Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:
A.  "I believe that cheese looks and smells and feels like so.  I further believe that what looks and smells and feels like so is cheese."  These are beliefs.  You appear now to be denying the existence of absolute BELIEF, which is completely different from doubting absolute KNOWLEDGE.  Worse, you just said that having such a belief is a self-contradicting definition, which is not only wrong but nonsensical.  Besides, how do you know how I define the word "bachelor"? 

Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut you can just believe something else"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut that sense data could actually mean anything if you interpret it differently"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut any specific interpretation is just an assumption"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data

To put it more politely, I'm not ADVOCATING that, I'm just saying that it's POSSIBLE to do so, which satisfies my goal of disproving your "ANY" statement. 

B.  But this isn't ABSOLUTE knowledge, it's knowledge within the sense data (input) of its own internal consistency with your output.  Do you deny that when you output what you perceive as "pressing Y on the keyboard" a Y appears on the screen?  Do you not expect that if you should output "pull the trigger of a loaded gun that is pointed at your body" you are going to receive input "PAIN"?  Life may be an illusion, but it is a VERY complete one, which is getting dangerously near to my point.

A. As I understand you're trying to making a point to contradict my "any" statement and I'm apparently not making it clear enough that there's a fundamental problem which would make this clearly an impossible scenario to arrive at.

You pose a person with belief(s) X, then says he also has the belief that sensedataY must indicate Z. (Or however you would correctly transcribe that in this form.) 1. Since we're discussing a method of truth... I wonder how you got belief X in the first place. It just ignores the whole issue of legitimately arriving at a belief which is fundamental to this. 2. Saying that a person can believe that sensedataY must indicate Z is already impossible according to what I'm saying. It goes against an inevitable admission of the intellect (and no, I didn't mean to imply that the belief was contradictory, rather it's wrong by rational analysis). SensedataY is not an indicator of only Z and no other no matter how much you want to assert that someone just believes it is. SensedataY indicates about a million different beliefs. Thus you can't set up this scenario. The point you're trying to make can't happen according to the fundamental problem I'm positing with using sense data to arrive at any belief. I can't ignore that and pretend someone can legitimately believe sensedataY must indicates cheese. That's the issue, so tell me how I'm wrong in saying that since it would make your point impossible to truly occur.

If you held the meaning of bachelor that I do... then the point would come through. I know you can define a word any way you want. I was merely trying to exemplify the kind of problem I'm trying to communicate: similar to contradicting the meaning of your own word. It's in the realm of rationality.

A. and B.

Next, the distinction between belief and 'absolute knowledge' is semantics and, I'd add, what allows the subjectivist generation to revel in contradiction - have their cake and eat it. Unfortunately, explaining this only gives it undo attention. When I person says they believe something... it means they believe it's the right belief... and that inevitably means they think the other opposing beliefs are not the right beliefs. They believe they know something... they believe they know the things it's not. Go figure, that's not much different of how philosophers have described so-called 'absolute truth'. Knowing that you know something without other possibilities being true. Whether people legitimately arrive at that place... it's just what is meant when they say it.

This example might not be as effective as my explanation: "I believe Z and also that A - Y are demonstratively false. ...Oh, but I'm not saying I know that." (???)

The only thing I can gather with the use of "belief vs. knowledge" is that, through this, people are either 1. exposing the fact that they're really not so sure they believe something in the first place or 2. that by making this distinction for themselves they don't feel obligated to make an account or case for it (mainly because they know they can't or don't want to lol) 3. there's ambiguity since we use the word 'belief' to describe someone elses 'knowledge' which we think isn't actually knowledge at all.

Touching on point B through this - however you decide to name the "consciousness" of interactions with various sense data, it's just going to mean some sort of knowledge. When I know to hit "Y" on the keyboard to make it show up on the screen... that's right, I don't believe I came to know that through sense data. Again, there are other methods of truth proposed.

