Categories
Epistemology

I know Buddhism

(pantheism) is kind of trendy right now, but I think it is pretty much intellectually bankrupt.

Pantheism appears to me to be just warmed-over atheism. In pantheism, god is… everything. In everything and through everything. There is no personal god. No “God with us,” as the Bible says. It is a totally impersonal “The Force,” which is no surprise since George Lucas is… a Buddhist.

But it seems be just atheism/materialism with a “The Force” cherry on top. That cherry is in no way integral to the structure of the ideology itself—it is just garnish. The structure is the same with or without the “cherry.” So it suffers from all the same logical and evidentiary weaknesses of atheism.

Categories
Epistemology Science

If you are at

all scientifically rigorous, you reject the mask mandates. Because there is no science that supports them. Yes, they may fit with your political aims, but the actual science just doesn’t support them.

The Cochrane review’s lead author, Oxford’s Tom Jefferson, said of masks in a subsequent interview with Australian investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi, “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop.”

… In fact, 16 RCTs have tested whether masks effectively reduce the spread of viruses. Not one has found compelling evidence that they do. Two have found statistically significant evidence that masks are counterproductive—that they increase the spread of viruses—probably because masks are frequently moist or dirty, and people often touch them.

…Trying to block a virus with a mask is like trying to keep mosquitos out of your yard with a chain-link fence.

…In a way, Oreskes has provided a public service with her article, as has Scientific American in running it. The article makes clear how willing mask advocates are to sacrifice scientific objectivity on the altar of their newfound religion.

Categories
Captain Obvious Epistemology

The NY Times

lies again, and gets pasted for it for once.

The NYT is NOT a reliable source! And even if you think you can just take “the true parts,” YOU have no idea what parts are true and what parts aren’t. You have no way to differentiate between truth and falsity.

You are just reinforcing your own prejudices. Whatever strokes your ego and reifies your previously obtained, strongly-held beliefs is perceived by you to be “truth.” Just admit it.

THIS is why I am a Historical Empiricist! While that may not solve ALL the conceptual problems, that approach solves many of them. At least it is not being conceptually a Post-Modern, adrift on a Godless sea–without epistemological rudder or sail, saying that there is ONLY a Nietzschean will to power and no Truth at all…

What, the NY Times couldn’t be bothered to do this work to find out the truth? Like many individuals, if a story fits their pre-judged conclusions, they will go bleatingly along with it. It’s pretty obvious that they are NOT a trustworthy site.

Categories
Epistemology Media Flying Monkeys

Understand well,

“unverified” is code for, “This is known but we really don’t want to report it.” It doesn’t apply to things they want, no matter how dubious.

Please, don’t be a dupe and fall for it! These guys often lie to you, and right as it comes out there is simply no way to know what is true and what isn’t. So here we see the problem with lying: One then never really knows if they are telling the truth or not, so the whole thing is suspect.

It’s like saying, “There’s just a little poop in the soup–less than 1%!” So tell me, do you want a spoonful?

Years ago a Lefty buddy talked about how yes, he subscribes to the NY Times but it’s not like he believes everything they say. So I asked him just how he knows what to believe and what to reject. How does one discern between what is True and what isn’t?

He would no longer be my buddy after that…

Categories
Epic fail Epistemology

People don’t trust

experts” much, anymore.

I think the trust in actual science remains high—as is right. But the trust in scientists is predictably and rightfully low now. Because those who masqueraded as scientist were actually just political whores, selling themselves to the highest bidder who agreed with them.

Uh, that’s not science…

No wonder people don’t believe them anymore. Science doesn’t lie. But many scientists sure do!

Categories
Epistemology

It seems perfectly

obvious to me that a materialist worldview quickly deteriorates into a nonsensical infinite regress.

If ALL there is is materialist cause-and-effect, if A caused B and B caused C, etc. then we follow the chain back to the FIRST case (let’s say, A) and say, OK, I understand the train of causation, but what caused A? You can’t just stomp you foot and say, “It’s turtles all the way down!”

It’s like (Neo) Darwinian evolution: It might explain the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival of the fittest! It is intellectually shabby in the extreme to just shrug and say, “It must be turtles all the way down!”

As philosophers have long noted, there MUST be something that started all of this. There must be an “unmoved mover.” THAT must of logical necessity be something (or someone) with Free Agency–their actions were NOT caused by anything–the actions arose ex nihilo from the being itself!

