No reason justifies disbelief.

[LadyForCamus]

I've been thinking about this intuition thing. It's totally bologna, lol. What is intuition in the first place? It's an unconscious assessment of empirical data, expressed as an innate, informed sense.  Without sense experience, there is no information, and so there couldn't be intuition.  Empiricism is the platform off of which intuition takes its leap. Sure, maybe its a "back of the house" assessment, like you said, but its still an assessment. That it feels different is irrelevant, and as you said, we use the same methods to distinguish between good/bad intuition and good/bad sense experience.  That's because they're essentially the same thing.  Giving something a different label doesn't magically transform it into something other than exactly what it is.

I'm not sure that is quite right. "Intuition" can still work absent any data at all. Data is not required. I suspect that baseless intuition is preferentially selected by evolution and the unintended consequence is religion.

Without sensory input, what are we intuiting?

[ohreally]

I've been thinking about this intuition thing. It's totally bologna, lol. What is intuition in the first place? It's an unconscious assessment of empirical data, expressed as an innate, informed sense.  Without sense experience, there is no information, and so there couldn't be intuition.  Empiricism is the platform off of which intuition takes its leap. Sure, maybe its a "back of the house" assessment, like you said, but its still an assessment. That it feels different is irrelevant, and as you said, we use the same methods to distinguish between good/bad intuition and good/bad sense experience.  That's because they're essentially the same thing.  Giving something a different label doesn't magically transform it into something other than exactly what it is.

I'm not sure that is quite right. "Intuition" can still work absent any data at all. Data is not required. I suspect that baseless intuition is preferentially selected by evolution and the unintended consequence is religion.

If something is selected for via evolution then there is surely something we can measure that is involved in the root DNA and any changes to it therein.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's nice, whatever it is you think you're commenting on...but hasn't and can't still aren't interchangeable.  I still wonder why you think this, and why/how you think you know it.

-and, ofc, why it would even matter?

Again. . . this is an idea that you've introduced, and you're commenting on it as though I said it.  Did I say hasn't = can't?

I would say that if you want to assert that science can answer all kinds of questions, then you'll have to demonstrate this to be true.  As you know, I'm perfectly willing to demonstrate that the evidence is against science answering certain kinds of questions: because of the nature of the question, and because of the nature of science.

Why do I think science cannot explain psychogony?  Because we are limited to objective observations, and mind is subjective.  You can't examine a mind in the lab.

-and yet it's an active field of research

Why do I think science cannot explain ultimate cosmogony?  Because it's limited to material observations from within the Universe, and because we have no reason to believe that limitation can be transcended.

-and yet it's an active field of research

It's not just "Science hasn't solved this, so it can't."  There are plenty of unsolved problems that I feel pretty sure will be solved.  I expect, for example, a general cure to cancer within a century.

You started by denying that you've been making this claim, then made it twice again, lol. I appreciate that you tried to give reasons, though, even if I don't find them remotely compelling or even marginally cogent.

I'd still love to hear why you think it would matter, since we're unlikely to make progress on the reasons for your belief, and those things above are ultimately not important to the overarching conversation in the first place. Let's say that your cant's were in effect. What would that signify? If some particular tool of ours simply wasn;t the right tool, could that be taken to suggest or certify that there were a right tool, that we possessed that tool, or that there was anything in the set that our current tools couldn't address?

---

I'm not sure that is quite right. "Intuition" can still work absent any data at all. Data is not required. I suspect that baseless intuition is preferentially selected by evolution and the unintended consequence is religion.

If something is selected for via evolution then there is surely something we can measure that is involved in the root DNA and any changes to it therein.

It may be that the contents of our intuition and those things innately known are not our own personal observations..but the sum of our biological inheritance....that then present themselves to us prior to any local observation.

This contemporary form of intuitivism/innatism is referred to as nativism.

[bennyboy]

Again. . . this is an idea that you've introduced, and you're commenting on it as though I said it.  Did I say hasn't = can't?

I would say that if you want to assert that science can answer all kinds of questions, then you'll have to demonstrate this to be true.  As you know, I'm perfectly willing to demonstrate that the evidence is against science answering certain kinds of questions: because of the nature of the question, and because of the nature of science.

