Gore told the Washington Post, “ ‘The simple algorithm [sic] is this: It’s important to change the light bulbs, but it’s much more important to change the laws,’ he said. ‘The options available to civilization worldwide to avert this terribly destructive pattern are beginning to slip away from us. The path for recovery runs right through Washington, D.C.’ ”
There it is, folks. In black and white. It's all about making you behave. Because you can't be trusted to change the light bulbs.
Never mind that the earth hasn't warmed in the last ten years.
63 comments:
Hmm sounds like Environmental Imperialism to me.
I have a hard time thinking of a person responsible for more evil during the last 10 years than Al Gore. Sure, there are some, but not many. If you narrow it down to just this country, he might be #1.
There was once a time when socialists may have had truly good intentions, but were simply naive and misguided. This could have been argued in the first half of the 1900s. Many socialists back then at least believed that central planning would bring new levels of prosperity to mankind, and they at least thought that they had man's interests in mind. By the 60s, however, it had become clear that socialism and communism did not work. Wherever it had been put into practice (USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact, eventually North Korea, Cuba, etc.), socialism led to horribly brutal totalitarian governments, terrible standards of living, the starvation of millions....I could go on all day.
Thus the socialists were faced with a choice: either continue to support socialism, knowing that it means death and destruction, or abandon it and support capitalism.
Those who chose the 2nd option became neo-cons, but they only went half-way. They still accepted collectivism as a moral ideal, but in terms of policy chose to be "pragmatic" and go with capitalism, although in a very distorted form (the mixed economy), as a necessary evil.
Those who chose the 1st option could no longer claim to want utopian socialism, but had to find a moral basis for their ideas that would allow for the starvation of millions of people. Instead of saying that capitalism wasn't making us wealthy enough, and that socialism would do it better, they were forced to say that wealth is evil. The ability of the left to do this has been, I think, shockingly disgusting. The socialists said that in all our growth in the material realm, we lost sight of morality and spirituality. They said that to suffer is good, and to prosper is evil. Thus the rise of environmentalism. Thus the rise of mysticism-obsessed hippies who said it is better to live as primitive savages, to dance around naked in the mud, to stop thinking and to start feeling, and to reject living as rational, civilized humans. Thus the rise of "anti-consumerism" and "anti-materialism." Both of which are completely undefineable concepts that can mean anything and everything.
If you ever talk to a true environmentalist, ask them what they think about the rising popularity of "buying green," and of being eco-chic. You will most likely find that they don't like it, that they don't want people to buy ANYTHING, that they want civilization to be reduced to the stone age. Psychologically, this is explained in the same manner as communism and socialism, nazism, and religious fundamentalism. These people hate themselves and their pathetic, worthless little existences, and feel the need to project this self-hatred at all of mankind in order to achieve a false sense of self-esteem.
An animal survives by adapting itself to nature. A human survives by adapting nature to himself. The principle is exactly the same whether it applies to primitive man building a fire, or to the persecuted geniuses at Exxon-Mobil building underwater skyscrapers on which to rest oil-drilling platforms. Environmentalism is no less than an attack on man's basic method of survival, and thus on the survival of ALL men. I think that Ayn Rand summarized the issue better than anyone else in 2 quotes:
"An Asian peasant who labors through all of his waking hours, with tools created in Biblical times—a South American aborigine who is devoured by piranha in a jungle stream—an African who is bitten by the tsetse fly—an Arab whose teeth are green with decay in his mouth—these do live with their "natural environment," but are scarcely able to appreciate its beauty. Try to tell a Chinese mother, whose child is dying of cholera: "Should one do everything one can? Of course not." Try to tell a Russian housewife, who trudges miles on foot in sub-zero weather in order to spend hours standing in line at a state store dispensing food rations, that America is defiled by shopping centers, expressways and family cars."
"City smog and filthy rivers are not good for men (though they are not the kind of danger that the ecological panic-mongers proclaim them to be). This is a scientific, technological problem—not a political one—and it can be solved only by technology. Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death."
Brilliant.
"The socialists said that in all our growth in the material realm, we lost sight of morality and spirituality."
I had a job interview in which I was asked to name a godless country in the 20th century that fell apart. I said communist Russia. Can you give an example for this here?
