Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  NeonMadman

  how do we compare and tell what actually is? from all the EVIDENCE what actually is is just mental inventions, dreams...

  Well, that was my point - what is this "evidence" that you keep asserting exists? Another poster asked for it, and you directed him to the site I was commenting on. And that site contains no evidence at all, only assertions.

  but if you read carefully, you will see I make no such claims, only that the EVIDENCE we have points to everything we KNOW to be within our own minds made by our own minds...not that it is untrue or even inaccurate

  It seems to me that you were pretty strongly implying that our perceptions are at least potentially untrue or inaccurate, though you may not have expressed it explicitly. And again, you speak of this "evidence" that you have not supplied, which would prove that everything in our own minds is made by our own minds. What's wrong with the concept that the perceptions in our minds are made by an outside reality impacting on our senses? That is what humans have believed for millenia. What extraordinary evidence do you have that proves otherwise?

  but your RANDROID reaction is typical of those who want to silence opinions which do not conform to your view of the world.

  No, if I were trying to do that, I'd probably call someone a RANDROID (whatever that is) and accuse them of trying to silence opinions of those who disagree with me. Another example of postmodern claptrap: I'm not allowed to honestly disagree without being accused of trying to "silence opinions" with which I differ.
• 

  NeonMadman

  I often come up against arguments that claim there's no objective truth, and therefore all viewpoints are equivalent. I usually counter these arguments by punching the person very hard in the face. When they splutter through their broken teeth "Why the hell did you do that?" I punch them again and continue until they figure it out.

  Good point, derek. I've never heard of a postmodernist who would make allowance for there not being any objective truths when he was reconciling his bank statement.
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  zen nudist

  It seems to me that you were pretty strongly implying that our perceptions are at least potentially untrue or inaccurate, though you may not have expressed it explicitly. And again, you speak of this "evidence" that you have not supplied, which would prove that everything in our own minds is made by our own minds. What's wrong with the concept that the perceptions in our minds are made by an outside reality impacting on our senses? That is what humans have believed for millenia. What extraordinary evidence do you have that proves otherwise

  The site I pointed to shows in images what science tells us, a chain of events which seems to come from an external source ending up as a mental interpretation [symbols, representations, dreams, etc] call it what you like, but the only FACTS we have to go on shows that what we KNOW is not the external world but a possible representation of one...and there is the rub, its a FACT that what we know is within our mind, but it not a fact that it exists anywhere else...so on what basis would one assume it does? you said for millenia we have assumed such, I point out that some of the greeks like Plato did not, he clearly understood this when he spoke of seeing the shadows on the wall cast by a a source beyond our ability to expeirence and mistaking the shadows for reality. the world we KNOW claims that photons hit objects and then bounce into our eyes and get converted to electrical signals which are piped into a brain which processes these in combination with a myriad of others to form some sort of coherent world that we then experience... the images I pointed to on the website shows there is a fundamental lack of understanding of what actually views the final product, what finally is conscious, what sees...but it also points to the fact that we are not 100% sure that what we do see what science and our apparent senses tell us is actually what is going on at all, al a matrix... the source and the observer are both infact mysteries which no one has ever conclusively demonstrated to exist as we suspect they do.... your using the term clap trap reminds me of the RANDROID, those cultish followers of Ian Rand's objectivism. they pretend that objective reality is knowable and verifiable in some objective way, but never deliver more than intellectually dishonest mockery.
• 

  NeonMadman

  it also points to the fact that we are not 100% sure that what we do see what science and our apparent senses tell us is actually what is going on at all, al a matrix...

