Parallels, Appeals, Implications, Consequences : Part III
Taking a page out of Descarte's book and bringing myself into this in this one. I hope you enjoy.
The word and concept of belief and I have a weird relationship. I don't really have beliefs, not conscious and/or rational ones (the first being of a set that I am aware of and the latter being beliefs built out of ideals) and the ones one may say I do have are very few. To expand on this, it may be appropriate (perhaps even more appropriate) to say that I don't have much conviction (though I have the conviction that I don't have much conviction). Anything that could be said that I believe, one could say that I don't have much conviction in such belief. However, stipulating that I don't have much conviction actually brings us back to I don't really have beliefs. Conviction is inherent to beliefs in the way belief is commonly used. So, again, I don't have beliefs in a traditional sense, but rather feelings and thoughts, of different magnitudes and degrees, based on observation, thought, and experience.
Lets revisit some of what we've already covered, and some items that will be new, with regard to belief.
-One can believe something and that “something” can at the same time not be true.
-But, when we believe something, we at least
feel and/or
think its true. Or we have
chosen to subscribe to the idea that that “something” is true.
-And some beliefs are more out of a utility or convenience than they are reflective of truth, such as things we choose to believe though we're aware we can't verify, though the one believing will hold they believe it's true.
-Moreover, it seems to be true that identifying and stipulating other truths may very well greatly depend on a perspective, and as such an opposing or contradictory perspective may not align with any ideals of truth specified by the first perspective.
-If one expects to have their beliefs to be adherent to truth as much as possible then all beliefs will therein need to be under constant scrutiny, for any belief can be wrong and if adherent to truth should be subject to change when presented with "better" information. Thus, there perhaps should not be any beliefs that are not subject to scrutiny and change.
-And again, if no one knows everything and no one is right all the time, then we all believe things that are false unbeknownst to us.
As a result of this observation is why my stance on belief is what it is.
Granted there are beliefs that are inconsequential to our epistemic concerns: “I believe pink is an attractive color,” “I believe some movies are a pleasurable experience,” etc. But these beliefs can be categorized as opinions, and that's not really what we're considering. These are free-form beliefs, that while able to impact the world (opinions of some impact opinions of others and from those opinions aspects of the world can change; eg "it's a good idea to put a pipeline here”), have little to do aside from their implicit connections, to reality outside of ourselves.
I like my beliefs like I like my tea: loose leaf beliefs
-Fact is paradigm based. Idea of fact is projection of how we want world to be, nested in a paradigm framework of thought and perception to interpret the world. We can notice this by virtue of varying identification of fact between two disparate minds: there are ideas that some may hold as a fact while others do not.
-The notion of fact is also an ideal: it's ontological nature in the framework of reality is abstract, not concrete.
-In x paradigm, a proposition is true and a fact.
-Only facts that may be exceptions are tautologies.
-Due to the appearance of rigor and ubiquity within certain paradigms, facts can be said to be consensus opinions.
-Opinions run the [human] world in many, but not all, ways.
-There a great many ideals, concepts and paradigms of such in the world, those we "choose"as ones we derive truth from, come to us mainly out of happenstance. We don't control the initial ideas that are introduced to us that we then assimilate and operate off of and act from.
-While we each would like to think that what we believe and think are ideas that are true, such truth is delimited by said idea's influence outside of our control and conditioned into us. So how much truth are we really experiencing and holding? It appears borderline arbitrary. But at the same time not, paradoxically.
-None of this invalidates “facts” that may actually be facts, such as the ontological fact that existence exists (tautology).
Fact is derived from the bias that there should be an answer relative to a particular framework that it is a fact in. Relative to what seems to be the case the most in a given paradigm/perspective dictates if a fact is a fact, ie, fact appeals to what seems the most prevalent to be. And I'm not saying there are no facts, but I am hinting they may not be as weighted as we treat them. Though, for all practical purposes perhaps we should continue adhering to them? :lol:
Allow me to expand further. It is considered a
scientific fact that the gravitational pull of the earth accelerates objects at 9.98m/s^2. However, does this fact “exist” without the scientific paradigm that the fact belongs to? It doesn't seem so. It seems that, while facts are meant to be objective, as soon as something is observed, then wondered about, then investigated, then interpreted, no matter the format, and had words put to it, that each successive stage removes the “fact” from obejectivity. It's similar to the flaw of compounded inductive reasoning (which doesn't really seem avoidable in some respects). This seems to be just inherent; it seems to the condition that we find ourselves in existing in this way, and may very well be unescapable, which is only bad if one happens to have preferences that lead them to feel so, but this is about
knowledge in the sense of
certainty as well as the magnitude of our behaviors and attitudes of
conviction. Can we not observe in others and ourselves the undercurrent of felt
certainty and
conviction in some of our statements and propositions?
Something held as a fact is
considered a fact, but if history is accurate enough, then it can be observed that there
have been “facts” that are no longer “facts.”
Systems are paradigms and narratives to me, but are only pictures of reality and though part of reality not a perfect reflection of reality itself. They are utensils for understanding in particular ways and elicit particular kinds of experience of what we call reality. In this sense, “reality” can reasonably be interchanged with “truth,” specifically, “certain truth” and/or “certain knowledge.”
Subjectively, beliefs are tertiary to my stance of skepticism (primary) and views of paradox (secondary and compliments the primary). While we can believe whatever we want, for me the idea of belief is tied to truth and as such connected to knowledge, so I can believe x is true and not know that it's true. This is my personal hangup. Now, I could also move away from the truth component and idealize more so the aspects of trust, faith, and confidence that a belief exhibits when outside of what can be known to be true (so pretty much everything), but that simply leaves me as suspended as usual when embedded in skepticism, in turn causing a constant realization that I could be “wrong,” and then still entertaining other possibilities, finding difficulty in adhering to specific beliefs committedly and consistently.
I find faith problematic (which we've touched on earlier), I have trust issues, and confidence is an elusive thing to me :lol: I also find it difficult to concede to a singular belief structure in a purely subjective way when the aim and prose of said system is laid out objectively.
In speaking about my lack of personal internal faith and belief (though learning to apply such to myself at the very least; I think I've earned it
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), we arrive at one of what I consider a few flaws in skepticism. Nothing is exempt, not even me, or this skeptical philosophy.
That said:
An idea that invalidates everything also invalidates itself, for it is not exempt from its own postulates. It is part of its own set. Skepticism can be viewed as paradoxical in two ways, the one previously mentioned, but avoiding positivist claims. Then it invalidates itself through invalidating everything else, yet also bolsters itself by tearing itself down, though never making a
claim. It presents itself to sacrifice itself for the points and observations it makes. Its application to everything else overshadows the implications of the application of itself to itself.
That's what I feel sets this apart from skeptical philosophies that I am aware of that came before me; they make claims that bring the claims themselves under the same scrutiny of that which they claim. They state
that we don't know and build arguments as to why. For us however, I have built arguments through a prose to inspire reflection and from there showed how it
could be that we may not
“know” with
certainty.”
Simply, it's a kind of hypothetical framing throughout.
To be continued
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