(January 24, 2016 at 1:26 pm)phil-lndn Wrote: My perspective-centric view of reality makes "complete fabrication" impossible, because I consider 3 dimensions of meaning in a text:

1/ Subjective
2/ Intersubjective
3/ Objective

Whatever anyone says is always meaningful from 1 or more of these dimensions of meaning. Sometimes the content of one or more of the dimensions lacks meaning, but that does not undermine the fact the text itself is meaningful.

Example: a harry potter book lacks meaningful Objective information (it's not factual reporting, and the cause and effect relationships described in the book are not rational) but it contains Subjective information (we know from the fact of the story's existence that the author had a desire to write the story) and Intersubjective information - the story is a delightful story that provides pleasure for the reader.

Philosobabble of the highest order:

All stories are intersubjecive unless no other human is allowed to read them.

You are abusing the words objectivity and subjectivity since you should be deploying fact or fiction based on your usage. Is the obfuscation intentional?

Ok, well, I am telling you that I was an atheist before I ever read a book about atheism; my atheistic position does not depend on books. FACT. lol.

(January 24, 2016 at 1:28 pm)Cato Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 1:18 pm)phil-lndn Wrote: Yes it is fully rational, all claims are unsubstantiated in an absolute sense because logic is axiomatic.

Then you are left with no grounds to criticize others for what you assert are unsubstantiated claims. If this is your true position, you are a hypocrite and your criticism lacks merit; however, I think this is just a an attempt to save face.

Of course by the same claim, neither are you?

I think you have just posted a self-refuting truth claim.

(January 24, 2016 at 1:33 pm)phil-lndn Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 1:13 pm)robvalue Wrote: No, I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry.

I'm relaying a story. I'm asking if the story is true or not, in that did the events I described actually happen, or not?

We can learn about my motivations, perhaps. But that's not what I'm asking. It doesn't undermine what you've said if you just say my story is true, which is what you've been saying of all stories.

OK I can see from what you've reflected back at me that nothing I said made any sense . 

I'm not sure if i can help very much, other than say that if any of this sounds even vaguely interesting I suggest getting into posmodern philosophy and psychology.

---

(January 24, 2016 at 1:18 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood what I meant by 'swinging at nothing,' or maybe I wasn't clear.  Of course there will be some atheists here who will take a defensive position in regards to your specific post.  There may be some atheists here who hate Hitchens and agree with you.  There may be some who don't have an opinion one way or the other because they haven't read the book.  

My point is, whether or not your critique of GING is founded has no bearing on the position of atheism in general.  In other words, we don't worship atheist books or authors in the same way theists worship holy books, so criticizing one particular book about atheism is NOT a take down of atheism as a position.  Hopefully I have cleared things up!

OK, although as mentioned I'll be making my own mind up on that. I don't just take people's word for things, I'm more concerned with building fact-based opinions than taking things on faith.

Ok, well, I am telling you that I was an atheist before I ever read a book about atheism; my atheistic position does not depend on books. FACT. lol.

(January 24, 2016 at 1:40 pm)robvalue Wrote: I appreciate you trying, but you're using the word "true" in a way that doesn't seem to mean anything.

It's true that I wrote the story, for whatever reason I wrote it. That's just a tautology. It's not necessarily true that my story undermines your story, it may have failed utterly. If it's only true that I intended to undermine you (and that was an assumption on your part, it wasn't part of the story) then that's not saying much useful.

I agree that you need to view things in context, and to see what you can really learn from it, regardless of whether the events happened as written. Is this what you're trying to say? If not, I have no clue and I'll have to give up. I'm all for philosophy, but when it gets to the point where you're assigning labels and meanings that apply equally to everything, they no longer have any significance.

I likewise appreciate you are trying to understand me, what I'm trying to communicate is unfortunately slightly mind-twisting if you haven't encountered it before. 


Perhaps a way to help explain it is to say that "true" is always a perspective. There is no "true" in an absolute sense. Example - this picture you might have seen before is a great practical demonstration of perspectives. It's possible to see 2 different pictures in there, one is of an old women looking down and the other is of a young women looking away. 




Which one is "true"?

Both. And, neither.

"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth" -  Niels Bohr

(January 24, 2016 at 1:44 pm)phil-lndn Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 1:28 pm)Cato Wrote: Then you are left with no grounds to criticize others for what you assert are unsubstantiated claims. If this is your true position, you are a hypocrite and your criticism lacks merit; however, I think this is just a an attempt to save face.

Of course by the same claim, neither are you?

I think you have just posted a self-refuting truth claim.

With the obvious exception that I have not claimed that all claims are absolutely unsubstantiated. Project much?

(January 24, 2016 at 1:43 pm)Cato Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 1:26 pm)phil-lndn Wrote: My perspective-centric view of reality makes "complete fabrication" impossible, because I consider 3 dimensions of meaning in a text:

1/ Subjective
2/ Intersubjective
3/ Objective

Whatever anyone says is always meaningful from 1 or more of these dimensions of meaning. Sometimes the content of one or more of the dimensions lacks meaning, but that does not undermine the fact the text itself is meaningful.

Example: a harry potter book lacks meaningful Objective information (it's not factual reporting, and the cause and effect relationships described in the book are not rational) but it contains Subjective information (we know from the fact of the story's existence that the author had a desire to write the story) and Intersubjective information - the story is a delightful story that provides pleasure for the reader.

Philosobabble of the highest order:

All stories are intersubjecive unless no other human is allowed to read them.

You are abusing the words objectivity and subjectivity since you should be deploying fact or fiction based on your usage. Is the obfuscation intentional?

"Philosobabble" isn't a rational term, it's an (irrational) term that's evidence of defensivity.

With respect, I think the rational conversation is over.

What practical use is it to say everything is "in some way" true? I agree things can be true in different ways. That's clear.

If you're allowed to project whatever you want into the statement in question, then it barely means anything anyway.

(January 24, 2016 at 7:15 am)phil-lndn Wrote: Can you please give me an argument for your truth claim that "Rationality is no cure for religiosity".

And (if not rationality) what is the cure for religiosity, how have people managed to step beyond it?

And you seem to be arguing that Christopher thinks that Religion is a symptom of low levels of development ('low levels of development poison everything'), whereas I thought his argument was that religion was actually at cause here? ('religion poisons everything')

Which one causes which?

-it's an observation, not an argument
-"people" haven't
-turtles all the way down.

(January 24, 2016 at 2:04 pm)robvalue Wrote: What practical use is it to say everything is "in some way" true? I agree things can be true in different ways. That's clear.

If you're allowed to project whatever you want into the statement in question, then it barely means anything anyway.

I would say the practical use of the understanding is to realise that the other person may (almost certainly will) have a perspective that's different to mine, therefore what he is saying is almost certainly not what I am hearing by default. 

So it's a call to listen carefully, to try and step outside of myself into what the other person is saying, and hear it on their terms. It's a call to not project into it, in other words.

People who are not aware that truth is relative to a perspective have the tendency to get stuck in terrible arguments over the truth, when in fact there's no such thing.

I'm not saying here that all truths have equal value. Obviously a mentally unwell person may be saying strange things from an un-useful perspective. And it can be hard deciding whether a perspective is worth trying to understand or not. As a rule of thumb though, I think there are a bunch of mainstream perspectives that perhaps billions of people occupy - I'd say to anyone who wants to truly understand the world, can you actually occupy these perspectives and find the position from which they are true?