of surprising you with their response.

    To paraphrase the Matrix "You don't know somebody until you fight them." Although in this case it would be your ideas you are fighting.
  • ddarko
    4
    Thanks for the replies. It would make me really happy if someone who's really into these things had some inputs in answering the questions about myself I have in the OP. I want to know if it even makes sense to call myself empiricalistic agnostic antireductionistic epistemologist or if there's a better word, or if I should just drop it and go with the flow and call myself agnostic to people.

    It sounds like it would lead to sitting alone in a dark room forever. I'm guessing that's not how you live.T Clark
    It will probably help you to abandon the plank in your platform that "I don't believe in anything fully". It will help you if you at least believe in yourself, fully.Bitter Crank

    It's just broken rhetoric. I'm not a crazy philosopher, I don't think about these things daily. I just think about these things so I can make a proper response to my position in a human interaction. Because no more do I want to say that I'm agnostic only.

    I do have a very possitive outlook on life. I'm not a nihilist. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna know what happens if I die. I wanna live life as long and happily as possible because I don't know what happens if I die, and I don't know if dying is actually possible for me(If I have to be philosophical). I do believe in myself fully, I can feel and think, I'm here. Like I said, it's just broken rhetoric when I say that I don't believe in anything fully.
  • BC
    13.2k
    Good, and welcome to The Philosophy Forum.
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