Recently I got branded as a pseudo-intellectual. Somebody thinks I'm a pretentious guy, who thinks he is smart but is in fact stupid. I don't want to turn this blog into a dumping ground for my opinions on people who attack me because who wants to read that? I don't even want to read that.
But let's explore this for a moment. Do I use big words when I type? Not really, I don't think. I may whip out a couple of 'argument from ignorance fallacy' or 'ad hominem' phrases. So what? We use these all the time for discussing religion. It's second nature to me, I don't use it because less people are familiar with it. People don't understand it, there's a dictionary. You can ask me, I'll try my best to help.
I've already written about how I feel I relate to other people in terms of intelligence. I'd LIKE to think I try to be as rational as I possibly can. There's a big difference between thinking you're super smart and thinking one specific person is a complete idiot. It's like not knowing the answer, but knowing a really wrong answer when you see one. Do I get caught up in the moment once in a while in a debate? Yeah. I'm human, but so are you. We're not perfect. Just because I attack somebody for saying stupid stuff doesn't mean I automatically think I'm the best in the world, EVEN IF I use words you think are super academic. It's not like I use big words for the sole purpose of showing off, or even to show off. Do you really want to replace 'argument from ignorance fallacy' with the definition each time you want to use that phrase in effort to run away from being labeled a 'pseudo-intellectual'? I know I don't, that's a pain in the ass is what it all comes down to.
I don't think I'm a pseudo-intellectual and I don't particularly care to call some other people as one either. We're just people. We hold beliefs that may or may not be justified and it's important we try to figure that out together. I know full well I'm not some phd scientist, lol. I'm a teenager that wants a place to collect his thoughts into one place so it is easy to organize. And if other people want to read them, awesome. But I know full well I have an audience of less than 10 people. But that's OK, and it doesn't bother me because being #1 wasn't my intention.
Attack the message, not the person. The person generally has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The other crap is unnecessary. Yes, it is true I have insulted others on different occasions but it is for blatant, racism or prejudice against other people. EG, Americans are honestly the most stupid people on the planet! (Once said in a video featuring an American professor, which ironically the commentor adores) These are things that are obviously just wrong, wrong, wrong. But that was one line, not the entire post. If I wrote an entire post centered on how stupid a person is, that would be pointless. Yet some people find it in them to stalk people to get information on them, in order to tailor their insults to put you down in the worst way they can find.
I get hate on just about every aspect of me as a person that a person could find out on their own. I grow more used to it but by god, people find ways to get their message across, to make it more personal each time. I'll be fine of course, but it can be exhausting at times. You write a book, you get hatemail. That should be a no-brainer anyways.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Challenging Beliefs
To me, the idea that beliefs should be challenged is a very basic and fundamental ideology I subscribe to. First of all let me seperate opinions and claims of truth from merely claims about preference. You can like a band. I can go apeshit and say that's not logical but we all know how subjective music is in its very nature; but more importantly we also know what music one likes is relevant to the listener only. In other words, nobody cares what you feel about music and it will never negatively impact the world in any way.
On the other hand, unjustified beliefs about the nature of the universe, about morality and ethics, that is something else. We all know a truth claim must be held to the highest scrutiny based on its category. Beliefs inform our actions. The very fact that I'm sitting here typing this post out rests on beliefs about my circumstance. If I believe my house will collapse in 60 seconds, I won't be here typing this. What is the likelihood that a person who believes God condemns homosexuality will vote against gay marriage should the person vote? Pretty much 100%.
If our mind is all we have, then basing what we know and understand and think about and believe on realty must be chiefly important. What IF the god of Abraham is real and I've been oblivious to him the whole time? What if he left evidence, but I simply never found it even though it was staring at me? Those could be huge problems. That would change the course of my life forever. And by forever I mean, literally, forever as heaven would last quite a while I'd imagine.
So when people go on Facebook, like a page called 'Rationalist' and dare post homophobic, anti-science, anti-common-sense, anti-evolution posts, people are free to fire at will on those guys. They may THINK they are rational, that they DO INDEED have god on their side. But what are your beliefs worth without justification? Jackshit. Probably less than that. Wasn't the Declaration of Independence written by a bunch of free-thinkers, many of whom were deists or atheists? Wasn't the entire spirit of the country a spirit of debate, of new ideas, maddening ideas, challenging ideas, and then finding the best answer? Now we're all fucking lazy, we don't want to debate, we don't care what is true, or maybe... and for me even worse... we think we are right when we are dead wrong. So if America was founded on the clashing of different ideas... isn't this what it means to have a society of free speech?
