Re: No facts, no truth?????!!!! (You do NOT understand my point!)

Posted by Sambersil on November 02, 2000 at 20:04:06:

In Reply to: No facts, no truth?????!!!! posted by Elizabeth on November 01, 2000 at 17:10:56:

: >>>>Ideas are NEVER invalidated. Everything is equally true, including the fact that nothing is equally true.
: However, I and approximately every other person in the world forget this almost all of the time, and
: work by an unfounded internal sense of what is right and why it is right, which we english speakers call
: "logic".<<<<<

: I appreciate your enthusiasm but this concept is contradictory... to make this statement is to declare your belief as universal truth, in which case unequal truth would exist.

Look, apparently you didn't read my philosophy postings, so you shouldn't be critical. My thoughts on the topic at hand are: 1.) Mistakes exist. 2.) In the process of thought leading up to any conclusion, a mistake could exist, hidden. 3.) The conclusion therefore could be false, no matter how convincing it might be. 4.) Any refutation or disproof of the preceding statements could have a mistake in it somewhere and thus be false.
This logical chain of thought could, of course, have a mistake in it somewhere; it cannot be stated as definitely so, by its very existence. But, the thought that it might have a mistake in it somewhere could have a mistake in it; maybe it is by its very nature an exception to its own rule. There is no way to deal with this mistake thing, and we don't even know that.

In my previous post, I was arbitrarily choosing to state all beliefs as equal, on the basis (perhaps mistaken) that since they are all equally possibly wrong, they are all equal; I could just as easily, though perhaps more confusingly, have stated that each belief is more correct than every other belief, or have stated that each belief is incorrect including this one.

: Just because you choose to believe in nonsense, doesn't mean reality is altered (only your perception is altered). A person may firmly believe that if he jumps off the golden gate bridge he won't be hurt but if he tries it, he will likely find his theory disproved and invalidated (if he lives to reflect on the situation).

You may firmly believe that if you jump off the golden gate bridge you WILL be hurt, but you've never tried it. Why do you assume that people who jump off tall bridges get hurt? Maybe if one feels suicidal, one suddenly loses a natural immunity to jumping off of bridges, and that if someone who does not feel suicidal jumps off the bridge, they will suffer no injury, so if you jumped off a bridge to prove me wrong, to prove that you would get hurt, you would not be. And do not quote physical laws at me - I can respond in a similar manner to laws of gravity, motion, etc.

: You make the mistake of confusing what is "right/wrong" and what is "true/false". These are two separate debates. Do you think fact has a place in belief?

Fact, strictly speaking, I believe does not exist. My reasons for believing this are stated earlier here. I say that there is ONLY belief, although I still use the word "fact" to refer to certain types of belief.

And please please please please do not attempt to argue, because my response will just be the same: you could have a mistake in your argument somewhere.

Follow Ups:

• Nonsense... Elizabeth 23:26:04 11/02/00 (1)
  • I have interest in debate - just, I don't like to compare systems of belief, because I think it is possible that everyone is right. If you want to discuss something unrelated to beliefs, go ahead (nt) Sambersil 19:57:46 11/03/00 (0)

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