Ayn Rand had me pretty spun up for a couple of years in college. But I found I couldn't reconcile objectivism with certain aspects of relativism that seemed to me to be clearly the case. One of my favorite stories from that period: http://books.google.com/books?id=kZD5ZeKILtwC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=Karel+%C4%8Capek+%22Pilate's+Creed%22&source=web&ots=Ijgudha3p-&sig=USexySGvz0QQqHMyxPKJAHWuJQw&hl=en#PPA89,M1
Spongy, what an unusual job interview question. What kind of job was this for?? I hope you get it (if you want it!)
I was in an "Honors" history class at Umass my first semester in college and the students were discussing Ine Rand with the professor. I wondered, "Who the f is Ine Rand?"
Rob, this is the truth: It's April 3rd, 14 degrees out, and Panda is barking to come inside.
And it's sunny and warming up nicely, Rocky desperately wants to play and I'm procrastinating.
It's a big world.
Likewise here. A glorious day. The kind that makes me glad I chose to do what I chose to do. Even if Panda didn't get a walk. Yet.
And you're right. It IS a big world. It's a BFW!
Even if Ted Turner doesn't think so.
Rob I haven't read the story yet but I will tomorrow, because right now the truth is that I have a test in 4 hours that I need to go study for.
Jesse I'm not sure if I understand your question. I hope you don't think that I think that the US lost sight of morality, I was only saying what the ideology of a modern socialist, or environmentalist, says. If you take human life as the standard of value, than the US is by FAR the most moral country in the history of the world.
Also understand that I'm not talking about your average person who calls himself an environmentalist. I'm talking about the ideology itself, with all of it's logical conclusions, which is actually followed by literally no one. Some people certainly would claim that they follow environmentalism to the T, but in fact with every breath they take they contradict it.
So anyway I'm not sure exactly what your question is, would you clarify?
I thought you were saying that socialist countries cared about spirituality, so I asked you to give me an example. I didn't realize you were talking about individuals or environmentalists.
Another question: are you saying that modern socialists and environmentalists are the same thing?
And I'm gonna have to disagree with you about Gore being evil. He looks the part with his pointy ears and nose and accusatory finger. But the man did win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Also, the job was for a camp. The whole interview is a long story. I didn't get the job, but that's okay.
Yassar Arafat won the NPP, too.
I wasn't necessarily saying that socialists cared about spirituality. I was just referring to the common argument that in/due to all its material prosperity, the US/West is morally bankrupt.
I'm saying that environmentalism has been the replacement for socialism since it became obvious what a failure socialism is, and the collectivist man-haters needed a new gig. I was talking about the New Left in general, saying that the old left at least pretended not to be man-haters, but that the new left takes open pride in it. That they in fact had to take open pride in it and come up with ideas like environmentalism (nature has value, man does not), in order to justify it.
I didn't say that Gore was evil, I don't have any way of knowing if that is the case, or of he is just really flipping stupid. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably a mix of both. Either way, he has been responsible for evil. And yeah the NPP is nothing more than a really stupid and expensive joke.
What evil?
Jesse: The entire environmentalist movement is evil, and Gore has been immensely responsible for its popularization. The banning of the incandescent lightbulb was evil. A small evil, yes, but still evil.
Rob, another Ayn Rand quote:
"[Consider the catch phrase:] 'It may be true for you, but it's not true for me.' What is the meaning of the concept 'truth?' Truth is the recognition of reality. (This is known as the correspondence theory of truth.) The same thing cannot be true and untrue at the same time and in the same respect. That catch phrase, therefore, means: a. that the Law of Identity is invalid; b. that there is no objectively perceivable reality, only some indeterminate flux which is nothing in particular, i.e., that there is no reality (in which case, there can be no such thing as truth); or c. that the two debaters perceive two different universes (in which case, no debate is possible). (The purpose of the catch phrase is the destruction of objectivity.)"
Truth is in physical laws like F=ma, and man got to the moon by being 100% dedicated to the truth of those laws. Truth is in the fact that sure, you can take LSD and be tripping out of your mind and think truth is whatever you want it to be, but if while you're hallucinating you walk out into the road and get hit by a car, you'll still die.
You can limit the definition of “truth” solely to “recognition of [objective] reality.” That’s a significant limitation. Science can’t “prove” theories, it can only disprove them. We accept theories because the evidence shows they are not incorrect. Therefore, given this definition, while we may perceive aspects of truth we can’t “know” it for sure.
