Dialogue-"ability", that is, How We Will Think
There are some people that I can philosophize with and some I can't, and there's some people this site will benefit and there's some that it won't, and this doesn't depend on whether you're a Christian or not. It depends on your faith, but you can read more about that in the Faith and Epistemology pages of this website. Again, I do not necessarily mean Christian faith, although that helps. If you have a problem with any of these, I can't help you. These are basic axioms and in the end, you must take them on faith.
1)The world makes sense and there's a reason for everything, which is why we go out in great faith seeking answers. This doesn't mean we know the reason for everything, but this does mean that we're not wasting our time asking questions, that an answer is out there whether we know it or not.
2)If something is, it's because it already is. OR The truth is manifested from the abstract to reality.
EX: People will often use the explanation that if there's some problem in the world, it's because people were taught to believe that way. So, for example, if women are seen as inferior in the world, it's because society has socialized us to believe and act in this way. But that's begging the question, and therefore that's not the answer. If we were taught this way, and our parents were taught this way, and their parents taught them to think that way, then who taught the first people to come up with this idea? It's a nice PC answer that makes us feel better, because the solution is to just reeducate everyone, but that's not going to help us at the end of the day, because that's not the reason for misogyny. No, the problem began, and the status quo has been maintained all throughout human history, because misogyny is inherent to humanity. It's not a pretty answer, it's depressing, but at least from here we can ask why we're inherently misogynist. This is also a lot harder to figure out and study than to just reeducate people because trying to find answers to age-old questions just so happens to be a human curse. So you see, things were already messed up (in people's hearts), and have merely manifested themselves in reality (humanity's actions and culture). If something is, it's because it already is.
3)Common sense must rule the day.
Philosophers often like to ponder stupid questions that common sense has ready answers for. Among them –
Do I really exist? Does the world really exist? Perhaps it exists differently than how we readily perceive it to be.
Do we have free will? Because maybe we don’t and we just think we do. Maybe some evil entity is controlling us.
How do I know there’s causality? When I spill juice on the carpet, a stain is formed, but maybe it’s not the juice that’s doing it. Maybe something else caused the stain at the exact moment that I spilled the juice. And me pouring the juice and the juice getting into the cup -- maybe it wasn’t my tilting motion that did that – maybe there’s some other reason for why the juice got into the cup. Just because there appears to be cause and effect doesn’t mean there really is cause and effect.
Maybe the crazy person is the one who’s truly sane and the normal people are the crazy ones.
Maybe we have it backwards…
Not that these are stupid questions in themselves, but people certainly entertain stupid answers for these questions, and in so doing, they've ruined what could have been a good question and turned it into a stupid one, because then we can see that their intent was to turn the world upside down.
If we and the world don’t exist as we perceive things to be, how could we ever function normally? (“Hey, this person might not really exist, so I’ll run him over and go right through him and it won’t matter because it’ll be just like in a dream – unreal.” Or, “Hey man, no need to work! I don’t really need to eat and my hunger doesn’t really exist and food doesn’t really exist, and this world is just like the Matrix.”) If we don’t really have free will, how can we ever blame people for their actions? How can we ever truly say, “I did this” or “I did that”? (“Hey judge; we potentially don’t have free will, so you may not be able to punish me for running that guy over because I thought there was a chance the world was unreal. But then again, I’m not sure we don’t have free will, so, I don’t really know what you should do with me.”)
Besides this, we also risk becoming hypocrites, because we say we believe one thing but live another. All the dumb philosophers out there who not only entertain but propound and expound on these ridiculous ideas, I can assure you, live quite normal lives, respecting the reality of reality, the law of cause and effect, and demanding that others use their free will to respect the dignity and pride of said dumb philosophers.
Related: If logic and our intuitive feelings go against each other, most likely it is our logic and not our intuition that is flawed. We have to give ourselves time to examine our gut feelings to articulate intellectually why we feel against logic; and logic is only a tool -- if we have wrong premises or not enough information or are in false faith, it can lead to false conclusions, even ridiculous or contradictory ones. Again, to repeat point 3, we will (usually) defer to common sense. (Of course, lots of times the conventional wisdom is wrong.)
