How do you challenge your....

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Like I said elsewhere - My belief system accomodates for all phenomena.

Although my "belief system" would take a lot to explain ...

 

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Good, glad that got a wink back.

Well, I'll probe a little.

Have you been surprised and had to spend some effort seeing if a phenonmenon fit?

 

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Here's another one.

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So complete!

Sure. But being surprised doesn't necessarily mean that one's methodology or belief system is lacking. Being surprised and spending some effort on being able to understand something or to see it fit is simply a sign that things take some time and effort to understand them. Not being able to do something instantly is not necessarily the mark of a lacking methodology or a lacking belief system; it can simply be a sign that the task is demanding or that the person is not yet at an enlightened level of understanding where his cognition would run absolutely smoothly and instantenously.

E.g. if you show an academic mathematician a difficult math problem, he'll need some time and will have to invest some effort to understand it or solve it, but in time, he will.

Of course, I am suspecting that you will now ask about how long this "in time" is, and at what point it is "too long". I think this is up to the person themselves to determine, and to those who share the exact same methodology or belief system as that person.

 

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Never, even for a nanosecond, thought it did. It is a way of probing your system without, rather boringly and probably inappropriately, asking for you to lay out your system. I am hoping via some questions to get an outline, a beginning sense of it.

Ibid.

Well, if we shift to physics, it seems sometimes they run into walls where contradictory things seem to be true. IOW they are not sure, perhaps for the whole rest of their lives how these two apparantly true things can both be true. And are disturbed by it.

You could look at what I mentioned above as 'asking' that. It seems a little different to me.

 

Actually, it is I who owes you that outline. I have tried so far to remain meta-, without getting anymore specific, trying to see how far this approach would get me. Not all that far, apparently.

I think it would take too much to explain it, and there are predictable questions and objections that I simply am not willing to get into right now, nor do I have the time for that. At this point, it doesn't seem necessary to me to make myself understood like that.

I shall see how much I can participate to your recent threads mostly in a meta- way, but apart from that, I will just thank you for having me.

Some methodologies surely are challengeable.

It in fact is different. Because: There a methodologies and belief systems that have it in them to explain any and all phenomena. And then there are methodologies and belief systems that do not have it in them to explain any and all phenomena. The question is, of course, how do we know whether a belief system has such explanatory power or not.

A first criterion seems to be whether a belief system addresses all aspects of human life, answers the question about the purpose of human life, gives instructions about how to live in accordance with this purpose, and does all this in a philosophical, strict, consistent, logical manner.

 

I learned something! I learned something! Meta or no, I learned something.

or intention to explain it seems, perhaps. (and by the way, this was not a reference to your behavior here in the thread, but more to the possible role the system itself serves in general)

 

challenge a methodology? Question one's process of thought? Or kick around the foundation stones of what you think of X?

 

The former.

Like let's say you make decisions to believe things by listening to Uncle Charley. One day you find Uncle Charley doing something despicable to a tree. Perhaps you decide to drive to Denver and see if everyone there actually has green skin, like he says. This is challenging your methodology - learning about the world by believing what UC says - and using exploration and a kind of disorganized, but in this case very effective empirical approach.

 

Woohoo!

The intention to explain it is the beginning.

If someone or a book tells you right away: "I won't explain everything" - then how can they be trusted that that which they do explain is valid?

 

I challenge my methodologies by comparing them with other methodologies (which I gather through direct experiences, or if I have no former experience, through observation of other people experiences) and by comparing the RESULT of different methodologies.

For example: there are many ways to go to other city: by foot, by bike, by car, by train, by bus, by airplane, through this way, through that way, etc. How do I decide which is the best method and how do I know it is the best one (how do I challenge that is indeed the best one)? If I have no former experience, I will firstly ask people who already been there, then based on the outcome, I will be able to judge which one is best. If I have already former experiences, I will know by comparing them as well.

Of course, the methodology which is best for me, doesn't necessarily is the best for others, because people are different; objectives, expectation, and abilities or capacities are also varied.

 

I haven't really had to since the whole "santa claus" debacle of 1982. I decided then that a simplistic schroedinger's cat method was for me. Until I have opportunity to take a measurement, all things are true and all things are false. Belief is deciding what unverifiable things I believe. Like, I believe that Africa exists, but I'm undecided about Australia.

 

I would almost say the exact opposite.

I am also skeptical that a book, for example, can explain everything. The words do not contain information - or the sentences either. At least not in isolation. They do things. The do things to/in the reader. They are therefore reader dependent. The reader will not be able to/ready to/willing to understand everything. A second read, at a later time, often confirms this to the reader.

Oh, now I got more out of that section.

They may relate this new insight to experiences they had, perhaps some inspired or more intelligible in part because of the book.

Another, but related issue, is that information from books, given that they are in words, tend to engage certain kinds of mental activity. Explaining everything were it possible probably would not be a good idea, since it would set up a split in the person who would have these 'truths' in their mind, while the whole of the organism is not up to speed.

 

I like that sentence. I'd change that final 'believe' to 'are true'.

Can you expand a little on Schrodinger's cat thought experiment and what it means to you?

You ever notice that when you meet an Australian they are never in Australia?
Very suspicious.

Anyone can talk funny.

 

It all depends on what the book or person says, and on what the Absolute Truth is.

If the Absolute Truth can be put into words, then it can be written down in a book. And people can read the book and come to the Absolute Truth.

If the Absolute Truth can not be put into words, we are in the realm of non-duality, in the realm of where everything is relative and contingent and thus in-and-of-itself meaningless, and thus this is no different than saying there is no Absolute Truth.

 

I am not sure this is true, though I do think, in some way, things are relative. Perhaps truths must be lived rather than thought. Or take the Zen notion of language as pointing but not as container.

I also had the thought that specific languages have strengths and weaknesses in describing certain things and this might mean that one can only get so much in each one.

 

No wonder you're always wrong. Guesswork.

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And you, Q, how do you determine what is true? What are your favored methodologies and how have you challenged, tested them?

 

The depends, the term truth is bandied about much like the term faith, and gets muddled by theists who use it for divine explanations.

I'm more interested in finding out how things work, not the philosophical mumbo-jumbo most people bleat about.

 

Yeah, thats reflected in your posts here. Your interest in how things work minus philosophical mumbo jumbo.

 

Shrodinger's Cat-Until I verify my belief in something I admit that the truth may be any and all possibilities. I can choose what possibility to believe without taking a measurement. For example, If I want to I can choose to believe that overnight my hair has come alive and turned blue. Until I look in the mirror, I cannot verify the color. The... Aliveness of it will require me to go to a scientist and have it examined for potential signs of life.

Consider, of course. Do typed words shown on my screen prove that I exist?