[FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia

Thu Sep 21 15:53:34 EDT 2017

There is nothing that infuriates me more than trying to solve a problem with/for someone is confident in their hypothesis for no reason other than a few past experiences.   No we definitely can live with doubt.  For goodness sake we have Donald as president.    It is a personality disorder when people can’t depart from their priors in the face of actual evidence.

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 1:48 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia

Dear Glen,

I don't know why I am so pissed at Feynman right now but this quote:

"When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ... Ι don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me."

… is another one of those sentiments that we would immediately recognise as absurd if Feynman hadn’t said it.

Peirce would say, for the most part, we cannot live in doubt.  We cannot doubt that the floor is still under our feet when we put our legs out of the bed in the morning or that the visual field is whole, even though our eyes tell us that there are two gian holes in it.  Every perception is doubtable in the sense that Feynman so vaingloriously lays out here, yet for the most part we live in a world of inferred expectations which are largely confirmed.  Like the other Feynman quote, it is wise only when we stipulate what is absurd about it and make something wise and noble of what is left.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of g??? ?
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 1:59 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia

A better Feynman quote that targets this issue is this one, I think from a BBC interview:

"When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ... Ι don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the unverse without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me."

He was talking in the context of religion, but I think it applies to every type of "knowledge", including the "thought manipulation" that is philosophy.  The point is not that "thought manipulation" can never be useful.  But that one can _justifiably_ take the position that philosophy should (moral imperative) be done in the _service_ of something else.

You cited Smullyan in the OP, which is relevant.  Many of Smullyan's publications are puzzles, games.  Some of us simply enjoy puzzles. (I don't.) But every puzzle is a math problem.  It's up to the puzzle solver to settle on why they're solving puzzles.  Are they doing it because it FEELS good?  Or are they doing it because either the solutions or the exercises facilitate some other objective?  Some puzzle solvers (e.g. video gamers) find themselves in a defensive position, trying to justify their fetish against the world around them.  The silly rancor many "practical" people aim at philosophers can make some of them defensive.  And it's a real shame that we shame philosophers for doing it just because they enjoy it.

But it moves from merely shameful to outright dangerous when a philosopher can't distinguish their own _why_.  Someone who does it because it's fun shouldn't waste any time yapping about how useful it is.  And someone who does it because it's useful shouldn't waste any time yapping about how fun it is.  Get over it.  Be confident.  Engage your fetish and ignore the nay-sayers.

On 09/21/2017 09:53 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> Glen -

>

> I share your use of the term "Science" as in being an activity (roughly) defined by "the Scientific Method" just as I use the term "Art" as the process rather than the product (aka "Artifact").

>

> When I do anything vaguely (or presumptively) artistic, I think of my role as that of an "Artifex" more than an "Artist" because I feel more emphasis on the conception/making than on being tuned into or tied into a larger, higher group/power which is how I read "Art and Artist".  I have a similar ambivalence about "Scientist/Science".   Despite degrees in Math and Physics, my practice has rarely involved actual Science (or more math than just really fancy arithmetic), though I have worked with "real Scientists" and close to "Scientific Progress" for most of my life.   I don't even think of my work as having been that of an Engineer, but truly much closer to simply that of a "Technologist".   And as everyone who has read my missives here can attest, my throwdown as a "Philosopher" is equally detuned... but suspect myself to oscillate wildly between the poles of "Philosopher" and "Philistine".   All that rattled off, I truly value having enough understanding of all of these

> ideals to recognize the differences qualitatively, and to have mildly informed opinions about the better and worser examples of each quantitatively.

--

☣ gⅼеɳ

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