You may spew out all the nonsense you want, that is your right. It is my right to refute them one-by-one or just troll you into tomorrow. Why the hell is it ok to say your opinion if it's not ok for me to say my opinion? Your opinion could be, you think gays ought to burn in hell. My opinion is, you're a religious, uneducated, close-minded, homophobe that doesn't know SHIT. That's my opinion. You may disagree. But quit playing the victim, where you say stupid shit and get burned for it. It's free speech. Get used to it. If you don't like it, then shut up, nobody wants to listen to your homophobic rants about how 911 was caused by gay people anyways. Welcome to the new world, it's the same as the old world.
We can partially thank religion for pushing this idea... that challenging one's beliefs is something people ought not to do to be polite. What's not polite is thinking a friend is incapable of handling a conversation or possibly even a debate without ruining your friendship. That's quit belittling. Do I want irrational friends? Probably not. I really don't understand this mentality, that "all answers are ok". No they are not all ok. In math, 1+1 is fucking 2. If you were to answer the question by writing "sausages" in the answer column, GUESS WHAT SON? You'll get the question WRONG. In life some things have a right answer and any other answer is just plain ol' wrong. Some other questions are less linear in this fashion but many are. Did the God of Abraham as describe by the Bible exist? That's a yes or no question about the nature of the universe. And if your answer is not justified, why must I accept it? Would you sincerely accept an answer from anybody no matter how looney it sounds, or even just respect it? What if a mentally ill patient walks up to you and spews out some ridiculous conspiracy theory? Would you accept that as well? If you answered yes, you're fucking insane and you need to follow the guy back to the mental hospital after showing him the way. If the answer is no, then clearly you do not accept all answers. If you don't accept the crazy person's opinion but you accept all other people not officially diagnosed with mental illness' opinions, then you are judging which opinions are worth respecting. Which is what I'm doing.
When you're not sure if you're right or wrong, what do you do? You verify your arguments and facts. You debate and discuss until you're more certain what you think has some sort of basis on reality.
Hey, I ain't saying I know it all. I'm not saying all of my positions are 100% rational 100% of the time. At least I get to say I'm trying, Are you?
On the other hand, unjustified beliefs about the nature of the universe, about morality and ethics, that is something else. We all know a truth claim must be held to the highest scrutiny based on its category. Beliefs inform our actions. The very fact that I'm sitting here typing this post out rests on beliefs about my circumstance. If I believe my house will collapse in 60 seconds, I won't be here typing this. What is the likelihood that a person who believes God condemns homosexuality will vote against gay marriage should the person vote? Pretty much 100%.
If our mind is all we have, then basing what we know and understand and think about and believe on realty must be chiefly important. What IF the god of Abraham is real and I've been oblivious to him the whole time? What if he left evidence, but I simply never found it even though it was staring at me? Those could be huge problems. That would change the course of my life forever. And by forever I mean, literally, forever as heaven would last quite a while I'd imagine.
So when people go on Facebook, like a page called 'Rationalist' and dare post homophobic, anti-science, anti-common-sense, anti-evolution posts, people are free to fire at will on those guys. They may THINK they are rational, that they DO INDEED have god on their side. But what are your beliefs worth without justification? Jackshit. Probably less than that. Wasn't the Declaration of Independence written by a bunch of free-thinkers, many of whom were deists or atheists? Wasn't the entire spirit of the country a spirit of debate, of new ideas, maddening ideas, challenging ideas, and then finding the best answer? Now we're all fucking lazy, we don't want to debate, we don't care what is true, or maybe... and for me even worse... we think we are right when we are dead wrong. So if America was founded on the clashing of different ideas... isn't this what it means to have a society of free speech?
You may spew out all the nonsense you want, that is your right. It is my right to refute them one-by-one or just troll you into tomorrow. Why the hell is it ok to say your opinion if it's not ok for me to say my opinion? Your opinion could be, you think gays ought to burn in hell. My opinion is, you're a religious, uneducated, close-minded, homophobe that doesn't know SHIT. That's my opinion. You may disagree. But quit playing the victim, where you say stupid shit and get burned for it. It's free speech. Get used to it. If you don't like it, then shut up, nobody wants to listen to your homophobic rants about how 911 was caused by gay people anyways. Welcome to the new world, it's the same as the old world.
