@mr_jargon -
mkay. That's fine by me. I can do the talking.
There's
no reason to talk to Bryan as he hasn't really brought up anything new
as much as he's just got his ducks in a row (as he sees it) for his own
pleasure. More power to him. Denialism and misrepresentation are not a
critique and I'm sorry if I don't feel very discredited because he can
woo a sympathetic audience with an array of half truths. Should I have
serious doubts about my basic understanding of emotion, religion, and
spirituality? Should I think his subjective experiences are good cause
to believe a panentheistic entity is worth taking seriously? Should I
pretend like my view of the Allverse isn't reasonably in the ballpark
of where multiverse theorists are
currently
at? Why should I give "nuh uh" and a slew of academic bigotry and
misdirection the time of day? If Bryan could be moderated, he would
have moderated himself to some extent already. As it is, he shows no
signs of being able to control himself in any meaningful regard. I'm
sorry if you can't see the numerous conversational deal breakers that
go well beyond "not being able to defend myself." I appreciate the
offer, but you apparently don't understand the gravity of the
situation. The substance of your two positions may be similar and your
enthusiasm is understandable, but there are better ways and worse ways
to go about defending that position. Bryan does not serve the
conversation, he serves himself.
You appear to think of
nominalism in terms of a universalist construct and fail to apply
nominalism to itself. It doesn't make sense to ask whether we can be
consistent nominalists, as we should be asking if we can be absolutely
consistent since virtually all of our sensibilities in one way or
another do not correspond readily to the "real world." This isn't so
much a given as it is a matter of being informed of the long list of
how our world comes together and isn't quite what we assume it is.
Human epistemology and possibly any knowledge base from any knowing
being cannot be mathematically precise as it is always in an
abbreviated state of flux, based on at least some givens which can't be
anything other than assumed, and our convenient assumptions are no more
precise just because we'd like to think they are. Recognizing the state
of flux does not make it not a state of flux and universalism does not
appear to be cut out to deal with that. From a realist perspective, the
patterns are as real as they appear to be, but our reference point does
not grant us the most accurate viewing of any pattern we think we have
identified. I don't think it really matters how you put it.
I'm
at a loss as to how anyone can truly commit to one measure of
knowledge. Perhaps some version of foundationalism is the "ideal" since
practically speaking you have to connect anything you come up with to
your most reducible givens, but it seems prudent to be able and willing
to check your knowledge base, your claims, and your arguments from as
many different perspectives as you happen to know of. Why shake off
coherency, context, and whatever other measure there may be, or pretend
like your given foundation is really that secure? The path of truth is
paved with shades of failure. We can only do the best we can. We can
stick with Carrier's labels for now if the ideal of "acentricism" feels
like a cop-out. I'm not trying to pull one over on you. It would help
your case (in my eyes, at least) a great deal if you would point out
specific problems you think this is causing rather than (apparently)
using it as a scapegoat whenever things get rough. If you think that's
what *I'm* doing in some way, perhaps we can help each other meet each
other's criteria.
You're going to have to set some specific
goal posts on your letter (a) if I've failed here, because I really
don't know what you are looking for. You are more knowledgeable than I
and we can run with whatever your call is, and then you can show me
where you think it messes up. Perhaps I will better understand what the
deal is in that event. The main persistent factor is the loaded
questions you tend to ask and how much time it takes me to figure out
that's the case, since there's no direct answer. I have a more lengthy
piece on all of this
here if you are interested.
Your
apparent methodologism (I just made that term up, btw) seems to border
on claiming that ordinary people don't possess any truth values if they
don't have a stated method to carefully inspect. One wonders how such a
method can even be found if you have nothing to work with to begin
with. Surely this isn't what you mean, but it does rather sound like it
often enough.
"...but then again there is no 'evidence' for
anything apart from some accepted epistemological context and
ontological framework." I've yet to see where it matters as though
different metrics shouldn't all be getting at basically the same idea
and should effectively complement one another rather than generating
ginormous truth values undetected by a slight shift in perspective. Are
we dealing with the same reality or not? Perhaps you can come up with
some reasonable counter-examples. I'm not claiming that taking the time
to examine how you go about things isn't important in its own right,
but you do seem to be at an extreme.
I'm not sure what you
mean by "eliminative materialism" as though that's not your own
pejorative spin on what I've said in the past. What does materialism
eliminate? Does it eliminate the relative reality of what's important
in the personal sphere of things or does it eliminate a possibly faulty
understanding of what makes it the way it apparently is? You must be
big on first impressions? :P
"I commune with God and witness miracles every day"
is something Ethansudman told me to justify the probability of miracles
in history. Are these things required for one to think a thought or
know anything? Is it reasonable to imbue this on just about everyone
participating in such a discussion? Why do I have to pay the bill for
meta-scammers who poison the well with unnecessary "add-ons"? Are your
mere impressions of consciousness or the nature of reality "mundane
givens" or personal speculations? We can agree on "I'm conscious" and
"I'm not exactly sure what that necessarily means", right? Seems pretty
in the ballpark of a mundane given to me. I'm not sure how you manage
to avoid the truth of "I confront" as though you are not a "you" in
some way and do not "confront" anything in some way. It's just a
starting place. One does not wake up in the morning and know all the
secrets of the universe. At least that's one of my mundane givens.
I
don't have a problem with studying philosophy, but I can't change what
that typically entails. There are a lot of positions out there and one
can only imagine they are not all correct, right? Currently (off and
on, at least) I'm suffering through Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason."
I'm trying to be a good sport.
BTW, what I was referring to before(and perhaps I misunderstood) is the quote,
"I agree that there is no conclusive neutral evidence for Christianity..." Ben
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