Values are not part of objective reality, except insofar as they are instantiated in an individual. My values are different from yours. For example, my values lead me to believe that environmentalism is not evil. My values lead me to believe that a society can – sometimes must – make demands on its members, demands with which a given member may not agree.
I believe Rand thought that values are part of truth. I have no problem with that; hence the story I mentioned. But if you say values are part of truth, and truth is recognition of reality, then you’re starting to talk about values as absolutes. This is where she starts to fill with crap, because that leads to one person thinking that their values should be “truth” for other people. And that has led to some of the greatest of evils I know of.
They really did ban regular light bulbs? I thought that was a hoax. That's completely infuriating. I'm stocking up on hundreds, and I'll buy them on the black market if I have to. Fluorescent lighting pisses me off.
Despite my rage, though, evil's not the word I would use.
"This is where she starts to fill with crap, because that leads to one person thinking that their values should be “truth” for other people. And that has led to some of the greatest of evils I know of."
Which is exactly why Al Gore wants the laws changed. Al's reality is all about his values, which he doesn't live by, and which are based on specious, hotly-disputed science, being imposed on the rest of us. But maybe that's just society making demands on its members?
Caleb, that doesn't rise to the level of evil for me, either. Neither do I think that the motives and intentions of environmentalists are evil. I think they are motivated by the same do-gooderness that motivates a lot of "causes." (Except those environmentalist friends of mine who have told me that man is evil, and given a choice between striking a dog or a kid in they road, they'd strike the kid.) (Presumably, they are driving a Prius when this happens which makes it OK.)
But one "cause" in particular the consequences of which rise to the level of evil, and one which just makes me weep, is the banning of DDT. Millions of mostly poor, mostly African children have died as a result. The misery is staggering. But that don't mean shit on the upper east side, where they are busy buying "eco-friendly" condos.
If truth is relative, why bother talking about it?
Dad, those friends of yours who would hit a child over a dog have probably never been on the receiving end of one of Panda's farts. Talk about pollution.
Again, I do not think your average person who considers himself an environmentalist is evil. BUT there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that that ideology itself is evil, and that the leaders of the movement are evil. That guy that was on the blog a few months back down in Texas who wanted to spread ebola around the world to cut the population down to 1 billion is NOT the exception, but the rule. Look at what the leaders of Greenpeace, Earthfirst, PETA, etc., have to say about this stuff. All these guys say that man is a cancer on the earth, that an insect is better than man, that eradicating small pox was bad. If that kind of idea is not evil, than I don't know what is. Dad, what you call do-gooderness I call evasion of thought, which in my book is the worst thing a person can do. Environmentalism calls the greatest heroes of our time evil and seeks to destroy them.
Really now, does anybody actually think that Al Gore is motivated by do-gooderness? Does anybody think that there are more than maybe 10 creeps in Washington that are motivated by do-gooderness?
One thing bothers me more than these so-called do-gooders, and that is when people on the other side apologize for the do-gooders, and say, "well, they have good intentions."
Rob, life and death are absolutes, and therefore so are values. It is this alternative between life and death that is the fundamental root of all values. On this standard, which I do believe is the only standard, that which advances one's life is good, and that which goes against one's life is evil.
There is a large and very interesting contradiction in what you said. You think that believing in objective, rather than subjective, values, leads to forcing one's values on others, which is evil. Yet you are the relativist, and you want society to impose demands on its members against their will. I am wholly committed to an absolute reality, and an absolute standard of value, yet I don't think that society should impose ANY demands, of the positive kind at least, on its members. The only demands should be negative, as in don't kill anybody, don't steal, don't harm others property, etc.. My ideal society is one in which force is completely and totally removed. I do not think that anyone on this planet has ever been more committed to objectivity than Ayn Rand, and, interestingly enough, I don't think that anyone has ever advocated more strongly against the use of force than Ayn Rand.
Caleb - I believe the 2012 law is about energy standards for bulbs, which are currently met by some fluorescent, LED and halogen technologies. Cheer up - I'll betcha a cow that by 2012, there will be incandescents that meet the standard too. Capitalism at work.
Pops - Why bother talking about truth? Why bother talking about anything? To convince someone that they're an idiot, obviously. God help us if we have to figure out what other people think the truth is. Much better if they accept ours. Or mine, I mean.