We can partially thank religion for pushing this idea... that challenging one's beliefs is something people ought not to do to be polite. What's not polite is thinking a friend is incapable of handling a conversation or possibly even a debate without ruining your friendship. That's quit belittling. Do I want irrational friends? Probably not. I really don't understand this mentality, that "all answers are ok". No they are not all ok. In math, 1+1 is fucking 2. If you were to answer the question by writing "sausages" in the answer column, GUESS WHAT SON? You'll get the question WRONG. In life some things have a right answer and any other answer is just plain ol' wrong. Some other questions are less linear in this fashion but many are. Did the God of Abraham as describe by the Bible exist? That's a yes or no question about the nature of the universe. And if your answer is not justified, why must I accept it? Would you sincerely accept an answer from anybody no matter how looney it sounds, or even just respect it? What if a mentally ill patient walks up to you and spews out some ridiculous conspiracy theory? Would you accept that as well? If you answered yes, you're fucking insane and you need to follow the guy back to the mental hospital after showing him the way. If the answer is no, then clearly you do not accept all answers. If you don't accept the crazy person's opinion but you accept all other people not officially diagnosed with mental illness' opinions, then you are judging which opinions are worth respecting. Which is what I'm doing.
When you're not sure if you're right or wrong, what do you do? You verify your arguments and facts. You debate and discuss until you're more certain what you think has some sort of basis on reality.
Hey, I ain't saying I know it all. I'm not saying all of my positions are 100% rational 100% of the time. At least I get to say I'm trying, Are you?
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Matrix Problem, Snobby Food, and Death
Matrix Problem
The Matrix Problem is a classical example of an unfalsifiable thesis. What if this world isn't real and is simply a simulation? We have no way of knowing until we are unplugged and freed. Sure, it's a possibility but there is no evidence to suggest it. It's meaningless even if the very nature of the idea implies it cannot be provenm... that this is a simulation, means we won't be able to to prove it with any sort of data because we are inside it. The same logic can be applied to any god claim. For example, the very idea of a god necessitates that it is undetectable, hence the idea of a personal god is given with no evidence whatsoever. That's not good enough. I can make an infinite number of claims of this sort.
Snobby Food
I've been perusing videos on Youtube about some fancy food, including the Fat Duck, a very expensive restaurant that employs molecular gastronomy. Some people... many people feel the urge to troll it because it's not cooking in as strict sense as frying potatoes. People think it's snobby food, that you'd leave hungry. Do you really think a restaurant would survive if its customers left hungry? Think about it for a second, ok? Snobby, overpriced? So is the Mona Lisa and like every single famous painting, ever. Or any expensive precious stone, or expensive computer or car or house or whatever. What is the difference? OH YEAH! You don't care about food as much. So others are snobby elitists who have no life and are pretentious fools because they have different interests than you do? Or is it because food doesn't last forever? In that case, so does sex, movies, and life. Doesn't render pursuing those useless.
Death
These ideas are plucked straight from Sam Harris. But think about it. You will be no more distressed after you die than the billions of years before you were born.
'Most of us do our best not to think about death. But there’s always part of our minds that knows this can’t go on forever. Part of us always knows that we’re just a doctor’s visit away, or a phone call away, from being starkly reminded with the fact of our own mortality, or of those closest to us. Now, I’m sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form; you must know how uncanny it is to suddenly be thrown out of the normal course of your life and just be given the full time job of not dying, or of caring for someone who is... But the one thing people tend to realize at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time, when life was normal. And it’s not just what they did with their time — it’s not just that they spent too much time working or compulsively checking email. It’s that they cared about the wrong things. They regret what they cared about. Their attention was bound up in petty concerns, year after year, when life was normal. This is a paradox of course, because we all know this epiphany is coming. Don’t you know this is coming? Don’t you know that there’s going to come a day when you’ll be sick, or someone close to you will die, and you will look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention, and you’ll think ‘What was I doing?’. You know this, and yet if you’re like most people, you’ll spend most of your time in life tacitly presuming you’ll live forever. Like, watching a bad movie for the fourth time, or bickering with your spouse. These things only make sense in light of eternity. There better be a heaven if we’re going to waste our time like this.
There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite... but it's the truth... As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives.
