. . .agree all the time.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/

I haven't read the entire article in great depth. I just skimmed over it because I already have made my decsions concerning this false dichotomy.

In fact, this is the foundational difference that often causes Creative Soul and I to come from different perspectives.

First off, I'm niether (or both) a rationalist and emprisist. Depending on how you want to look at it. I believe that there are valid domains for each of these views and that these views are only valid within their respective domains.


In fact I totally disagree with the following statement that tries to give validity to the rational view using pure mathematics:



I totally disagree with this.

Mathematics is not an absolute truth as people have been erroneously taught to believe.

In fact, this is a large part of what I absolutely need to write about. I seriously need to publish a book on this topic because it's badly needed.

Mathematics is not as "abstract" as people have been taught to believe.

And the purest form of mathematics doesn't even truly have anything to do with the idea of number!

It has to do with a concept called Set Theory. Set Theory is the foundation of all mathematical thought, and much of logical that is based on this non-numerical idea.

It is believed by mathematicians all around the globe that this Set Theory is absolute, and totally correct.

It is neither absolute, nor totally correct.

This is what I need to write about.

I'm feeling inspired to begin those writings. So who knows, maybe next year at this time owl have a book to publish.

By the way, I saved the article to a word processor. Owl print it out and read it in more detail when I'm in that frame of mine.

I already took just a moment to take a closer look at the article, and I found the following comment:



This is precisely what I show with pure mathematics. It's not as pure as they believe it to be.

In fact, in their attempt to make it pure they have actually abandoned some necessary empirical information which has rendered mathematics untrue in it's current modern form.

I would argue that once this is done the mathematics can no longer be used effectively to model the physical universe because it no longer applies to it.

I would also argue further than because of their fiddling with it using pure thought it can no longer be considered a "universal" language.

In other words, mathematicians today believe that if aliens came from another planet they would be forced to agree with our mathematics. Because the idea is that our mathematics represents absolute truth.

However, this is not true.

Mankind has indeed push his wimsical thoughts onto the formalism of mathematics, and because of this it no longer represents any absolute 'truth' but rather it has become to represent the aribtrary opinions of men.

Therefore if aliens have stuck to the empirical mathematics, then their math will ultimate disagree with ours.

In other words, our mathematics is actualy wrong with respect to the true quantitative nature of the unierse.

In the book I show what the true quantitative nature of the unviverse is, and where our mathematical formalism has clearly made wrong turns.

So I guess I need to publish this book since lots of people will probably be interested in reading it and discussing the issues that I raise.

I should probably add here also that I stated that rationalism and empiricism have two different domains.

In truth this isn't my stance.

I'm not sure if rationalism has any true meaning at all. Empiricism clearly had meaning with respect to the empirical world. In fact, I hold that without experience there would be no way of deducing the empirical world. I hold to this notion based on the following:

If the empirical world could be deduced using pure thought without any experience at all, that would imply that there is only one way to construct an empirical world, and that world is the world we live in. I'm personally not sold on that idea. I believe the universe in which we live truly is based on various random parameters and there may be many physical universe possible that are not the same as this one.

Of course, I have no 'empirical' way of proving this. But the mere fact that I can rationalize it with pure thought should be enough to convince a rationalist that there's a fly in the soup.

I consider myself to be both a rationalistic thinker as well as an empiricalistic thinker. I can dive into either thought pool. But I can also see where rationalistic thinking cannot come to a concrete conclusion about anything without standing upon some empirical evidence. And even much of the so-called 'pure' mathematics is truly based on empirical evidence. It a fallacy to believe otherwise.

So I guess my ultimate conclusion is that empirical thought has value in the domain of the physical. However, rational thought has no value at all. Not even in the ream of the spiritual. And the reason being that ultimately, without a solid empirical premise of some sort to stand on, rational thought can basically begin with whatever it so chooses, and thus go anywhere. It can't be used to reach any genuine conclusions about anything. Truly.

The true nature of the spiritual world cannot be know. A better way to think of this is really quite simple.

"With God all things are possible". If you don't like the word "God" try replacing it with the word "spirit".

Well, if all things are possible what's to figure out? Anything goes!

So the very idea of figuring things out using pure thought alone, is to merely suggest that pure thought is ultimately limited in what it can do!

This universe is the results of random seeds. That doesn't imply that it's pure happenstance. Not in the least. It a random toss of organized dice so-to-speak. Nothing happenstance about it. Yet it is still random. And because it is random it can never be figured out using pure thought. It must be figured out relative to the random seeds that gave it birth. for this reason, this particular universe can only be understood via empirical reasoning, and can never be rationalized using pure thought alone.

I hope this post made sense because it took a long time to type in.

yep it sure did and is very enlightning james - thnx for that, i will se how it goes but it sounds very true to me.

Thanks Sam. I just realized that last post was riddled with minor typos. Hopefully that won't distract from its core message.

Interesting

type-o's on this forum - goddess forbid!!

i think will all live james, hasn't killed me or you so far -

ANOTHER bloody label....

I'm off to find a cyclone to blow all these other ones off people have stuck on me...

Those who know don't speak...

