/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22871561]

I have a weird hang-up. Since childhood I've always wanted to learn the true nature of reality, but the only epistemological tool I find valid is "Seeing is believing." So every religion and philosophy I've come across is unsatisfying, and I have to proceed on the basis of induction for any truths. But the problem with induction is you never know that you don't know something, so as soon as you set down some rule about reality, there's likely some phenomenon you don't know about that shatters your idea completely.

So it seems there are no real secrets about reality to be learned. What you see is what you get. So tell me /lit/, are there any thinkers you know who could challenge this view of mine? I've read most of the big philosophers already, and it's their whole "a priori logic" approach which I find unconvincing. I need a radical challenge to my views

[Anonymous No.22871565]

>>22871561
Why do you trust what you see?

[Anonymous No.22871570]

Read Gerson's Ancient Epistemology, it's like 100 pages

[Anonymous No.22871571]

>>22871561
You're just the average Anglo. Biologically wired to only trust Empiricism. Don't worry, your people were a genetic mistake, but it isn't your fault.

[Anonymous No.22871578]

>>22871565
Because our whole epistemology is derived from experience in the first place.
>>22871571
I don't want to be a hardline empiricist, but do you really find metaphysical explanations convincing? Does it not feel in a sense obvious that you can prove whatever you set out to with this branch of logic?

[Anonymous No.22871629]

>>22871578
>Because our whole epistemology is derived from experience in the first place.
Not to be glib, but: so what?

[Anonymous No.22871638]

>>22871561
think and grow rich

[Anonymous No.22871642]

>>22871561
>So every religion and philosophy I've come across is unsatisfying, and I have to proceed on the basis of induction for any truths
That's raitonalistic. Empiricism doesn't use any of those shitty rationalist tools, because they know rationalism is a dead end and the fantasy of accessing truth through imagination is preposterous, ie the rationalist dogma that imagination can be dichotomized into schizo ramblings and somehow truthful statements .

You want to reach truth you don't use any rationalism, you use meditation.

[Anonymous No.22871643]

>>22871571
Yes, meanwhile your rationalism, your "continental" philosophy gave us trannies and other aberrations who know "their" "truth" because they thought it out and it made sense to them. There's certainly something to be taken from Empiricism.

[Anonymous No.22871666]

>>22871642
Correct me if I'm wrong but meditation too requires some rationalism to get truths out of the experiences it provides. It may feel realer than real, but that's not a guarantee that what you experience in meditation (or on powerful psychedelics like DMT or salvia) is real. You still have to trust this "realness" sensation that varies according to the experience. I'm not very informed on philosophy of mind stuff but so long as you can trust this part of the brain, we can assume that revelations from meditation, DMT, salvia, and near-death experiences are real. Otherwise our whole basis of experience is undermined. Does that mean empiricism naturally culminates in the infinite oneness type answers that these experiences grant you? I suppose it necessarily does.

[Anonymous No.22871673]

I hate when I'm counting upto 100 in my head and I'm upto 87 and then there comes 89

[Anonymous No.22871694]

>>22871578
>I don't want to be a hardline empiricist, but do you really find metaphysical explanations convincing? Does it not feel in a sense obvious that you can prove whatever you set out to with this branch of logic?

I'll give you an honest answer because you seem seriously concerned about this. I think the postmodernists are 100% correct, rationalism is a dead end and so is empiricism (which itself is reliant on rationalism. No I won't explain how).

Rationalism fails because there are things that cannot be mathematically explained. Most 3rd-Order Non-Linear ODEs for example are quite simply impossible to solve and the best we can do is create computer models that approximate the answer through use of models such as the Haar Solution (which once again is just a model and thus not a precise solution but an approximation).

This isn't just mathematics, apply pure rationalism to the study of history. How do you know something happened? Because someone said it did and wrote it down? How do you know they aren't lying? You witnessed it yourself? How can you trust purely in your own senses (Empiricists come out on top here but only if they witnessed the event themselves, otherwise history is a lie to them as well).