Dad, about the lightbulbs:
I don't think that evil is a matter of levels, I think it is a matter of is, or isn't. Homicide is evil. So is genocide. The difference is only quantitative.
Banning the incandescent light bulb is evil. Banning all production of electricity would be evil. The difference is only quantitative.
Rob, for a demonstration of your ideas about science in action, just take a look at the nonsense of modern physics. No one can prove that it's not true!
I, for one, think that little invisible nymphs called Glubenstabongabers are floating in the air all around us, and that they are very upset with our behavior. They want us to go back to our humble roots, and if we don't, they're going to stop being invisible one day and kill us all! You can't prove that's not true either.
There are some concepts that don't have to be proven and that can't be proven, but which are true. These concepts are called axioms, and it is from them that all other concepts arise. The concept of proof presupposes existence, conciousness, and a complicated chain of thought which one goes through in order to prove something. You can't argue against existence or against conciousness without both existing and being concious.
Luke -
"Rob, life and death are absolutes, and therefore so are values."
I've never been dead, that I can recall, so it's hard to comment knowledgably. But the "therefore" logic escapes me.
"You think that believing in objective, rather than subjective, values, leads to forcing one's values on others, which is evil."
Not quite. I believe that the term "objective values” is an oxymoron. If you believe your values are absolute, that implies to me that you consider them to be beyond question, by you or by me. By itself, that belief will limit you; but too often it leads to people imposing their values on others, which can be a great evil.
"Yet you are the relativist, and you want society to impose demands on its members against their will."
I said nothing about my wants. Different societies have different purposes. I like those of our Constitution. However, they lead to the imposition of demands and requirements, whether I like all of them or not. I think you’d have to completely overhaul the Constitution to make that go away.
Damn, back to work.
Luke -
"These concepts are called axioms, and it is from them that all other concepts arise."
Aha! Now we get down to it. I'm used to axioms from mathematics. Mathematicians acknowledge that axioms are merely assumed to be true. You're talking, I assume, about something more fundamental. I never understood it when Rand said it, don't understand it when you say it. I reckon it's like a religious thing. I've been reading about things that Scientologists find to be axiomatic; pretty amazing.
Jesse is a pastafarian, maybe that has roots similar to your Glubenstabongaberianism. Except his is in wikipedia. Maybe he'll write about his conversion ceremony.
Damn! back to work again.
Okay, so your concept of absolute is my concept of faith. That makes much more sense to me now. Faith is accepting something as true without evidence, which I am against. I am all for recognizing absolutes, however. Once you have seen something to be true, you should accept it as an absolute, and at that point no longer question it. Yeah maybe go back and check now then, make sure you weren't mistaken, but still recognizing the fact that the truth is the truth and that that is absolute. That does not at all mean that recognizing the truth is easy, it is actually painstakingly difficult.
I skipped a few steps with the therefore. What I mean is that life is my standard of value, and because life is an absolute, so are my values. Yes, it is true that the concept of a value presupposes the existence of a valuer, but I don't think that that violates objectivity in values. Reality itself determines what one should value. It is up to the valuer to recognize those values or not. Example: The nature of reality determines that you need to drink water to survive, which is an absolute. You can choose to value drinking water, or not, but because reality is absolute, you will suffer the consequences if you choose the latter.
I don't think the constitution would have to be overhauled, only edited. For starters you could do away with eminent domain, and then add some kind of clause establishing separation of economy and state, just as we have separation of church and state.
So, does that mean it's evil of me to turn the light off when I leave a room, even when Kate's still in it?
She thinks it is.
"Jesse is a pastafarian, maybe that has roots similar to your Glubenstabongaberianism. Except his is in wikipedia. Maybe he'll write about his conversion ceremony."
I didn't have a conversion ceremony. I was a pastafarian all along; I just didn't know it. A number of years ago I was touched by His Noodly Appendage and saw the light.
"Faith is accepting something as true without evidence, which I am against."
You're against faith?
Caleb -- you do that too? Ack! You must have inherited it from your father. I agree with Kate ABSOLUTELY -- it is eeeeeeeeeevil.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster saves.
Jesse, yup, 100%.
Go FSM.
Luke - "Okay, so your concept of absolute is my concept of faith. That makes much more sense to me now. Faith is accepting something as true without evidence, which I am against."