Why do I think science cannot explain psychogony?  Because we are limited to objective observations, and mind is subjective.  You can't examine a mind in the lab.

-and yet it's an active field of research

The field of research does not explain (or for the most part, attempt to explain) why there is mind. Nor can it identify what physical structures or processes are capable of subjective experience.

Why do I think science cannot explain ultimate cosmogony?  Because it's limited to material observations from within the Universe, and because we have no reason to believe that limitation can be transcended.

-and yet it's an active field of research

The field of cosmogony deals with the Big Bang and the unfolding of events as the Universe expanded.  It doesn't explain why there was  Big Bang, or by what mechanism it could have unfolded. At best are speculations about Cosmic Foam or multiverses, which are about as scientific as God claims.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and yet it's an active field of research

The field of research does not explain (or for the most part, attempt to explain) why there is mind.  Nor can it identify what physical structures or processes are capable of subjective experience.

-and yet it's an active field of research

The field of cosmogony deals with the Big Bang and the unfolding of events as the Universe expanded.  It doesn't explain why there was  Big Bang, or by what mechanism it could have unfolded.

It's probably more accurate to say that you just don't agree with any of their hypotheses, on both counts. : shrugs :

Still, I doubt that bickering over the minutiae is going to approach the point of contention between empiricism and other-than-empiricism or physics and metaphysics.  Let's just assume that your cants are in effect, and that no hypothesis will ever yield a theory.  Would the unsuitability or even failure of one tool suggest or imply that there was some other tool, that we possessed it, or that the set of things this tool was unsuitable for was actually populated?

[Belacqua]

My view of things is this: we start with raw experience, filter it through our world view, and then categorize and systematize it.  

This has got to be right, I think.

All the raw materials get into the mind through the senses. Or "nothing in the mind not first in the senses," as the man said. 

Then the interesting part is in what we do with it. How we massage it, manipulate it, edit it, plug it into existing interpretive structures, etc. Some of this is conscious, some not. 

The manipulation and interpretation of ideas that can be given added credence through further empirical research is science. The manipulation and interpretation of ideas through making ideas work together, we hope in a logical way, is metaphysics -- and some other things. 

The idea of intuition without raw material that was first in the senses is unbelievable to me. A thought is always a thought about something. How can a thought have no content? Intuition, it seems clear, is the unexpected combination of data that gives a conclusion. Maybe the data is from the memory, not quite conscious, or maybe it comes from very small amounts of observed data -- like a very subtle tilt of the head in someone you know, from which you intuit that something much bigger is going on. But there's nothing unique about it. It's a difference of degree and not kind. A big interpretation from a small prompt. 

One of the more interesting thinkers on this subject was Coleridge. He was working in reaction to Locke's idea that the mind is blank at birth and everything we know comes in through the senses -- again, a restatement of a peripatetic idea. Coleridge was interested in how the mind combines existing data to put together new images. As a poet, this was important to him. So for example no one here has seen a griffin, but we all can imagine one in detail if we want to, by combining elements of real animals in our minds. 

Coleridge made an interesting distinction between what he called "imagination" and "fancy." The former was a genuinely creative act, while the latter was more passive. The important thing in imagination, for him, is the active quality that the mind takes in forming its mental pictures. It isn't a mirror of the world. It is an actively put-together thing, and thus might be profoundly different for people in different times and places. Imagination here isn't only dreaming up stuff, it's fundamentally image-making, of the type that the mind makes of the world we see. (Coleridge learned German and was among the first Brits to read Kant, which should be obvious here.) This is why it's so important to read novels; the differences in perception as recorded by different types of people is varied and fascinating. The mental world that people in The Tale of Genji have is just profoundly different from us today. They saw differently because they interpreted differently. 

This is where the arts took a major turn in history. Previously people thought good art was art which reflected the world well -- either as it is or idealized. After the Romantics the whole thing changed to the view we have today: what is great in art isn't the thing depicted, but the mind of the artist doing the showing. The mental interpretive structure that is unique to van Gogh is what makes him a great painter.

[The Grand Nudger]

Another resounding affirmation of empiricism that renders the metaphysical an empty set. Again, the metaphysical is explicitly meant to be different than physics....but the product of our senses are just that.