The postmodernists are correct in saying both Empiricism and Rationalism are not capable of giving us absolute truths, but they are not correct in saying everything is relative. You see the postmodern movement left us with two paths, one was to go forward into a world of relativity and nihilism, the other was to simply make Rationalism subservient to something that is taken as unquestionable truth such as revelation i.e. The Bible, The Quran etc... To put it simply, go back to the pre-enlightenment and accept that human intellect cannot truly understand all of creation and is inferior to that of God.

The majority of people chose relativity, which is the correct choice if you refuse to accept revelation (anything else is a cope). The other choice is to accept some kind of religious worldview. In the end it's based on the person's essence if you ask me, if they prefer a higher purpose then they'll accept God, otherwise they'll accept relativity, hedonism and nihilism, people are biologically (or spiritually or whatever but essentially) ingrained to fall into one of the two camps. It's what separates the Aristocrats from the Serfs.

[Anonymous No.22871697]

>>22871643
Read >>22871694

[Anonymous No.22871716]

>>22871694
I've thought about how believing in certain ideologies just seems to make some of us stronger and live better lives. Like we can argue about such and such, but if you believed in the Indo-European religion for example and that this world is a passing phase of some peaceful, great eternity you will absolutely live a better life, which is really the goal of our thinking isn't it? The Faustian bargain feels essentially doomed because there is nothing at the end of the rainbow; you just trade everything, all your mysticism, all your wonder, for nada. Even if the "thing" we believe has no evidence, well, exactly like you said there's plenty of stuff from history we don't have actual good evidence for but we believe in it & feel emotions for it anyway.

Unfortunately I don't know how to escape the logical framework. I need some kind of dialectical nuke that resets my whole faith in "common sense" so I can reevaluate this shit wholesale. Otherwise it seems I'm stuck with everyone else on this train.

[Anonymous No.22871723]

>>22871571
Empiricism is the favored tool of communists. Only capitalism can exist in absence of empiricism, and anglos are the most based capitalist race. But don’t worry, it is nonwhite of you to not know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.22871732]

>>22871716
>Unfortunately I don't know how to escape the logical framework. I need some kind of dialectical nuke that resets my whole faith in "common sense" so I can reevaluate this shit wholesale. Otherwise it seems I'm stuck with everyone else on this train.

This is the tragedy of us, and most of the regulars and oldfags on this board who engage in philosophical discussions. We are neither serfs, nor aristocrats, nor the damned bourgeoise. We're the clergy, the literati, the intellectual class, the idiot savants who can't live without questioning everything, the bane of Nietzschean thought, the prophets of nihilism. It is our arrogance that makes us who we are, believing that we can understand everything, that no God above us could possibly create something beyond our understanding, and if he were to do so he would be a cruel God, for we value our intellect, and if he has not given us the intellect to understand creation then we have nothing of value. This is why you should invest into something more than just reading books, hit the gym and learn some practical skills.

What do you think Medieval clergy did all day? The exact same thing we're doing right now, debating over and over again the same points and finding ourselves unable to reach consensus on any of them on the basis of intelligence, sense or reason. Where we argue Rationalism and Empiricism, they argued Absolute Divine Simplicity and Essence-Energy Divergence. Being incapable of violence they were forced to adhere to the worldview of the ruling class (the Aristocracy), who were Christians, but when they were freed from such by the bourgeoise revolutions they were free to believe whatever they wanted, abandoning revelation they became intellectuals and led us down our current path.

[Anonymous No.22872004]

>>22871561
You have figured out something other people can spend a lifetime learning solely through experience. Perhaps the more astute question is why you wish for this not to be the case? If you are so wholly and utterly lost without someone else's meaning to guide you then you already are cognizant of how to find someone else's meaning in order to return to this state of mind.

[Anonymous No.22872362]

>>22871694
well put

[Anonymous No.22872377]

>>22871561
You must walk by faith, not by sight.

[Anonymous No.22872666]

>>22871561
Seeing is believing is about the very first idea philosophy does away with lmao

[Anonymous No.22872680]

>>22871561

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin,[d] was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”