It other words, it was creative. Like a symphony or a painting or a poem. It sprang from from a rational agent. Sure, I can create an AI program to look at great music and from that extrapolate to other stuff through brute force, but then that is not creative in any sense of the word. It is just complexly derivative. In fact, it can’t be otherwise!

Categories
Epistemology Liars

THIS is why

people have no trust of people in authority anymore. There have just been too many lies…

From politicians to medical personnel, who do you trust anymore? Trust in groups of people have been shattered. The ONLY thing left is faith in a personal relationship. You generally have to know a person to have trust in them. And you only know them through interactions with them.

You have to know that they are telling the truth. It’s necessary for them to be a truth-teller in order to have confidence in what they say. A fun-house mirror gives you NO confidence that your hat is on straight! So personal honesty becomes paramount. Beware of people who are unreliable mirrors!

Categories
Epistemology Political philosophy

It totally bears

repeating:

Modern Liberalism is firmly rooted in the Continental rationalism vein. ALL people come to know truth or right and wrong through sitting down and thinking about it. Moral truths either don’t exist (Post-Modernism) or are revealed mainly by a person’s independent reasoning. Thought is even what proves existence–as Descartes famously said, I think, therefore, I am.

Empiricists think that is pure fantasy—narcissistic delusion, even. People from different backgrounds and experiences and even languages just aren’t going to have the same thought processes and come to the same conclusions. They believe that reason alone is flawed and unreliable—and it is subject to change, styles, and even decay.

THEREFORE, the way to moral and political truths is through the empirical data of human experience and NOT mainly through mere reason and thought (this is British Empiricism). The issue is not what should be true or what “makes sense,” but what has been actually observed. We need trial and error over long periods of time.  And this makes Conservatives fundamentally skeptical of ALL knowledge claims—even their own. 

This is the difference between a Rationalist theory and an Empirical one (or Leftist vs Rightist): The Rationalist/Leftist sees in politics and morals a realm in which an endless variety of theories compete with one another for social power—without any being rooted in observable experience (or Truth, for that matter). The “measure” is what sounds good and makes sense to you. Today.

Empiricists/Rightists rely less on what should theoretically be true, and more on what has been demonstrated historically to be true. As was famously argued by sir Francis Bacon, we ought not to rely on reason to know tell us how many teeth a horse has–just open the horse’s mouth and count them!

In other words, Conservatives rely mainly on historical empiricism, not mere ratiocination.

Does that solve all problems of knowledge? LOL, no! But it does explain things pretty well.

Categories
Epistemology Science

There IS no

science without Christianity. Science depends on Christianity to itself even exist at all! Hence, as smart and advanced as they were, there was no science in Muslim and Chinese cultures–because there was no Christianity.

Bear with me, this is long.

See, according to Christianity, we were made in God’s image. We could understand all of God’s creations. After all, the God that created them also created US to be like him. So God’s actions were comprehensible to us.

But also there was the fall of Adam, and humans became “fallen man.” So even though we could fully understand all of God’s creations, we were “fallen” and were highly prone to biases and all sorts of error.

THEREFORE, we needed a method of discerning fact from human biases. That method of knowing (not subject) was SCIENCE. So there was a great deal spoken and written (see: Sir Karl Popper) about how to reducer error and get to truth.

There were issues of validity and reliability and a culture where EVERYTHING was questioned. So to say, “The Science has spoken” and “Scientists have proven” is perhaps the most unscientific thing ever!

As historically and culturally understood, the Scientific Method is a way of getting over the human weaknesses that came about because of the fall of man and comprehend the mind of God. It is NOT a subject–virtually any topic can be studied in this way. It is a method for reducing error and getting to Truth.

Categories
Epistemology Science

Science will

make limited claims about what appears to be the case (or technically, what appears NOT to be the case). But religion and philosophy make claims about what SHOULD BE.

Any halfway wise scientist understands that. Otherwise, it is mere Scientism, a sort of armchair speculation–a manifestation of a set of cultural beliefs.

And “scientists” who claim to have proven TRUTH are not actual scientists at all. They need to go back and read Karl Popper! (there is no verification, only tentative falsification)

The ONLY way to “prove” something true scientifically is to account for ALL variables (both known and unknown, including space and time). And that is not possible. In short, there is only correlation, NO CAUSATION.

And anything with a 100% correlation is, by definition, trivial.

So is science useful? OF COURSE! I myself am a scientist. But we need to acknowledge the very real limits on what science can reveal to us.