--- In [email protected], "richardjwilliamstexas" <willytex@...> wrote: > > > So my thesis is that subjective experience *in itself* > > > is a selfish act that is of no use to anyone else in > > > the world... > Ravi Yogi: > > You are indeed right...
> Huh? > > It all depends on what you mean by "knowledge" and what > you mean by "belief". Knowledge means having reasons, or > justification for having a true belief. "Believing" just > means that you think something is true. > > So, belief is a factor of knowledge. > > Another factor of knowledge is truth. We can only know what > is true - we cannot know what is false. So, how is it that > people wind up with false beliefs? > > Something is true when we have lots of good reasons to > believe that it's true - we have justification for our > beliefs. Usually we get justification through our senses - > seeing is believing - and so we infer that certain events > are true based on our personal experience. > > So, we can believe something is true based on what we see > and what we experience. We also believe something is true > based on what we infer, and we believe something is true > based on the verbal testimony of others. > > So, what Turq just wrote is basically his belief and he > believes that it is true. But, to deny personal experience > is a little more than bizarre! So, where do you think the > Turq gets these beliefs, if not from others or from books > he read? How would Turq know that a subjective experience > is of no value to any one else? Does Turq believe that he > has knowledge that is superior to sense experience? > > If, so it's another Turq flip-flop, since Turq recently > proclaimed to be a non-believer in a transcendental > experience. Go figure. All our experience is subjective, even that of the outside objective world about which we construe facts. I know of no law that says we have to either keep the experiences we have private or blab them to the public. It happens one way or the other. If some did not blab out their experience, we would not have people teaching or attempting to teach about enlightenment, we would not have skyscrapers, medicine, trains, or Barry's favorite beer. Some have blabbed and made something of the outer world, some have blabbed and have not. Some have blabbed and made a ruin of the world about them. And some don't say what is going on with them. Most on this forum say at least something about what is going on with them. This seems to be a factor in why people continue to post on this platform. A selfish act seems to imply will. If you do not believe in free will, and were that belief true, then the idea of a self that can be selfish has no sense. And if one did have will, but chose not to exercise it, having a subjective experience one did not will to describe to the outer world, or to do so, would still not be a selfish act. Turq writes. He says certain things. Sometimes he seems to take viewpoints opposite of what he wrote about before. He seems to imply he has a choice in what he does, and his flip flops are an expression of that choice. I do not always agree with what he says, but I have no evidence he even agrees with what he says. He just says it, and in his writing characterises the ideas a certain way, with a certain slant, like the way a journalist writes. It is that characterisation that get people riled up here. It is a deliberate and effective technique. If I do not agree with him, that does not mean what I think is true either.