  But why would you assume a Matrix-like scenario, apart from any evidence for it? The evidence of the real world around us is the fact of what we perceive, and the fact that most of us appear to have very similar perceptions of the world (on the large scale, at least). Sure, it's possible that it's all an illusion, but it seems unlikely to the point of being dismissable. It's also possible that there are little purple men with orange spots living on Pluto, but until someone presents some solid evidence in favor of what seems like an unlikely theory, I'm not going to embrace it. The bottom line is that the only evidence we have access to tells us that what we perceive around us is reality. I won't say it's impossible for that to be wrong, but it seems very unlikely. In the absence of actual evidence that our perceptions are somehow badly skewed, it seems like nothing more to me than a topic for idle speculation that some people are taking way too seriously.
• 

  zen nudist

  won't say it's impossible for that to be wrong, but it seems very unlikely. In the absence of actual evidence that our perceptions are somehow badly skewed, it seems like nothing more to me than a topic for idle speculation that some people are taking way too seriously.

  as to other evidences, when you have had some out of body experiences or near death expeirences and are a vet of dozens of lucid dreams, then you can tell me what we all share is as real as you think it is, while those of us who have had VERY SIMILAR experiences which shows us that the seemingly solid world of current perceptions is nothing but smoke and mirrors, as in a shared hallicination, then we can say more, but my expeirences are not your experiences, my world view has a very different shared view with others who like me have had some very different perceptions which apparently you have yet to share.

  does the fact that we seem to have shared them make them true? or what about past life experiences, I share these with many, does that in and of itself make them true?

  many questions, but I find few answers and those like you who have yet to expeirence such things seem to think none of them exist, but those who do share them ponder otherwise.

  you remind me of those who have never been addicted to anything and can snort heroine and not get a buzz and go around mocking the rest of us addicts who have a completely different experience of the world.
• 

  NeonMadman

  when you have had some out of body experiences or near death expeirences and are a vet of dozens of lucid dreams, then you can tell me what we all share is as real as you think it is, while those of us who have had VERY SIMILAR experiences which shows us that the seemingly solid world of current perceptions is nothing but smoke and mirrors, as in a shared hallicination,

  I'm not denying that such experiences occur to some people, but frankly, they are in a small minority. To equate such perceptive experiences with the shared experience of the overwhelming majority of the human race as a benchmark of reality is a bit like judging all religious belief on the basis of Jehovah's Witnesses - judging the whole by a small, aberrant group. It seems odd to me that you are willing to give serious credibility to things like out of body experiences and lucid dreams (for which there are scientific explanations), while at the same time calling the normal everyday perceptions of billions "smoke and mirrors" and "shared hallucinations."

  does the fact that we seem to have shared them make them true? or what about past life experiences, I share these with many, does that in and of itself make them true?

  Doesn't make them false, either, and as I've pointed out, the shared perceptions of billions are really the only evidence we have as to what is reality. Why should we conclude they are wrong without extraordinary evidence to the contrary?

  you remind me of those who have never been addicted to anything and can snort heroine and not get a buzz and go around mocking the rest of us addicts who have a completely different experience of the world.

  I don't recall "mocking" anybody. Again, you are equating simple disagreement with an attack. This is one of the biggest problems I have with those who think as you do; you not only want to maintain your own belief structure, but you are unable to accept the fact that others disagree, and if someone does so, you interpret it as an attack. Don't you believe that my belief that there are objective truths is as valid as yours that there are not? Why are you so intolerant of those who disagree?

  By the way, you do no service to your cause by equating your beliefs with heroin addiction. Who is in a better position to make intelligent decisions about his life, the heroin addict in the throes of his addiction, or the person who has never been addicted to anything? Perhaps that is your problem in a nutshell.
• 

  zen nudist

  Doesn't make them false, either, and as I've pointed out, the shared perceptions of billions are really the only evidence we have as to what is reality. Why should we conclude they are wrong without extraordinary evidence to the contrary?

  it must be pointed out that those billions are perceptions too which also may only be figments of your own mind... you cannot use subjective mental anomolies to prove that objective realities exist, can you?