Whatever you can possibly notice in your body, mind or world has only one place to appear: in your conscious experience. I'm not saying this is all just a dream, but as a neurological matter it is like a dream. It is dream that is constrained by inputs from the external world and the dreams we call dreams we call dreams at night are dreams that are not constrained by the external world. That's why you seem to get away with everything. But you mind is all you have. It is all you ever had. It is all you have to offer other people. And this might sound callus to say when there are many other aspects of your life that seems in need of being addressed when you're struggle to find a career or you're sick, but it's still true. If you are perpetually angry and depressed and confused and unloving, it doesn't matter how much success or who is in your life, you're not going to enjoy any of it. I suspect we could all make a list of things we want to accomplish, things that really need to be changed in your life. What is the significance of everything on that list? Each thing on that list seems to promise that if you could only do it, you would have reason just to be happy in the present moment. We are all trying to find a path back to the present moment and good enough reason just to be happy here.'
The Matrix Problem is a classical example of an unfalsifiable thesis. What if this world isn't real and is simply a simulation? We have no way of knowing until we are unplugged and freed. Sure, it's a possibility but there is no evidence to suggest it. It's meaningless even if the very nature of the idea implies it cannot be provenm... that this is a simulation, means we won't be able to to prove it with any sort of data because we are inside it. The same logic can be applied to any god claim. For example, the very idea of a god necessitates that it is undetectable, hence the idea of a personal god is given with no evidence whatsoever. That's not good enough. I can make an infinite number of claims of this sort.
Snobby Food
I've been perusing videos on Youtube about some fancy food, including the Fat Duck, a very expensive restaurant that employs molecular gastronomy. Some people... many people feel the urge to troll it because it's not cooking in as strict sense as frying potatoes. People think it's snobby food, that you'd leave hungry. Do you really think a restaurant would survive if its customers left hungry? Think about it for a second, ok? Snobby, overpriced? So is the Mona Lisa and like every single famous painting, ever. Or any expensive precious stone, or expensive computer or car or house or whatever. What is the difference? OH YEAH! You don't care about food as much. So others are snobby elitists who have no life and are pretentious fools because they have different interests than you do? Or is it because food doesn't last forever? In that case, so does sex, movies, and life. Doesn't render pursuing those useless.
Death
These ideas are plucked straight from Sam Harris. But think about it. You will be no more distressed after you die than the billions of years before you were born.
'Most of us do our best not to think about death. But there’s always part of our minds that knows this can’t go on forever. Part of us always knows that we’re just a doctor’s visit away, or a phone call away, from being starkly reminded with the fact of our own mortality, or of those closest to us. Now, I’m sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form; you must know how uncanny it is to suddenly be thrown out of the normal course of your life and just be given the full time job of not dying, or of caring for someone who is... But the one thing people tend to realize at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time, when life was normal. And it’s not just what they did with their time — it’s not just that they spent too much time working or compulsively checking email. It’s that they cared about the wrong things. They regret what they cared about. Their attention was bound up in petty concerns, year after year, when life was normal. This is a paradox of course, because we all know this epiphany is coming. Don’t you know this is coming? Don’t you know that there’s going to come a day when you’ll be sick, or someone close to you will die, and you will look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention, and you’ll think ‘What was I doing?’. You know this, and yet if you’re like most people, you’ll spend most of your time in life tacitly presuming you’ll live forever. Like, watching a bad movie for the fourth time, or bickering with your spouse. These things only make sense in light of eternity. There better be a heaven if we’re going to waste our time like this.
There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite... but it's the truth... As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives.
Whatever you can possibly notice in your body, mind or world has only one place to appear: in your conscious experience. I'm not saying this is all just a dream, but as a neurological matter it is like a dream. It is dream that is constrained by inputs from the external world and the dreams we call dreams we call dreams at night are dreams that are not constrained by the external world. That's why you seem to get away with everything. But you mind is all you have. It is all you ever had. It is all you have to offer other people. And this might sound callus to say when there are many other aspects of your life that seems in need of being addressed when you're struggle to find a career or you're sick, but it's still true. If you are perpetually angry and depressed and confused and unloving, it doesn't matter how much success or who is in your life, you're not going to enjoy any of it. I suspect we could all make a list of things we want to accomplish, things that really need to be changed in your life. What is the significance of everything on that list? Each thing on that list seems to promise that if you could only do it, you would have reason just to be happy in the present moment. We are all trying to find a path back to the present moment and good enough reason just to be happy here.'
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