No reason justifies disbelief.

[The Grand Nudger]

If logic doesn't refer to reality, and in that reference to the empirical limits of the human creature..... then on what basis was logic constructed?

[Belacqua]

He positively reeks of RR.

What is RR?

[The Grand Nudger]

Funny you should ask, fool.

(it was a crazy ass hindu with a schtick similar to your own that had much better command of emojis)

[LadyForCamus]

Sure. Having an objective way to distinguish between true and false intuitions (as well as sensory experiences) would be necessary in order for them to be useful, or practically meaningful in any way.  Otherwise, you're just guessing at shit, lol.

Well, yeah, but once you accept that we can guess right outside of and without the use of sensory experience you're wondering about the reliability of guessing, not the validity of intuition as a basis for knowledge, and you've already accepted that empiricism is not the basis of knowledge in doing so.

You’ve lost me a bit here. Explain it to me like I’m..ya know...me. 😛

There are people who argue for an additional qualifier to the jtb, along these lines, actually.  They insist on the criterion of reliability.  Ultimately that's a separate question.  It may be that intuition is less reliable than empiricism.....but so long as intuition ever grants any knowledge at all, sense experience cannot be the foundation of knowledge as empiricism claims.

How can we ever possibly distinguish between acurate intuition and lucky guessing?  I was certain my first born was going to be a boy.  I walked out of our twelve week ultrasound certain he was a boy.  We didn’t find out until months later of course, that I was right.  Did I use accurate intuition to acquire non-empirical knowledge about the sex of my unborn?  Or was it a lucky guess? That he was a boy after all would lead many to say that my intuition gave me true knowledge.  But if he had been a girl, then I guess I didn’t know after all, did I? And, if all correct intuitions that lead to knowledge are simply lucky guesses...then...how on earth can any rational person consider guessing to be the true foundation of knowledge? I mean...?

PFT, whatchyou talkin bout, I speak good and everything! My made up words are beautiful and anyone who has occasion to type them is blessed! 

Blessed, and in need of a shot of hard liquor! ❤️

There's the rub.  If you're not certain that it's a separate concept then it would help to show how the concept of unicorns were empirical.  Otherwise, your own words above..that you have no empirical knowledge of unicorns...is a brilliantly effective rhetorical weapon against your skepticism.  You started this paragraph by making a definitive statement that directly argues against your later uncertainty.  To your credit, you suggest that people imagine things, that we do have this experience...but remember when I reversed the characterization of the other than empirical as "real+"...and stated that it's actually the empirical rather than the intuited (in your use imagined) that deserves the +?

What I’m trying to say is that there is no meaningful difference between the concept of a not-real thing, and a real thing, because concepts draw from empirical data. A dog is real. We have empirical knowledge of dogs. The concept of a unicorn is real. We have empirical knowledge of the current parts and features of existing creatures that our physical brains use to imagine a unicorn.  Without empiricism there is no imagining of a unicorn. I would say that that empirical knowledge is no less empirical than my empirical knowledge of dogs. The concept of a unicorn is not real in some special, different, metaphysical way. 

Give me an example of knowledge about something in existence that is not empirical.

How about your "blondeness"?  Does it actually relate and is it necessarily bound to the empirical fact of the color of your (and my) hair?  If we can verify that a person is empirically blonde...does that grant them, then, the attribute of "blondeness" you referred to earlier..or is it possible that this thing "blondeness" is something you intuit wholly apart from an empirical fact of the color of hair or any other empirical fact?  That no amount of individual instances of empirically noting blonde hair will or ven can ever demonstrate blondeness?

Haha, well, I was being tongue-in-cheek about the relationship between my hair color and my...flakiness.  But, I can definitely confirm there exists physical, empirical evidence of my flakiness, lol. I mean...I could list a lot of examples, and there are probably plenty that I could corroborate with documents, lol.  But, then I’d have to hide from the forums in shame for a month. 😂 No, I don’t need to rely on intuition to know I’m a flake. The evidence has lead me to no other reasonable conclusion. I’ve made my peace with it. 😏

Feel ya.  However, if you intuit that you exist, how we're using the term as real vs real+, then you must by definition possess some non empirical fact of your existence, similar to the non empirical facts of my beautiful made up words above.

But, I’m saying I can’t ever know that as a fact.  I may intuit that I exist, but it might not be a fact, like someone intuits their unborn baby is a boy, until they learn it’s a girl.

[brewer]

Funny you should ask, fool.

(it was a crazy ass hindu with a schtick similar to your own that had much better command of emojis)

That's LR. 

RR was the continual dodger who would change the subject when cornered.

[LadyForCamus]

Because 'nothing' is logically impossible as a state of being, by its definition.

Yeah, these are the kinds of philosophical truths that sometimes make me wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

Dude, I can’t even tell you the hours and hours of sleep I have pissed away on philosophical pondering like this, lol.  It’s ridiculous.  I hear you. 

You put the emoji presumably to indicate that you're joking, but actually I take that as an important philosophical statement.  It might even be that paradox itself IS the mechanism by which being is allowed for.

No, I actually 100% mean that.  It took me like 12 years of wondering in the middle of the night why there was something rather than nothing to reach that conclusion, and I think you’re right. 

If my personal identity is defined by a positive state of being, then what happens when I cease to exist as a sentient agent?  Once being is established, how then does "nothing" become a valid description of my state of being?  It seems likely to me that the idea of soul arose more out of this kind of philosophical question than out of a mythological God idea and a fear of death.

This is different than the kind of lacking-of-being of sperm/ovum combinations that never came to fruition-- will a dead bennyboy be in the same state of lacking-of-being that all those combinations are, or is it different somehow because by existing now, some kind of philosophical superposition has been resolved, and cannot be reversed?

Let me think on these ideas a bit, because they’re good questions and I want to give you my best answers; as best I can, anyway. 🙂

[LadyForCamus]

Funny you should ask, fool.

(it was a crazy ass hindu with a schtick similar to your own that had much better command of emojis)

Oh, I was taking about RoadRunner.  LR, though...dang, I don’t miss that guy.

[LadyForCamus]

He positively reeks of RR.

What is RR?

RoadRunner.  A former member.

[Belacqua]

What is RR?

RoadRunner.  A former member.

And why do you say I reek of him?

[LadyForCamus]

RoadRunner.  A former member.

And why do you say I reek of him?

I’ll get to that just as soon as you get to answering my questions posed to you in post #270.