EX: Logically, why can't a wealthy person keep all their money and not share, since they earned it? But this is morally reprehensible. But why?
Another: Think of all the illogicalities of QM, and how they all appear to really hammer away at the sacred law of noncontradiction. But we don't just throw up our hands in despair and say it's all pointless. Our faith, the faith of the scientist, instead burns stronger for the grand theory that will resolve everything.
4)We will look to the world for answers. Or, what I call Empirical Philosophy. (This point is closely related to point 2 above.) No armchair philosophy here, no speculating out of your ass. If you want to do philosophy properly, you have to know all other academic subjects as well -- history, social sciences, physics, math, neuroscience, etc, and just be extremely well-read overall. Plus, lots of research. I don't mean you have to do be able to solve equations in quantum mechanics, but we should at least understand the essence and importance of philosophically significant matters in the humanities and sciences.
Plus, being well-read and well-rounded leads to making connections you never saw before. Since philosophy is so abstract, you'll find the same phenomenon occurring in all these different areas, over and over again, and they shine light on each other. Finding a clue in one area leads to totally unexpectedly finding a clue in another. Again, this is because of point # 2 above -- the truth manifests itself -- and don't be surprised if it's in many different variations.
Another point -- history is the divine plan. The world is like a laboratory. If you want to see if something is true, don't sit on your ass and just reason your way to your own opinion -- search it out in the real world and see if you can't find an example that will get you closer to the answer.
This has a drawback, and I can see why armchair philosophy is tempting -- it's because it's easy. You don't have to learn anything new. And empirical philosophy can be uncomfortable because it often means saying you don't know and not knowing if you'll ever know. There's no convenient or quick answers. Which brings us to ...
Related: Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's not true. If we can see that something is a fact, though it's flabbergasting, distasteful, unbelievable, or for whatever reason a problem, we will still affirm its truth, believing that we currently don't have enough information to figure out the explanation. In fact, we go out in search of information that will "break our reality". We all have an image of the way the world is, even of what we think the world is supposed to be like, and when we hear something contradicting this, we're shocked, perhaps even disillusioned. In so doing, we say, "Ah, my world was too small! Now I know that this is possible." And our world becomes a little bigger. It's a great feeling to know what's possible!
EX: People at first didn't believe the American G.I.s' horrific reports of Nazi concentration camps because their idea of the world and human nature was that "people aren't capable of such evil". But a fact's a fact. No, we are capable of such evil. Do I say this because of some philosophical abstraction (see point 5)? No, I say this because you can look all around the world and see over and over that people do evil to each other. And even though I now know this about human nature, whenever I hear another example, yes, it still breaks my reality, even further, more than I thought possible, and I see even deeper into how deep the evil in the human heart is. I have no explanation, but do I deny its truth? No, it's true. Atrocious and true.
Now how can one try to "break one's reality" if they cannot go out in "great faith", believing that the world makes sense and there's a reason for everything (point # 1)? This person would be too afraid of what they might find. But you see, this is the sin of faithlessness, and an intellectual sin, that so many Christians, I'm sad and ashamed to say, commit. The odd thing is, they even cover up this sin by saying, "Just have faith!" What irony! They're afraid that their faith will waver if they find the truth. But then is that faith? But an even greater shame is that they can't see the greatness, the wisdom, and the glory of God, God, who is great, and we know so little of his greatness! Another irony is that so many atheists do have faith. Take a physicist. There's some really strange, nonintuitive stuff in physics, but the physicist's faith leads them to continue researching, because they know the answer is out there, if they could only find it! I'm not saying all physicists are atheists, but for the ones who are, yes, they have faith, in the unity and order of the natural laws, even if they deny where that unity and order comes from.
But why do I bring up this point #5? Because so many people use it as an excuse to deny the truth, and as an excuse to not find the answers.
In fact, I always get extra excited about flabbergasting, distasteful, unbelievable, "problematic" truths. It's almost always a sure sign that there's something extra juicy going on.
For materialists and idealists who will take issue with the above: See the Ultimate Question under The Error of Choosing Sides. As relates to this Introduction, I will say that materialism stops you from asking questions, especially the ones that really matter. And idealism is really only another form of materialism. In this, they are anti-intellectual.
