What makes people irrational thinkers?

[polymath257]

Epistemic hubris?

I created an entire thread for the purpose of giving you guys the opportunity to make a case for your epistemology and demonstrate its efficacy. Seems like people abandoned ship the second there was even the slightest challenge or request for clarification of some of those epistemic principles used to get to god.

Are you referring to the Tooth Fairy thread? 


It's pretty optimistic to think that we're going to settle the Nominalism vs. Idealism debate on a thread, since it's one of the longest-running debates in the history of philosophy. 

I guess I don't feel an obligation to stand and fight when I know it's not going to finish. The Stanford page I linked to outlines the whole problem better than any one of us can do. It would be rude of me to say "go read this and come back when you understand it," since I only understand a little bit of it myself. But it shows how big the issue is and how unsuited it is, finally, to an informal setting like this one. 

On one hand, I think it's important for each of us to work through the issues ourselves, since we can't get the full grasp of the issues just by reading -- we have to engage personally. At the same time, every one of us here (myself very much included) is an amateur who's just above beginner's level, at best. At some point we realize that we have to go away and read a bunch of books if we want to do a good job. 

Polymath is passionate about his view of things, and he does a very good job of explaining his position. Maybe he doesn't do a splendid job of understanding differing viewpoints. At some point those of us who aren't as sure of his position as he is have to decide if we want to spend a large part of our day explaining why he may not be as justified as he supposes. 

I appreciate this venue as a place to work through the issues, but I hope you'll understand that nobody, given real life (I rode in an ambulance yesterday), is going to be able to give these enormous philosophical issues the full time attention required to make any progress.  Chipping away over years and years has helped me understand some things.

And I may not be as sure of my position as it comes across. I have read and, I think, understood a number of sources that disagree with my overall viewpoint.

For example, in the Hart book, he starts to loose credibility when he starts his name-calling. Saying that anyone that opposed his views must be delusional, while perhaps fair game, isn't likely to advance his actual argument.

Also, misunderstanding what the materialist position is doesn't help either. Whenever he describes matter as 'inert' or 'lifeless', he shows just how little he really understands about the physicalist position. Matter interacts with other matter. In fact, that is often how material things are *defined*: in terms of their interaction.

There are also places where he simply dismisses other viewpoints as inadequate even though it is clear he doesn't quite grasp those viewpoints (again, possibly fair turnabout, but not conducive to good argumentation). He  takes it as a given that consciousness cannot be explained in a physicalist worldview. I happen to disagree. In fact, I don't see a 'hard problem' of consciousness at all: only a 'soft problem'. Again, I don't ultimately think it is because I don't understand his position. I simply disagree with it for a variety of reasons (which I can go into if desired).

When I ask for clarification, this is as much because I had noticed these issues in my previous reading and would like an intelligent person to explain how my concerns are NOT valid.

I am accustomed to using logic and reason professionally (as a research mathematician) and have learned that it is very common to have seemingly valid arguments invalidated by imprecise definitions. I can give numerous examples in mathematics, let alone physics and other areas of study. Lack of precision is frequently the place where logical errors occur. Bad assumptions, especially ones that suit some intuition, are another place where things can go badly wrong.

Also, there is a trope in mathematics that the most likely place to have an error of reasoning is after the word 'clearly'. This is true for other areas of study as well.