Perplexing, to me. How much evidence is enough? Is a personal revelation enough? Wishing really hard? A controlled study? I think believing in almost anything requires faith; minimally, faith in basic assumptions (axioms, if you like), and in your reasoning from them. And not everything can be reasoned.
I believe that having faith in things that cause conflicts with reality (like, I choose not to believe that truck is coming at me) is a Bad Idea. But faith also gets me out of bed in the morning -- faith that there's something worthwhile for me to do, for example.
I can't think of anything that doesn't require faith to accept as absolute, besides tautologies. (I am, a tautology; you are, a faith-based assumption.) What've you got for absolutes?
Faith gets you out of bed in the morning? How about empiricism? You've only done it, what, seventeen, eighteen thousand times before? Seems like faith would no longer be involved. Unless, like me, you're a really slow learner.
Not having faith doesn't mean that I believe in nothing. I believe in a lot of things, but due to reason, not out of faith. I am optimistic about the future of civilization, for example, not because I have any faith in humanity, but because I think that man IS a rational animal, and in the long run will continue to act that way. I don't get out of bed because of faith, I get out of bed because of purpose. Most people seem to think the choice is between faith and nihilism, which I think is a false and unfortunate dichotomy.
Absolutes? Reason. All my other absolutes come from the use of reason.
I don't think that "you are" is a faith-based assumption. You perceive that someone else is, and that is enough. You perceive that you have free will, that the air is cold or warm, that you see a truck coming at you or not. I think that your perceptions ARE absolute, as your sensory organs behave, like everything else, according to absolute physical laws. Sure you can be tricked occasionally by an optical illusion or something similar to that, but it doesn't happen randomly out of the blue for no reason at all. This whole discussion comes back to axioms, which you say you don't buy as absolute. If you didn't get it when Rand talked about them, I doubt that I will be able to do it any better, but I'll try.
An axiom is a concept which forms the base of all the rest of knowledge, which cannot be proven and which does not have to be proven. For the example, Aristotle's Law of Identity: A is A, a thing is itself, existence exists. It is not evn possible to make any argument against this law without using the law as part of the argument. It cannot and does not have to be proven because the concept of proof cannot exist without existence. An axiom literally cannot be denied, it is self-evident. From Atlas Shrugged:
"'You cannot prove that you exist or that you're conscious,'" they chatter, blanking out the fact that proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved.
When a savage who has not learned to speak declares that existence must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of non-existence—when he declares that your consciousness must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of unconsciousness—he is asking you to step into a void outside of existence and consciousness to give him proof of both—he is asking you to become a zero gaining knowledge about a zero.
When he declares that an axiom is a matter of arbitrary choice and he doesn't choose to accept the axiom that he exists, he blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one's mouth, expound no theories and die."
I do have a lot of faith in empiricism.
Also in reason.
I have faith in sex.
Just kidding. HAHAHAHA!
I have zero faith in reason.
If you have no faith in reason, then you believe in reason because reason has led you to believe in it?
I'm pretty sure that's a philosophical no-no.
Reason is the tool with which man gains ALL of his knowledge. A creature without this tool(an animal) would not be able to identify whether he had it or not. It is absolutely guaranteed that a creature who DOES possess the faculty of reason, and who chooses to use it, will be able to identify that he has it.
Reason: The faculty with which man integrates the material provided by his senses into conceptual knowledge.
Faith: Blind acceptance of an idea or concept as true whether evidence for it exists or not. Faith is knowing what one cannot know, just for the sake of knowing it.
If you see your hands right in front of your face, do you take it on faith that they are actually there? I perceive that I have the faculty of reason, and that's all there is to it. I identify this faculty as what it is, reason, and I choose to live by it. Now if you want to not be sure about whether or not you have the faculty of reason, and instead take it on faith, then go ahead. I am certain that I have it, however, with no faith involved, and I'm certain that you do too.
I like guarantees.
This is actually great, it reminds me much more clearly why, despite the power of some of her ideas and writing, I could never embrace Rand (figuratively, Dad). There is a huge gap between black and white; between BLIND faith and perfect reasoning, given you believe that the latter is possible. Suppose I've reasoned something out and am pretty sure? Suppose I'm absolutely positive, but you totally disagree? Suppose Dad has sex in the forest, but there's no one there to hear it? Where's the truth?
