Philosophy

Theory of Propaganda By: ME!::::

Propaganda is a tool used in today's media, and internet, to manipulate people's minds to accept certain ways of life, or instill bias amongst people. The main selling point: "Everyone is saying it on the TV, so IT MUST be true!"

The way I can trick someone into thinking another person is a criminal with Zero evidence is simple: I first make up a lie about them with pausable specifics - get some other people to believe the lie - Get the people whom heard it from them, who suddenly now interpret it the lie as a FACT, and not a lie anymore. - The person the lie was origianally created to attack based off Zero evidence and assumptions has now become PROVEN EVIDENCE, backed by a number of people, who are basing their source on the credibility of the other people who told them, as those people are basing it off the ones who told them, and so on...

In essence, it's easy to manipulate people to believe things based off nothing, for the simple fact that they put faith in what other (ill-informed) people around them say. When really, they're just seeds of illogic further spreading the disease... Like two ships sailing into a storm whom both assume the other knows how to go around it....

>:] Think logically.... Think individually...
 
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LostProvidence said:
Something related to this is also that one math guy's proof that you cannot prove something about a system from within a system (or some ish like that--that's just the best way I remember it). And I think that applies here when you consider what I said about 'many worlds' (or an object that does not experience things as we humans do). Only an object that could effectively prove that things can be one way or another (in this not experiencing time linearly or one reality) could really say whether or not that's true. But that's the way I'm looking at it.
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There seems to be some confusion as to what or who's being referred to, but it's probably Godel. Godel's incompleteness theorem roughly states that given a consistent system, you can't prove everything about a system using that system's axioms. By extension, you can't prove that your system is consistent using only the axioms of your system. You can still prove a lot of things given that your axioms are true- that's just how logic works, but there will always be some statement that cannot be proven or disproven.

This discussion probably will go nowhere, because what it comes down to is people believing certain statements about the universe to be true and being unable to prove it. The problem with free will versus determinism, is that a lot of people really want to believe that we have the power to change future outcomes, and there are a lot of people that want to believe that everything happens for a reason.

There is a lot of evidence in neuroscience to suggest that everything we think to be "free will" is actually a result of the chemical and electrical processes that are constantly taking place in the body, and there is a lot of evidence to believe that randomness really does drive a lot of systems. I would say that the evidence supports a theory that things are "mostly determined" but there's a little bit of randomness that could possibly be what we consider "free will" if you want to call it that.

Of course you can say stuff like how do we trust our observations, and tons of dead guys have written about that. My own advice if you actually want to have meaningful discussion without coming to the conclusion that you can't prove anything, is to just ask better questions in the first place.
 
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I like to keep things simple:

There's no such thing as weird, but there is a socially acceptable.

When it comes to politics, don't feel, think.

Your imagination is your strongest ally, but only use it reasonably.

It's okay to rely on your friends to help you through your weaknesses. Over-independence gets you nowhere.
 
Slade said:
But the future and past are just linguistic constructs. By conflating the two you're creating an argument which only has meaning as an abstraction of language but is devoid of epistemological meaning.
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That which we experience does not change once we have experienced it. That which we have experienced becomes that which we know. That which we know was at one point that which we didn't know. That which we do not know does not change. So while there is abstraction to the premises, it is still based off knowledge that we obtain and is still within the grounds of epistemology.
 
iKotomi said:
snibbidy snab
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Gödel's theorems pertain only to axiomatic systems, primarily deductive ones, so they don't specifically apply in the context of this discussion. Perhaps there is some fundamental connection between the incompleteness of axiomatic systems and physical quantum systems but that's less objective than I'm aiming for here.
GranmasGotGame said:
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Our brains tend to be extremely selective in how long term memory is encoded, but that's beside the point. For your theory to make sense, you have to view the future in the past tense, which is inherently contradictory. It's more meaningful in a poetic sense than a logical one, and philosophy sometimes treads the fine line between the two separate subsets of language.
 
Trying to keep things as simple as possible:

I doubt free will, and here's why. No one knows if quantum indeterminacy translates on a larger scale to living beings.

But it isn't looking good for free will I'm afraid. Atoms, which is the next level from sub-atomic particles, act in extremely predictable ways. It's called chemistry, and it's strictly mathematical, which means it's predetermined.

How someone can think indeterminacy somehow translates into complex biological organisms is a little bit a stretch, considering how predictable atoms are, and considering that all cells are basically made up of atoms.

I think our brain creates this illusion of choice, when there isn't really one. Neurological studies have pointed out that electrical activity in certain brain regions PRECEDES conscious activity. In other words, first your brain is spinning its gears and THEN you make a 'decision' or have a thought or feeling.