Pardon me if I'm coming across abrasively.  I'm only going for emphasis :)

PREFACE:  FYI, this gets better as it goes; although all sections say important things, IMO the last three paragraps, especially second to last, are the best, if only because they are nice and concise.  Also, don't worry about abrasiveness; I'm being much worse. 

[edit:  PREFACE 2:  I missed something in my original response that may be key.  I'm editing now; it will appear at the bottom.]

A.
1. "Since we're discussing a method of truth... I wonder how you got belief X in the first place. It just ignores the whole issue of legitimately arriving at a belief which is fundamental to this."
'butbutbut any specific interpretation is just an assumption'
What I think you fail to grasp is the fact that the belief having no absolute rational foundation (i.e. does not defeat your skepticism) is IRRELEVANT to the fact that such a belief can EXIST.  So, no, that "issue" is not fundamental at all, but totally irrelevant to the point I am making.

2.  'butbutbut that sense data could actually mean anything if you interpret it differently'
Oh, so you are infact saying that the belief CANNOT exist.  You say it cannot exist because rational analysis will admit that that belief is not the only possible belief.  Well I'm sorry to have to break this to you but not all beliefs are 100% rational, and not all beliefs will capitulate when confronted with rational investigation.

"I can't ignore that and pretend someone can legitimately believe sensedataY must indicates cheese."  What do you mean by "legitimate"?  I think you are acting as if such a person having that belief would somehow have to prove you wrong about your skepticism in order to be possible.  In fact this is not true.  In fact, you are putting yourself in the position of PROVING to me that no person with such a belief can possibly exist, which doesn't seem very compatible with your skepticism to me.  Or, how does the nonrationality of a belief render it IMPOSSIBLE? 

If a person ABSOLUTELY BELIEVES that sensedataY means only Z, they will ONLY interpret sensedataY as Z, and the million other interpretations DO NOT EXIST to them.  If I understand you correctly you are trying to say that Belief Set A can't be contradicted by evidence because Belief Set B would not interpret that data as evidence against Belief Set A, but Belief Set B is not relevant whatsoever to the issue of Belief Set A being contradicted BY ITSELF (along with sense data that can only be interpreted one way by Belief Set A). 

I now think the bachelor comment is actually relevant when I actually just included it as a laugh.  Suppose I have ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY (nonrational but then I'm not a rational man) that Guy is a bachelor.  Suppose further that I have ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that only married men have rings on their fingers and also that I can accurately detect said rings.  Now I witness a ring on Guy's finger.  ZOMG!  One of these certainties is incorrect.  If I choose to interpret the evidence in a way such that I can continue to believe that Guy is a bachelor, that is just as bad as if I decide that "bachelor" actually means "married man". 

"A. and B."
"I believe Z and also that A - Y are demonstrably false. ...Oh, but I'm not saying I know that."  There's your problem I think. 

Or, your 1, 2, 3 interpretations of "belief vs. knowledge" ignores 4. knowledge is provable/proven belief.  So we can prove, and thus know, things WITHIN our input/output data, but we can only BELIEVE that said data and knowledge is actually TRUE knowledge of a "really for real" universe.  (Or believe something else, or nothing.) 

I suspect that you are failing to differentiate what is true/provable/possible WITHIN a belief set vs. what is true/provable/possible for ALL belief sets.  Thus knowledge is differentiated from absolute knowledge, the latter of which is what you say cannot be derived from sense data (and I don't disagree).  Here you appear to be saying that regular knowledge is not possible either, but I disagree.

[edit:  "When I know to hit "Y" on the keyboard to make it show up on the screen... that's right, I don't believe I came to know that through sense data. Again, there are other methods of truth proposed."

[WAIT, WHAT?  How did you not sense it?  Even if God drilled a hole in your head and delivered the information via a teaspoon of pixie dust ... you still received sensory data of pressing the key and seeing the Y.  Also, by "don't believe" do you mean disbelieve, or just lack of positive belief?

[Also, I believe that this does not actually address the point you were responding to, which is partly about consistency of the perceived world with perceived actions, not method of reception of perception.]