Neil, I have to confess that I have to read your posts more than once to get your drift. It appears that you are espousing a certain type of pragmatism. You are accepting the fact that truth is elusive, and yet hoping that we can believe in something that works. But before we can start talking about what is practical we have to decide what our aim is. What is it that we are hoping works? What are we trying to obtain? Can we all agree on what we are trying to obtain? Is consensus necessary?
On Jan 28, 4:04 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > This is quite subtle Oxford shit Lee - we are mere oiks - yet I like > the notion that we could better believe in what is true. > > On 28 Jan, 17:20, Lee <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hey Neil, > > > Perhaps until we can answer the question, what is true? We are all > > quite doomed! > > > On 28 Jan, 00:04, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > How can we better believe what is true? While it is of course useful > > > to seek and study relevant information, our minds are full of natural > > > tendencies to bias our beliefs via overconfidence, wishful thinking, > > > and so on. Worse, our minds seem to have a natural tendency to > > > convince us that we are aware of and have adequately corrected for > > > such biases, when we have done no such thing. > > > > There's a blog on this at Oxford University's Future of Humanity > > > Institute (easy to google). Sad stuff on my brief scan, though I will > > > return. The question seems key and I wondered whether we could do > > > better with it. My own views include a notion of relativism that > > > recognises realism is implied and non-philosophic tropical fish > > > realism. I won't bore on this in here - at a somewhat more practical > > > level I think we are in a plight that involves trauma and a need to > > > believe we can live more rationally and justly in public affairs. > > > This involves not using argument as a weapon and accepting some stuff > > > is intolerable. I would see this as key to a future for humanity. > > > Obama is a bit of a hope here, but only if we can gather round. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
