Thanks for taking the time answering my comments Brian, here are the questions I'm left with on hearing your thoughts:
Sure but hopes need some justifiable basis as do opinions otherwise we're just wishful thinking.
Yes so do I but sometimes to avoid the same errors you made in the past you have to question whether you're means of assessing reality are justified otherwise you'll keep on guessing & keep on failing.
OK maybe he did & even Professor Richard Feynman said at first you guess an answer: you intuit it indeed & 99% of the time or more it's wrong - it's only when you test your intuitions to destruction can you discover which 1% (if it's even
that much) that's left standing.
Well now you are trying to shift your burden of evidence onto
me & I never claimed we ever have 100% water tight 'knowledge' of anything at all did I? All I'm saying is that despite not being able to be 100% certain of anything we can still be
reasonably certain of many things if there's at least
something that can be independently confirmed about it with a high standard of verification & that's as good as anything gets so why demand perfection when you can still have a close second?
That's incredibly vague answer. What's the most
compelling experience you can cite that's convinced you it's true? Anything particularly robust beyond alternative interpretation?
I'm sure they did but other great figures & popular religions in history have had equally unsupportable ideas too so what makes his beliefs obviously far better? There must be some reason you consider these claims better than those claims or do you just like the
sound of them more?
OK so why was
she convinced then? - Because she too liked the sound of it from someone she had an inkling also harbored esoteric wisdom as well? - Is that really a good enough reason?
So if I just don't get this explanation & I'd say it's actually just a naked claim that's confirmation it's probably true yeah? That sounds a lot more like confirmation bias & circular reasoning to me. Why am I wrong? Because I lack the wisdom to just "get" it's truth?
So if we rather like the ideas we find that we rather like, that's a sure sign it's justified then? Hmmmm...
Yes a testable one. One which is robust enough to be independently verified.
This is why we behave as we do:
Yes
if, but how could we be pretty damn
sure that we really
have become enlightened rather than projecting our existing beliefs onto what we notice 'hits' confirmations & doesn't even
register blind spots which disconfirm them? Don't you think
self doubt is as important if not even
more important a strategy if we are genuinely committed to believing as many true things & dismissing any false things, whatever they may be & regardless of whether we '
rather like the idea.'?
Or it may just be coincidence.
So you can doubt others! But can you turn the same skepticism onto your own beliefs with equal skepticism too?
OK perhaps that's how he imagined 'error' to be however isn't a simpler explanation - with less assumptions built into it - 'error' is a state of alienation with the nature of reality therefore you keep making guesses about the nature of reality which aren't based on evidence but by projecting an incorrect assumption about reality on to what you
think you are seeing going on around you & therefore that's the cause of your errors? e.g, The philosopher Wittgenstein was in conversation with one of his students who he asked:
W: Why do you think that people once thought that they could see the sun go around the earth?
S: Well I suppose it's because that's what it looks like.
W: But
does it? - Then how would a
static sun appear when observed from the surface of an immense
spinning sphere?
i.e. If we assume in advance we know the nature of what reality has to be like we may very well be in danger of making the error of 'projecting' our evidence free assumption onto what we think 'reality' is & consequently create a self induced delusion based on what you assumed to be the case unconsciously (or consciously) in advance - without good, independently verifiable evidence for your assumption.
Well yes we certainly can create our own hell & sometimes it can result from not caring that much if our beliefs are supportable. Those who can make you believe absurdities, could also make you make errors in life which is why we must never imagine we are above delusion ourselves. I'm not which is why I'm happier to admit I don't know things than feel very sure I do but not be able to know exactly how I got there beyond finding an idea appealing. To me that starts alarm bells ringing & a voice in my head screams 'Warning! Potential delusions breaking through the doubt firewall!' - Now I'm not against letting anything through if I've tested it very very carefully but 'carefully' has to mean
whether I love it or hate it.
OK thanks Brian I look forward to it!