  I don't recall "mocking" anybody. Again, you are equating simple disagreement with an attack. This is one of the biggest problems I have with those who think as you do; you not only want to maintain your own belief structure, but you are unable to accept the fact that others disagree, and if someone does so, you interpret it as an attack. Don't you believe that my belief that there are objective truths is as valid as yours that there are not? Why are you so intolerant of those who disagree?

  you started calling my belief CLAPTRAP which is a nicer term than BULL$#!+ but did you mean anything else?

  now you are pretending that it was your disagreement which was the attack... it was not, just your insulting tones

  then you pretend that I am unable to accept others disagreeing with me... more self serving condescension.

  as to your beliefs about objective truths, I simply ask you for some objective evidence for them which of course we both know you cannot give as the only things we can share are always going to be subjective, no? if I am wrong, please provide the evidence.

  where have I been intolerant of those who disagree? that seems like it is you who are the one seeing attacks where there are none.
• 

  NeonMadman

  you started calling my belief CLAPTRAP which is a nicer term than BULL$#!+ but did you mean anything else?

  No, I guess in a sense you're right about that. I do consider self-falsifying statements to be "claptrap," and the statement "there are no objective truths" is certainly self-falsifying, in that it purports to state an objective truth. It's a lot like saying, "this statement is false." I certainly didn't mean the term to be a personal attack, and I'm sorry if it came across that way, but I'll stand by my position on the concept.

  as to your beliefs about objective truths, I simply ask you for some objective evidence for them which of course we both know you cannot give as the only things we can share are always going to be subjective, no? if I am wrong, please provide the evidence.

  Actually, this discussion started with you saying that "all evidence" favored your viewpoint, and I attempted to call you on your statement. There is no evidence whatsoever that reality is anything other than what the vast majority of mankind perceives it to be. If you want to think that it is, you are welcome to your beliefs, but pardon the rest of us if we think you are wrong.

  I might be a bit more sympathetic (but not much) if you asserted that we cannot know objective reality, since we are finite beings. That would make a bit more sense, because it would not deny that some objective reality does indeed exist, even if we can't figure out what it is. But you seem to go beyond that, insisting that there is in fact no objective reality at all, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Even if we are all living in the Matrix, the Matrix (or whoever is operating it) must be the reality.

  Furthermore, your style of thinking simply doesn't work in real life. If you deposit $1000 in the bank and it isn't there when you check the balance, I'll guarantee the last thing you want to hear from the bank teller is that you shouldn't worry about it because there is no objective reality anyway, and he just perceived a different deposit amount than you did: "Well, dude, it may have been $1000 to you, but to me it was only $50, and since all viewpoints are equally valid, I guess you're out of luck." The point is that you live your life as if what surrounds you were reality - what exactly is the compelling evidence that makes you think it's all an illusion?
• 

  zen nudist

  Actually, this discussion started with you saying that "all evidence" favored your viewpoint, and I attempted to call you on your statement. There is no evidence whatsoever that reality is anything other than what the vast majority of mankind perceives it to be. If you want to think that it is, you are welcome to your beliefs, but pardon the rest of us if we think you are wrong.

  here is the thing, I said ALL EVIDENCE points to the FACT that everything we KNOW is within our mind, mental inventions... which is true as far as it goes... meaning that you cannot find anything that we KNOW showing that anything we KNOW is not within our mind, because that is the ONLY place we know anything....no matter how you slice it... this does NOT in any way shape or form say word one about the TRUE nature of reality which you automatically ASSUMED it did.... the point I was making is that we HAVE NO WAY TO KNOW what the true nature of reality is... now it could very well be EXACTLY as we perceive it to be, but I tell you now there are plenty of psychological and physics examples which demonstrate that there is at least some distortion due to beliefs, genetics, whatever... we have for example blind spots in each eye which we do not perceive directly but can easily be shown by some simple methods... there is possibility two, the matrix. and there is possibility three, a shared hallucination made stable by many minds which one mind alone cannot easily penetrate. there is possibility three, you are god, insane, and suffering from multiple personality disorder arguing with your own subconscious and not doing a good job of it and the fact that you are stuck on ONE of the many possibilities as the ONLY likely one is not in anyway shape or form, indicative that you are correct.