I'm not entirely sure why our brains do this to us. I see no evolutionary reason why living things would 'need' to feel like they are in control. It's a damn convincing illusion, since someone could easily say "but I'm choosing to wave my arm around right now, as we speak. Is that not free will?" But then I could tell him that his act of moving his arm and trying to prove to himself and I that I'm wrong, was determined and was reaction based off me telling him that free will is an illusion.

It's confusing and unintuitive, mainly because the illusion is making it almost impossible to even conceive of such a notion as determinism. It's easy for us to look at a volcano eruption and say it was predetermined by physics. It's even easy for us to look at animal behavior and say it was predetermined by instinct. But human beings? Hell no. And that is because human beings are too complex for us to accurately predict. There are just too many variables to even make sense of it.

After all, how can a human being, with the limitations of their brain, possibly have complete understanding of all human beings and make predictions? It's like trying to use the brain to map out the brain of not just ourselves but everyone else too.

Predicting human behavior will always be outside of our grasp, but that doesn't mean that it's not predictable. I suppose the only thing that COULD do such a thing would be an extra-terrestrial far beyond us.

But then, of course, everyone will call you stupid for even suggesting such a thing. "of course we have free will, stupid!". What appears self evident to the layman and even the educated, might very well end up being bullshit.
 
Slade said:
Gödel's theorems pertain only to axiomatic systems, primarily deductive ones, so they don't specifically apply in the context of this discussion. Perhaps there is some fundamental connection between the incompleteness of axiomatic systems and physical quantum systems but that's less objective than I'm aiming for here.
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There is a difference between a physical system and knowledge of the system. The first is a natural phenomenon, the second is our interpretation of natural phenomena. We never discuss the physical system directly because we have no way to prove anything about the system itself- we only discuss our observations, conclusions, and predictions about the system using the laws that we believe are true at the time. Our system of knowledge is axiomatic, and no meaningful conclusions can take place without a common agreement on what axioms are true.
 
I learned that free will is basically the ability to decide your fate, or make decisions based upon random variables that you rationalized yourself.... Unlike a computer, you're only limited by the choices provided, or "sensible" solutions to situations, whereas humans can act in whichever manner they please, illogically or logically.

-^^- Also, very well written post to you btw!
 
Slade said:
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It's a valid point that viewing the future from a past perspective is contradictory (considering that you are only looking at the past from a further past perspective). Something was still nagging at me though. I started to wonder if it being contradictory was relevant or not. The fact still remains, that at one point in time event X hadn't happened yet (in the future). Whether we look at the event from a present standpoint or not does not change that fact.

As for whether its logical or poetic, I completely agree that it has more poetic value then logical. In many different conclusions I find that the outcome is more poetic than logical (such as in morality). This, however, does not negate the logical process used to reach said poetic conclusion.
 
We will always be restricted by the limitations of our sensory perception. When we make abstractions about unknown things, all we are doing is comparing it to something with similar properties.

No one has actually seen a black hole, so why do we call it a black hole? Because not even light can escape it, it consumes the light, so we make an abstraction calling it a black hole, even though no one actually knows what it looks like. It's nothing more than a description based on preexisting theory.

There's nothing wrong with that, but some people make the confusion that absolute knowledge of anything is possible when the best we can hope for is an interpretation.

Socrates said that the only thing you can really know for sure is the fact that you know nothing. Nietzsche said that the only people that are free are the ones who know they are not free.

I think the real problem with epistemology is whether you are on the rationalist side or the empiricist side of the fence, both tend to think that knowledge itself is a real thing.

We don't have true knowledge. What we really have is past memories and new sensory data trying to analyze our current situation. Abstractions, interpretations and comparisons is the best we have.

You know, come to think of it, I would even take it a step further. I don't even think 'intelligence' is a real thing either. No one has yet to define what 'G' is, and no one likely ever will. Everyone will have a common sense notion of what makes a being intelligent, but again best case scenario is simply an interpretation.

A computer might beat you in a game but you certainly wouldn't call that computer intelligent. What you would say, is that it's been programmed well to be very good at specific tasks only. A calculator is way better at math than me, but the calculator is not 'intelligent'.

I think the same thing for people, and all life for that matter. Our sensory input and past experiences constitutes our 'programming'. Education counts as experience as well. Essentially we are nothing but trained dogs fundamentally, even though we are vastly more complex than dogs.