There are some people that I can philosophize with and some I can't, and there's some people this site will benefit and there's some that it won't, and this doesn't depend on whether you're a Christian or not. It depends on your faith, but you can read more about that in the Faith and Epistemology pages of this website. Again, I do not necessarily mean Christian faith, although that helps. If you have a problem with any of these, I can't help you. These are basic axioms and in the end, you must take them on faith.
1)The world makes sense and there's a reason for everything, which is why we go out in great faith seeking answers. This doesn't mean we know the reason for everything, but this does mean that we're not wasting our time asking questions, that an answer is out there whether we know it or not.
2)If something is, it's because it already is. OR The truth is manifested from the abstract to reality.
EX: People will often use the explanation that if there's some problem in the world, it's because people were taught to believe that way. So, for example, if women are seen as inferior in the world, it's because society has socialized us to believe and act in this way. But that's begging the question, and therefore that's not the answer. If we were taught this way, and our parents were taught this way, and their parents taught them to think that way, then who taught the first people to come up with this idea? It's a nice PC answer that makes us feel better, because the solution is to just reeducate everyone, but that's not going to help us at the end of the day, because that's not the reason for misogyny. No, the problem began, and the status quo has been maintained all throughout human history, because misogyny is inherent to humanity. It's not a pretty answer, it's depressing, but at least from here we can ask why we're inherently misogynist. This is also a lot harder to figure out and study than to just reeducate people because trying to find answers to age-old questions just so happens to be a human curse. So you see, things were already messed up (in people's hearts), and have merely manifested themselves in reality (humanity's actions and culture). If something is, it's because it already is.
3)Common sense must rule the day.
Philosophers often like to ponder stupid questions that common sense has ready answers for. Among them –
Do I really exist? Does the world really exist? Perhaps it exists differently than how we readily perceive it to be.
Do we have free will? Because maybe we don’t and we just think we do. Maybe some evil entity is controlling us.
How do I know there’s causality? When I spill juice on the carpet, a stain is formed, but maybe it’s not the juice that’s doing it. Maybe something else caused the stain at the exact moment that I spilled the juice. And me pouring the juice and the juice getting into the cup -- maybe it wasn’t my tilting motion that did that – maybe there’s some other reason for why the juice got into the cup. Just because there appears to be cause and effect doesn’t mean there really is cause and effect.
Maybe the crazy person is the one who’s truly sane and the normal people are the crazy ones.
Maybe we have it backwards…
Not that these are stupid questions in themselves, but people certainly entertain stupid answers for these questions, and in so doing, they've ruined what could have been a good question and turned it into a stupid one, because then we can see that their intent was to turn the world upside down.
If we and the world don’t exist as we perceive things to be, how could we ever function normally? (“Hey, this person might not really exist, so I’ll run him over and go right through him and it won’t matter because it’ll be just like in a dream – unreal.” Or, “Hey man, no need to work! I don’t really need to eat and my hunger doesn’t really exist and food doesn’t really exist, and this world is just like the Matrix.”) If we don’t really have free will, how can we ever blame people for their actions? How can we ever truly say, “I did this” or “I did that”? (“Hey judge; we potentially don’t have free will, so you may not be able to punish me for running that guy over because I thought there was a chance the world was unreal. But then again, I’m not sure we don’t have free will, so, I don’t really know what you should do with me.”)
Besides this, we also risk becoming hypocrites, because we say we believe one thing but live another. All the dumb philosophers out there who not only entertain but propound and expound on these ridiculous ideas, I can assure you, live quite normal lives, respecting the reality of reality, the law of cause and effect, and demanding that others use their free will to respect the dignity and pride of said dumb philosophers.
Related: If logic and our intuitive feelings go against each other, most likely it is our logic and not our intuition that is flawed. We have to give ourselves time to examine our gut feelings to articulate intellectually why we feel against logic; and logic is only a tool -- if we have wrong premises or not enough information or are in false faith, it can lead to false conclusions, even ridiculous or contradictory ones. Again, to repeat point 3, we will (usually) defer to common sense. (Of course, lots of times the conventional wisdom is wrong.)