  I might be a bit more sympathetic (but not much) if you asserted that we cannot know objective reality, since we are finite beings. That would make a bit more sense, because it would not deny that some objective reality does indeed exist, even if we can't figure out what it is. But you seem to go beyond that, insisting that there is in fact no objective reality at all, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Even if we are all living in the Matrix, the Matrix (or whoever is operating it) must be the reality.

  Actually, you have been the ONLY one in this discussion to make this absurd suggestion, I have never mentioned it once.... the first part of this is exactly the point I was aiming for and apparently you do accept it to some degree, it was you and you alone who hallucinated that I have said anything more than that....

  we appear to me to be finite beings trapped within our own minds incapable of verifying the actual source of our mental inventions. and to my knowledge there is not one bit of EVIDENCE you can present that contradicts this in any way shape or form.... the opinions of the vast ignorant masses is NOT evidence.
• 

  NeonMadman

  But you seem to go beyond that, insisting that there is in fact no objective reality at all, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Even if we are all living in the Matrix, the Matrix (or whoever is operating it) must be the reality.

  Actually, you have been the ONLY one in this discussion to make this absurd suggestion, I have never mentioned it once....

  Actually, at one point you did say:

  that would imply the very thing you falsely accuse me of doing, namely stating an objective truth, which of course I do not believe to exist....

  Saying that objective truth does not exist is a vastly different thing than saying it is unknowable. Even in the latter case, I would disagree with you (or at least with the implications of your statement), but your position would seem a bit more rational.

  You are correct that we have no way apart from our minds to perceive reality. Everything we know or think we know is within our minds, and we have no other frame of reference. Therefore, it is theoretically possible that everything we "know" could be some sort of mental construct, in no way representative of reality. Possible, but highly improbable, in my estimation.

  Let's say I come home from work later today to find that my wife has done some housecleaning in my absence. I decide that I am thirsty, so I look for my handy 7-11 giant soda mug, which I distinctly remember leaving on the table. It isn't there, so I look around a bit, and find it in the kitchen cabinet. How did it get there? There are a number of conclusions I could reach, any one of which could be true:

  1. My memory might be faulty, and I might not have left the mug where I thought I did.
  2. My wife might have moved the mug in the course of her housecleaning.
  3. The mug might have developed the ability to move under its own power, and transported itself into the cabinet.
  4. The mug might have been moved into the cabinet by demons.
  5. Aliens might have beamed the mug up to their spaceship to study its properties, and messed up the location a bit when they returned it.
  6. Government black-ops agents might have entered my house using their high-tech 007-style gadgets (so as not to be detected) and moved the mug in order to confuse me, thus making me ripe for subservience to the New World Order.

  There are certainly other possibilities that could be imagined. But the question is, how likely is it that any given possibility represents the real situation? Most of us would opt for #2, or possibly #1. A Jehovah's Witness might also give some credence to #4. Every scenario on the list is possible, but would any reasonable person conclude that, because they are all possible, they are all equally probable? Clearly, the vast majority of rational people would choose either option #1 or #2. Anyone who made a habit of choosing options like #3 through #6 would probably be seen as having mental problems that needed to be addressed. Rejection by the majority doesn't make those options false, of course, but in the absence of significant evidence in favor of them, experience has shown us that they are highly unlikely.

  Similarly, though we can imagine Matrix-like scenarios in which our perceptions are routinely deceiving us about the nature of reality, there is no reason to believe that this is the case apart from any evidence supporting that theory. You said that:

  ALL EVIDENCE points to the FACT that everything we KNOW is within our mind, mental inventions

  But there is a difference between saying that everything we know is in our mind, and saying that everything we know is "mental inventions." Rationality would lead us to the conclusion that, absent evidence to the contrary, what is in our minds is there because we have perceived what really exists outside our minds, not because we have 'mentally invented' it. Any other theory is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence to back it up. The fact that we can conceive of other scenarios does not mean that they are in any way probable.

  And, I think the point I made earlier - that such thinking is not usually applied in real life (refer to my bank teller illustration in a prior post) - is yet further evidence that your theory does not hold water. A good theory should be applicable in practical ways.