-as an interesting point, the notion of tabula rasa was demonstrably in error, one of the things that empiricism needs to incorporate to prevent the sort of decoherence seen above in the concept of the metaphysical, is how innate knowledge (however small or large that category is) could itself be based on sensory experience.

[bennyboy]

Still, I doubt that bickering over the minutiae is going to approach the point of contention between empiricism and other-than-empiricism or physics and metaphysics.  Let's just assume that your cants are in effect, and that no hypothesis will ever yield a theory.  Would the unsuitability or even failure of one tool suggest or imply that there was some other tool, that we possessed it, or that the set of things this tool was unsuitable for was actually populated?

I'm not a declared agnostic because I believe there's a better tool for investigating metaphysical questions than science. I'm a declared agnostic because I don't think we have access to answers about some questions. That being said, it is clear to me that there are some limitations specific to the scientific method which would suggest that either philosophical speculation or rational inference would be better tries at understanding those questions than science could be.

Here's the state of things as I see them: there are some things in existence, namely the Universe in general and the property of mind specifically, which science has proven a very poor tool in explaining. Anyone claiming that science provides a good working model of reality is, in my view, in error, because a good working model of reality must include both of those-- i.e. it must adequately answer the questions of cosmogony and psychogony.

Furthermore, since science has not demonstrated its ability to answer those very important questions, insistence either that it CAN or HAS answered them, or assertions that it is likely to answer them in the future, are statements of faith. I see assertions along those lines as a tribal response of anti-religion or anti-spiritualism, i.e. as so-called Scientism rather than as sincere statements of a good understanding of modern scientific principles or conclusions.

In other words, as an agnostic, I see an insistence in claiming knowledge where there really is none as a form of dogma-- and I hold dogmatic positions in low regard, whether they are religious in nature or materialistic.

[The Grand Nudger]

Still, I doubt that bickering over the minutiae is going to approach the point of contention between empiricism and other-than-empiricism or physics and metaphysics.  Let's just assume that your cants are in effect, and that no hypothesis will ever yield a theory.  Would the unsuitability or even failure of one tool suggest or imply that there was some other tool, that we possessed it, or that the set of things this tool was unsuitable for was actually populated?

I'm not a declared agnostic because I believe there's a better tool for investigating metaphysical questions than science.  I'm a declared agnostic because I don't think we have access to answers about some questions.  That being said, it is clear to me that there are some limitations specific to the scientific method which would suggest that either philosophical speculation or rational inference would be better tries at understanding those questions than science could be.

If philosophic speculation and rational inference are, likewise, based on empiricism...then metaphysics is an empty set, and it's uncertain why the most succesful form of empirical investigation...the scientific method... would be an inappropriate tool for investigating the empirical.

Here's the state of things as I see them: there are some things in existence, namely the Universe in general and the property of mind specifically, which science has proven a very poor tool in explaining.  Anyone claiming that science provides a good working model of reality is, in my view, in error, because a good working model of reality must include both of those-- i.e. it must adequately answer the questions of cosmogony and psychogony.

Again, minutiae, and you're just telling us that you disagree with scientific hypotheses or the ability to establish a theory, it;s not accurate to consider either subject a black box for science..they just aren't.  

Furthermore, since science has not demonstrated its ability to answer those very important questions, insistence either that it CAN or HAS answered them, or assertions that it is likely to answer them in the future, are statements of faith.  I see them as a tribal response of anti-religion or anti-spiritualism, rather than as sincere statements of a good understanding of modern scientific principles or conclusions.

Again, signalling your disagreement.  It's not as if you aren't aware of the fact that there are scientific hypotheses.

Even though hasn't isn't interchangeble with can't...and even though won't isn't interchangeable with can't..let's just assume your cants, and try to move forward from there?

[bennyboy]

My view of things is this: we start with raw experience, filter it through our world view, and then categorize and systematize it.  

This has got to be right, I think.

All the raw materials get into the mind through the senses. Or "nothing in the mind not first in the senses," as the man said. 

If one is unconscious, then there are no sense impressions. I would therefore say that there is in fact something elemental about mind, and that the senses contribute content-- the paint on the canvas, so to speak.