EX: Logically, why can't a wealthy person keep all their money and not share, since they earned it? But this is morally reprehensible. But why?
Another: Think of all the illogicalities of QM, and how they all appear to really hammer away at the sacred law of noncontradiction. But we don't just throw up our hands in despair and say it's all pointless. Our faith, the faith of the scientist, instead burns stronger for the grand theory that will resolve everything.
4)We will look to the world for answers. Or, what I call Empirical Philosophy. (This point is closely related to point 2 above.) No armchair philosophy here, no speculating out of your ass. If you want to do philosophy properly, you have to know all other academic subjects as well -- history, social sciences, physics, math, neuroscience, etc, and just be extremely well-read overall. Plus, lots of research. I don't mean you have to do be able to solve equations in quantum mechanics, but we should at least understand the essence and importance of philosophically significant matters in the humanities and sciences.
Plus, being well-read and well-rounded leads to making connections you never saw before. Since philosophy is so abstract, you'll find the same phenomenon occurring in all these different areas, over and over again, and they shine light on each other. Finding a clue in one area leads to totally unexpectedly finding a clue in another. Again, this is because of point # 2 above -- the truth manifests itself -- and don't be surprised if it's in many different variations.
Another point -- history is the divine plan. The world is like a laboratory. If you want to see if something is true, don't sit on your ass and just reason your way to your own opinion -- search it out in the real world and see if you can't find an example that will get you closer to the answer.
This has a drawback, and I can see why armchair philosophy is tempting -- it's because it's easy. You don't have to learn anything new. And empirical philosophy can be uncomfortable because it often means saying you don't know and not knowing if you'll ever know. There's no convenient or quick answers. Which brings us to ...
Related: Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's not true. If we can see that something is a fact, though it's flabbergasting, distasteful, unbelievable, or for whatever reason a problem, we will still affirm its truth, believing that we currently don't have enough information to figure out the explanation. In fact, we go out in search of information that will "break our reality". We all have an image of the way the world is, even of what we think the world is supposed to be like, and when we hear something contradicting this, we're shocked, perhaps even disillusioned. In so doing, we say, "Ah, my world was too small! Now I know that this is possible." And our world becomes a little bigger. It's a great feeling to know what's possible!
EX: People at first didn't believe the American G.I.s' horrific reports of Nazi concentration camps because their idea of the world and human nature was that "people aren't capable of such evil". But a fact's a fact. No, we are capable of such evil. Do I say this because of some philosophical abstraction (see point 5)? No, I say this because you can look all around the world and see over and over that people do evil to each other. And even though I now know this about human nature, whenever I hear another example, yes, it still breaks my reality, even further, more than I thought possible, and I see even deeper into how deep the evil in the human heart is. I have no explanation, but do I deny its truth? No, it's true. Atrocious and true.
Now how can one try to "break one's reality" if they cannot go out in "great faith", believing that the world makes sense and there's a reason for everything (point # 1)? This person would be too afraid of what they might find. But you see, this is the sin of faithlessness, and an intellectual sin, that so many Christians, I'm sad and ashamed to say, commit. The odd thing is, they even cover up this sin by saying, "Just have faith!" What irony! They're afraid that their faith will waver if they find the truth. But then is that faith? But an even greater shame is that they can't see the greatness, the wisdom, and the glory of God, God, who is great, and we know so little of his greatness! Another irony is that so many atheists do have faith. Take a physicist. There's some really strange, nonintuitive stuff in physics, but the physicist's faith leads them to continue researching, because they know the answer is out there, if they could only find it! I'm not saying all physicists are atheists, but for the ones who are, yes, they have faith, in the unity and order of the natural laws, even if they deny where that unity and order comes from.
But why do I bring up this point #5? Because so many people use it as an excuse to deny the truth, and as an excuse to not find the answers.
In fact, I always get extra excited about flabbergasting, distasteful, unbelievable, "problematic" truths. It's almost always a sure sign that there's something extra juicy going on.
For materialists and idealists who will take issue with the above: See the Ultimate Question under The Error of Choosing Sides. As relates to this Introduction, I will say that materialism stops you from asking questions, especially the ones that really matter. And idealism is really only another form of materialism. In this, they are anti-intellectual.