"Where's the truth?"
It's waiting there to be found.
"Dad has sex in the forest and no one hears..."
With Bambi's mother?
I don't follow your argument. Two people who disagree but are sure of themselves, of necessity, are both speaking the truth?
Well for thousands of years everyone thought the Earth was the center of the universe, and the geocentric model accurately explained and predicted the movements of stars and planets. Then Copernicus showed up and shattered the whole thing and proved that the heliocentric model was the truth.
So what should this tell us? That we can never really be certain of anything and we should stop trying? No, because the fact is that in order for Ptolemy to be wrong, something else had to be right.
It should tell us just how important it is to actually be right, rather than to just be certain of anything. That one should be relentless in seeking truth, which, as Dad said, is waiting to be found. Sure, it is possible to be wrong, but the entire concept of wrong can't exist without the concept of right.
I am certain that I am sitting in this chair right now, typing on the computer. The fact that it is possible to be certain of something so obvious as this PROVES that it is possible to be certain about the theory of relativity as well. It is MUCH more difficult the more complicated things become, but in any case, certainty is always possible.
Just wanted to clarify that I'm not saying that the fact that I'm sitting in this chair proves anything about relativity. I mean that it is possible to be certain about whether the theory is right OR wrong.
I've never seen or felt the pyramids, and therefore have no substantial reason to believe that they exist.
There are photos and movies about Santa Claus. Everyone said he was real, but he wasn't.
So you're trying to tell me that either A. You don't believe the pyramids exist. B. You do believe that the pyramids exist, on faith. Or C. Photos, Movies and word of mouth are enough reason to believe in something, although they are often faulty.
Do you believe in ghosts?
Luke - Actually, science says the opposite -- no certainty. A theory is just a theory, until or unless a better one comes along. People were "certain" about Newtonian physics, until Einstein provided a theory that explained more. Same with the geocentric theory.
The big no-no in science is to have a theory that isn't falsifiable; for example, intelligent design. Because then you can't test it. Absolute truths, being (by definition) non-falsifiable, are actually non-scientific. They're independent of rational debate.
Dad - Depends on the definition of truth. If you view truth as relative, then each of the two people is speaking their own truth. If you view it as absolute, my guess is they're both wrong.
Yeah, they probably are. Though one may be closer than the other. Just because no one has arrived at THE truth does not mean it doesn't exist.
Again, if truth is relative, if I have mine and you have yours and I'm OK and so are you, then truth has been rendered meaningless. Dumbed down so nobody has to feel badly when they insist there is a Santa Claus and everyone laughs at them. "Well, it's true FOR ME." OK. Be proud.
Bambi's mother was really built, if I remember rightly.
I'm in over my head here.
No, I don't believe in ghosts, and yes, I've watched all those stupid tv shows where they show you a picture with a scratch on it and tell you it's a ghost. I've wasted irretrievable hours of my life watching such tv shows, and I never saw anything legitimately convincing.
If the pyramids aren't real, than that means that probably about half of the world population is in on an enormous conspiracy to trick me. I could go on in detail about all the various reasons why this is extremely unlikely, but I don't think it should be necessary.
It didn't take you long to figure out Santa wasn't real right? You were a dumb, helpless little kid, just like me, who had no scope and no way of knowing anything different. As soon as you got old enough to think for yourself, you figured it out, right? Like with Copernicus, the fact that we have been wrong before does not mean that it is impossible to be right. It means we should emphasize the importance of making sure that we are right.
Back to Copernicus. He never got to go fly around in outer space and touch every planet and star and personally measure everything. He had to take the knowledge available to him from his observations and then painstakingly analyze it. Look up at the stars sometime and think about the monumental difficulty of the task that he took on. It was an achievement only possible to one who believed absolutely in the efficacy of his judgments; who respected no higher authority than his own mind; who thought that certainty was ALWAYS possible no matter how difficult it was to reach. In the end, Copernicus PROVED his theory despite having to fight constant persecution from endless incompetents.
It is easy to be certain about what is right in front of my face.
It is harder, although honestly not by much, to be certain about the pyramids. It is excruciatingly difficult to become certain of new knowledge that no one else has ever thought of before, but it is POSSIBLE. Whatever the case, at no point does faith ever become involved as a means of gaining knowledge.
