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How Do You Know You're Right?

Posted by khalling 9 years, 9 months ago to Humor
89 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

little Objectivist humor there heh. :)


All Comments

  • Posted by not-you 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Or perhaps he needs to read up on Kant (whom Ms. Rand very competently deconstructed BTW) to see if Objectivism is ...ah....not really his cup of tea.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If only that worked when stopped by a policeman. Ignorance is no excuse for lawbreaking is what I always get told. It should work that way with logic as well.
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    But I'm also right if I can't hear or understand your arguments that I'm wrong!

    ---Prog/Lib-"Logic"
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Unless you are in agreement with My Truth...

    Then we have Consensus and Agreement, which means Our Common Truthiness has even more Truthierness than it did before!
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  • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    there is a distinction between reality and omniscience. I can't stand that word, and you know why :)
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Of course I will, because I recognize the importance of ignorance. Are there things we can know? Of course. But to assume we know everything possible relevant to a given topic is to assert omniscience. I'm not ready to do that. If you are, you've evolved way past me and I congratulate you for it.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I KNEW you were going to get on that bandwagon. ah, blarman! we've been over and over this
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  • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am not missing any point, just commenting on the rabbit hole you chose to go down here with mr. Shipley. Your rabbit hole I guess. carry on :)
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If "right" is correctly observing reality, I suppose I am "right" about half the time. Most of the time I don't have all the facts but have to make estimates based on what I have first hand knowledge of
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think one comes from a better place when one is more concerned about getting it right instead of being right. I once wrote about this problem in context:
    Philosophy, like our connotation of truth, is not the end of a discussion. Philosophy is a way to organize what we may know at any given point in time. Once new knowledge comes to light, this organization of thoughts should adapt to that new knowledge.
    Truth is an end to a portion of a conversation; it only applies to the laws of nature and the physical laws of the universe. Still, at some level, as far as mankind is concerned, it applies to our present understanding of these laws.
    Facts, as my mentor so often says, are “often just someone’s opinion.” We should only use what is empirically observable, demonstratable and repeatable, as fact.

    Am I Right on these things? hahahahahahahahahahaa
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  • Posted by tdechaine 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Nonsense. You sound like a scientist who can't distinguish scientific study from philosophical thought. Enough here.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Without doubt
    We are waiting
    To find out.

    I'm going to take a break
    Get a glass of water
    And finish up some other matte
    check in later as I oughter.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Your argument starts with the premise that we begin with full information. I think that in those situations sufficiently complex enough to be interesting, knowing full information is virtually impossible. What we actually do is work from a position of sufficient information, but sufficiency is a judgement call and may be in error. So we don't have a full grasp of reality, but only a partial one.

    And, logic and reasoning while theoretically capable of being perfectly performed are also capable of error, especially if there are many complex factors to be considered. The fact that it can theoretically be done doesn't mean that it has done in any case.

    The "world is flat" argument has been used in a number of discussions of a example of the efficacy of working with imperfect information.

    Why do I think we can't perceive reality objectively? We have sense organs, they have limitations. For example we believe objects are solid although physics tells us they are almost completely empty. In fact there is some question if anything in there is solid but that goes beyond my level of physics.

    So the idea that we are dealing with solid objects is one of those examples of imperfect information that we deal with routinely.

    To be clear, the fact that the world is real and that we are capable of perceiving it to some degree and using reason to analyze it means that there is always a right answer to be found. I just don't think that we are usually in possession of it, only successively better approximations.
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  • Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The question is: How do you know you are right? This is a general question of epistemology, not any specific issue. What does all of what you are saying have to do with the question?
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 9 months ago
    our philosophy has served the ages without having a clear explanation;;;
    the fact that we now have one makes it more likely to serve more,
    in the future, since naming something makes it easier to find it!!! -- j
    .
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  • Posted by not-you 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hahaha, Michael. She can hold her own quite well. He is just more colorful. We could never win those childhood, wheedling "but-if" arguments with him. He'd just reply, "Yeah, and IF a frog had a hip pocket he could carry a pistol to shoot snakes, too." [They are ages 94 & 93, survivors of the Great Depression, still alive, still intellectually sharp...and complete realists. I was incredibly fortunate to have such characters as parents.]
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    and mind the spelling ' pragmatically. Having deep sixed the left on economics then how might legitimate economics be improved or guarded against criminal behavior.? The start point would be Socialism which by definition is heavily government controlled has never succeeded even while being raided by criminal elements while Capitalism has never been unfettered. To what degree should we control capitalism or at least provide some sort of a protection against criminal activities.
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