Those who speak...

ahhh!! then in speaking, you admit you don't know?

how very clever of you -

but you could have just said - i dont know.

So true Jess.

I agree that it's wrong to label individual as Rationalists, or Empiricists. That's silly, and offensive because it implies that they can only think in very narrow terms.

This is why I said, I'm both, and neither. I can think either way. I am both a philosopher and a scientist. I deny neither aspect of thought.

However, one can still make statements about pure rationalism versus pure empiricism.

It is my conclusion that rational thought simply leads to the fact that all things are possible. So in a sense I've taken rational thought to it's very end. It can be completed. Pure thought is infinite and unlimited and anything goes. Period. That's the answer to that.

Empiricism, on the other hand, speaks to that which can be experienced via the physical senses in a physical world. That's the realm of its domain. It has validity in that domain and not beyond.

Simply recognizing where these various approaches to reasoning lead and where they have value is a lesson in itself.

It has absolutely nothing to do with pinning labels on people. If they choose to restrict themselves to a particular line of reasoning that's a façade that they pin onto themselves by free choice.

It's no different from what Jeanniebean often says, "People erroneously believe that they have become their religion and they defend attacks against their religion as though those attacks are being made on them personally.

This is the nature of the human condition.

And often it's forced on us to 'take sides'.

For example, if someone says that rationalism can't be used to come to any concrete conclusions because its ultimate conclusion must be that anything is possible, the rationalists will label that person as being 'anti-rationalism', and view them as the enemy rather than as a peer who is offering their conclusions on the subject.

Just like, if someone says that they were born and raised into a religion that they ultimate discovered was a false doctrine, the people who align themselves with that doctrine aren't going to view this as an honest sincere 'testimony' of someone within the cult. Instead, they're going to view them as an rebellious traitor who clearly never 'got it' in the first place.

People will use any means to justify that which they believe they have come to be.

Because like Jeannie has said, they fear that if this façade is shot down somehow they are also being shot down. But in truth they were never what they thought they were in the first place.

It was just a label.

I think a balance of the two is necessary.

1.)"Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience."

2.)"Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge."

Of these two statements in that article, I have to say that number one is most true. Statement number two could be true if it were not so fundamentalist in its flavor.

Statement number two is trapped inside of a limited box because of its all inclusive use of the words "ultimate source of all of our concepts and knowledge.

Number two seems to imply that there is no intuition, no innate knowledge, no sixth sense (unaware that we have a sixth sense probably) no knowledge or information besides that which we observe and gather and collect via our senses during our short and single lifetime.

I don't think that can be true as the statement number two is too restrictive and too inflexible.

Statement number one on the other hand says that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience.

That sounds true to me.

I think this is where people often make a mistake.

They think that empiricism is restricted to only that which can be measured on a detector.

I personally feel that this is an incorrect view.

In fact, one of the reasons that people feel this way is because many people who tend to rely on empirical views do indeed tend to say things like, "Well if it can't be measured by science then it can't be known".

That's a foolish statement for anyone to make because science is far from knowing everything that is empirically knowable.

For all we know intuition may very well be empirically knowable.

We just don't know yet.

We simply don't have a complete handle on what is and isn't empirically knowable yet.

I can see the value of empiricism and I can see the reason it must maintain its limitations within its own method of operation. But outside of that, I would hope a scientist would consider the other method too and not confine himself inside of that box.

I think that is the problem. People won't get out of the box at all.

On the other hand, when you are in the box, you don't want to drag in a bunch of unsupported speculation either. You need to keep the box nice and tidy.

The question is, "What are you going to do outside that box?"

Jess Lee has the answer.

"Just Be"

What's to figure out outside of the box of empiricism?

This is what I'm saying.

What is there to rationalize outside of empiricism?

I hold that there is nothing to rationalize outside of empiricism

This is all I'm saying.

I'm holding to the view that says; Yes, we may be able to make some progress in figuring out how the physical universe works (i.e. empiricism).

But, No, we are not going to be able to figure out the true nature of our spiritual essence via rational thought alone.

I hold that the spirit is irrational and there is nothing to figure out.

Anything goes.

What's to figure out?

~~~

When outside of the box of empiricism, "Just Be".

It's BREAKTIME!

Party down!

Have Fun!

Just Be!

Pure rationalism is a formalism that's all dressed up with no place to go.

Its ultimate conclusion must be that anything is possible.

Just Be!
with Jess Lee
in harmony with the spirit of the sea
and all the wondrous rhapsody
that permeates eternity

Well we can "just be" anytime.

What's so exciting about that?

I like figuring things out.

I like playing the games.

We can "just be" after we get this figured out.

I want the details of the structure of this holographic reality and how it works.

I want to play around with that.

JB

I'm playing with Calligraphy pens.

I'm practicing so I can write my book of shadows.

I used to love doing calligraphy! I used to work doing calligraphy lettering at Current Greeting Cards, and another place that did personalized hand lettering on products like cups etc.

Sometimes I would spend all day long practicing my penmanship. My natural handwriting is terrible though. I have to concentrate to do the calligraphy.

With email and texting and computers and typwriters etc., penmanship is a lost art.