Reality is absolute. It is what it is, and on a fundamental level, it doesn't change. Our senses are absolute. For the most part they don't fool us. When they do, it is because of absolute physical laws that they follow just like everything else. Our ability to integrate the information we gain from our senses into conceptual knowledge, when used correctly, is absolute. Certainty of one's knowledge is POSSIBLE, not easy, but possible.
Only one who realizes that truth exists, and that certainty is possible, can grasp just how hard it is to be certain. Otherwise, anything goes.
Luke - "Only one who realizes that truth exists, and that certainty is possible, can grasp just how hard it is to be certain. Otherwise, anything goes."
Hear, hear! I agree. Often, it takes great courage to believe with certainty. To find your own values and truth, relying on your own capabilities, can be excruciatingly difficult; and it can be extremely admirable. Go for it.
Dad - You're not in over your head.
Rob - My knowledge of classical and quantum mechanics is limited, and I'm sure you know more about it than I do, but the way I understand it, Einstein never proved Newton completely wrong. What he did was to more clearly define the context of Newtonian mechanics, as it had become clear that it did not apply to particles. I couldn't accurately say exactly how to define the context for classical mechanics, maybe you could help me out on that one, but somewhere between everyday objects and microscopic particles, F=ma stops working, right?
Now I'm not doubting that by any means, but I am absolutely 100% certain that if I'm lifting a weight at a constant velocity, than the upward force I exert on the weight is equal to the downward force that gravity exerts on it. In that context, Newton is still right.
I don't quite get the non-falsifiable thing. I'm talking about absolutes that are proven true BECAUSE of rational debate, at which point the debate ends. It's like how when I was little I thought of motion, although not explicitly, the same way that Aristotle thought of it. I thought that an object holds still if there are no forces on it, and it moves if there is a force on it. Once I learned F=ma, I remember being skeptical at first. Then I thought about it for a while and realized that it did make sense and that it was right. I think I even had debates with teachers about it at one point or another, although it's hard to remember now. In the end, they were right and I was wrong. That was the purpose of the debate, to get to the truth and then stick to it, not to just endlessly ponder over things back and forth.
And shouldn't you not begin your sentences with "actually"? I mean, in order for truth to be relative, there can't be an actual, right? Or at least we can't be capable of knowing it? Saying "actually" sounds a little too absolute to me, but after all, it's only my opinion and I'm only human. What do I know? What does anybody know?
With science, the debate never really ends. People are very sure about some things, they act on that knowledge, but that doesn't mean there won't be new data that help create a better theory.
I have a highly amusing paper somewhere that says something like 80% (I'd have to look it up) of mathematical proofs published each year end up being shown to have some kind of flaw. Kind of makes "mathematical proof" seem like an oxymoron.
Actually (thanks for the setup), everything I state as truth is my opinion. If "actually" is a synonym for "in reality," I actually mean "in my view of reality." My reality probably overlaps with yours in an amazing number of ways. Probably even with Dad's. Although I am less Murphitudinous.
If you read my other various comments on this blog, you'd see that I have very little trust for today's scientific establishment. The 80% number doesn't surprise me at all. Even if the number were 99.9999%, it wouldn't change my philosophy. Certainty is still possible, and reason, when used correctly, is infallible. Using it correctly is just really really hard. Usually people make a mistake somewhere along the way. That doesn't make reason wrong, it just means they messed up in applying it.
Of course scientific debate never ends. The more we know, the more we realize how much there is to know. That doesn't make previously gained accurate knowledge wrong. A key point is that knowledge is contextual. Without context, F=ma isn't absolute. In the properly defined context it is. Anyway, one more Atlas Shrugged quote just 'cause I like it:
"Do not say that you're afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience—that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible—that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error."
Actually, (heh) your reality, Rob, probably coincides with THE reality. Trust your reality. See Luke's quote.
57% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Of the 80% of mathematical proofs that have flaws, 29% are intentional, 41% are minor, and the rest are undetectable.
Luke, another outstanding quote.
Yes, good quote.
I'm just saying, I know more people who have seen ghosts than people who have seen the pyramids. So how do I have more reason to believe in the pyramids than ghosts?
Lucy, you really can't answer that question for yourself?
I can't. But then again, I'm not certain that I exist.
Too much epistemology, too little science?
Well I'm certain that you exist.
Epistemology is a science, and without it, all other science is impossible.
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