I might be the only person on the planet who doubts the existence of intelligence as a whole, who knows. It's an idea I've been toying around with for a awhile now. It's one of the reasons why I'm against IQ testing as a whole, because it's largely arbitrary and has little impact on a person's ability in a given field. Besides, telling someone that their stupid doesn't do anyone a damn bit of good, it might discourage people from trying things they otherwise might be good at. Everyone I think has a little bit of 'savant' in them to a degree. I might be terrible at lot of things, but I bet there is at least one thing I can do better than anyone else in this room, and visa versa.

And the most ludicrous thing of all is trying to 'measure' intelligence in the first place. If you can't define it, how the hell can you measure it? Things get even more crazy when you take 10 different IQ tests and get 10 radically different results.

Then again, maybe I'm a complete tard and have no clue what I'm saying :)
 
CaptainHook said:
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As i understand it, this is your post in a nutshell.

We can't obtain true knowledge. Intelligence (being defined as the ability to acquire knowledge and skills) therefore, cannot exist for we would first have to be able to acquire (true) knowledge (which as was stated before is impossible). We, in essence, are computers "programmed" by our experiences and sensory experiences.

I know I'm just repeating what you said in a simpler form but I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding.

Now, the first thing I would like to bring up is what exactly do you define as "true knowledge"? Is it tied only into the physical world or can it exist in "our minds" so to speak? Does true knowledge dissipate the moment we experience it; for by the time we realize it, it is already an experience? I think a more clear representation of what true knowledge is should be established before anything.

Secondly, assuming that the definition above is an accurate representation of the word intelligence; do we need to acquire true knowledge? Can we simply acquire knowledge? Or does the fact that it's not true knowledge mean it can't be constituted as knowledge at all? If I say that I have intelligence because I have obtained knowledge, regardless off its validity, would I not meet the qualification for being intelligent?

Should I suppose that I can never have true knowledge, am I not obtaining the knowledge that I cannot obtain true knowledge? So would the statement "I can never obtain true knowledge" be false knowledge negating its validity?

If "I can never obtain true knowledge" is true knowledge. I have just obtained true knowledge, nullifying the statement.

On the flip side

If "I can never obtain true knowledge" is not true knowledge. The statement itself is no longer true and is thus nullified.

I'm currently taking a break from the HUGE project due in like 18 hours and don't have nearly enough sleep but I think my logic is sound. Then again, I'm tired as fuck.

Feel free to rip me a new one should I have made any mistakes.
 
Well to be entirely fair, technically the statement 'I have no true knowledge' cannot itself be true knowledge. So, in other words, there is no way of knowing for sure whether we actually have true knowledge or not. At this point my best guess is no.

I didn't want it to sound as though the word 'knowledge' itself shouldn't be used as a description. When you think of your college history teacher, it's okay to use the word 'knowledge" as a description. But all of his so called 'knowledge' can be reduced to experience and memory. (just to be clear, knowledge and memory are not the same thing)

Think of it this way, when I say the sky is blue, it is just a description, but one that is entirely dependent on the way our eyes and brain operate together. The sky isn't actually blue objectively, but rather it's my brain telling me that it's blue. It's entirely subjective because your brain's version of 'blue' is different from mine slightly.

When someone uses the words knowledge or intelligence, it's merely a description. Knowledge is nothing more than a series of acquired sensory data collectively organized into a cohesive whole. A gazelle knows to run from the lion, but you wouldn't describe the animal as knowledgeable, would you?

Furthermore, we tend to only apply the concept of knowledge to human beings, which is just human bias. I prefer to call it 'processing' instead of knowing, because it exists in a state of constant change, or rather in flux.

I've come to understand the meaning of intelligence as the ability to reason and solve problems, or the ability to form abstract concepts. In order for something to be called 'intelligent' it must be an autonomous being capable of free will and 'outside the box' thinking. But this is exactly the problem. I don't believe that human beings or any life for that matter has free will. We act in accordance with our 'programming' (genetics and experience), we cannot think outside the boundaries of our own sensory perception. This is why it's so difficult for people to understand quantum physics; It defies every common sense notion we have about physical space and how things move. Newton would have been dumbfounded to say the least.

And besides, how do you define true knowledge when it's so flexible with time? What was considered scientific knowledge 100 years ago is now considered pseudo science.

What I'm saying in a nutshell is that the best we can hope for is an interpretation, but not knowledge. Also, we are not intelligent any more than the computer or animal is.

When I see an naked attractive female, I get turned on. That wasn't my free will, but my biological programming. I think the same can be said for all mental processes.

But don't sweat it though, remember I know nothing :) In philosophy we are all equals.
 
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