Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Nick_A wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:51 pm
-1- wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:46 pm
So... you are saying that the efficient proliferation of stupidity (stemming from Socratic Ignorance) advances wisdom more than knowledge would.

In this case you are very strongly implying that stupidity, stemming from ignorance, is preferable to having knowledge.

I believe you are a true philosopher, Nick_A, for you truly practice what you preach.

You re beginning to question Socrates and that is good. Perhaps education hasn't been a total loss.

Of course you don’t understand any of this because you lack meaningless wisdom. Stick with debate and become a communist. Then you won’t have to reason. People will tell you what to believe and do which you will repeat and then you will be considered a man of wisdom and a skilled deabtor.
You again shone through with logical follow through, and concluded rightfully, that I lack meaningless wisdom. Whereas you are different from me, so (by implication) I take that you are proud of being full of meaningless wisdom.

The second part of your accusation is off, though; I don't parrot what I hear, I analyze and synthesize available evidence, applying logic. This may seem ridiculously worldly and useless to you, since you believe in some unidentifiable, fuzzy miasma which YOU call wisdom. To you, evidence-based thought which has gone beyond the pure what's-at-hand and deduces valid corollaries from evidence, is worthless. To you only wisdom is worth something, but this wisdom to you consists of complete ignorance.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Nick_A wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:51 pm
Query: how can Socrates be the wisest of men if Socrates is without wisdom? (the Delphic riddle)

That is the Socratic paradox, and it is about wisdom in philosophy. Plato explains the paradox this way: Socrates' wisdom is that Socrates doesn't think he is wise when he is not. For when the people Socrates questions are shown that they don't know what they think they know, they go on thinking they do anyway, whereas Socrates is at least wise enough to know when he doesn't know (Apology 21d). His entire wisdom in philosophy according to Plato is this, that Socrates doesn't think he knows what he doesn't know, and, as Plato's dialog interprets the oracle's words, that is the only wisdom any human being can have (Apology23b).
And so the form of expression is contradictory, but its meaning of course is not. Socrates has no wisdom other than the wisdom that he is not wise, and so he is both wise and not wise, in different senses of the word 'wise' of course.

The Socratic paradox, namely that the wisest of men has no wisdom beyond knowing that he is not wise, might also be called the Apollonian irony.
Here, you again show in bright, contrasted colours, how ignorant you are about wisdom. YOU are told what to say and do, and YOU consider yourself a wise man therefore, because you DO follow the pattern that Socrates has lain out for you. YOU were told what's wisdom, and YOU do and say following the pattern... and then you accuse me of the same? You fool, pardon me.

Here I will show you how wrong the Delphic riddle's solution by the Apollonian irony is.

Socrates (according to your "Query") knows that he can't claim what he does not know, and therefore he is wise enough to not claim knowledge or wisdom where he lacks it. He therefore calls himself wise, for he knows what he does not know.

This is of course perpetuating the paradox. And Socrates' TRUE claim is misquoted in this explanation. You don't know what you do know and what you don't know. If you only go for sure knowledge, then you are restricted to "Cogito ergo sum" about the real world. Nothing else is knowable about it. Everything else about the real world which is knowledge, is make-belief.

Is this what you and Socrates claim? You think it is. "His entire wisdom in philosophy according to Plato is this, that Socrates doesn't think he knows what he doesn't know, and, as Plato's dialog interprets the oracle's words, that is the only wisdom any human being can have (Apology 23b)." He is not the sole human being believing this, he is the one sole human being who takes credit for believing this. For this is a belief, not a knowledge; you can't actually know what it is you don't know. So he adds the qualifier "I don't think I know what I don't know." Here he adds an extra layer of cushion between himself and reality; he "thinks", he opines, he believes, he does not claim knowledge.

Your entire point, Nick_A, which you said was that wisdom is knowing what you don't know, and you attributed it to Socrates, is false. Socrates never claimed that he does not claim knowledge where there is no knowledge to claim. Socrates claimed, instead, a belief (not a knowledge) that he can tell the difference between what he knows and what he does not know.

So Socrates does not even claim what you say he claims, Nick_A. He does not say "this is not knowledge, and therefore I deny this is knowledge; I know this is not knowledge." He says, actually, and the only thing which can be true, but you, Nick_A, have never progressed to the stage of realizing this, "I think this is not knowledge". If you had the amount of wisdom you claim you have, and if you indeed did not claim to know what you don't know, then you would have noticed this incredibly important nuance in Socrates' claim. He does not claim anything; not knowledge, not wisdom. He claims a belief that he possesses knowledge and wisdom. And in doing so he is more right than you have previously, up to this point, thought.

Let me put it in a way that even you can comprehend. Look at the EXACT wording (as you quoted it) what Socrates claims:

"His entire wisdom in philosophy according to Plato is this, that Socrates doesn't think he knows what he doesn't know, and, as Plato's dialog interprets the oracle's words, that is the only wisdom any human being can have (Apology23b)."

You claimed that Socrates can tell the difference between what he truly knows and what he does not; whereas his debating partners lack the wisdom of doing this.

Whereas Socrates, very wisely, remarks, this is a belief for him, his realm of knowledge; and so is the realm of knowledge for his debating partners a belief; there is no difference in the strength of knowledge, other than Socrates realizing that his and his debating partner's claimed knowledge are both actually belief, and he realizes that his debating partners do not realize this.

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You and Socrates and Plato, however, forget one thing. It is true that you can't know reality with absolute certainty. But there is a chance, and we don't know how large or how small that chance is, that the reality we experience is the real reality. There is no way of knowing; true. But there is a system of belief, that the reality we experience is the true reality. This is not knowledge, this is belief. The knowledge part comes after, which I believe you, Socrates and Plato deny: that if we regard our belief as knowledge, we can surmise some incredibly useful conclusions, called knowledge about reality. These conclusions are based on an assumption that reality is real. It is not PROVEN that reality is real, but it is assumed. And acting on that assumption can create KNOWLEDGE on a system which may be imaginary only, but which behaves consistently enough that our KNOWLEDGE proves useful and helps us navigate our lives in this world of PERHAPS completely imaginary world.

This is the knowledge which you, Socrates and Plato deny to be true knowledge, or wisdom, and it is yet a wisdom, a knowledge, if you add only one assumption to your observations about the real world, and that one assumption is that what you see is actually what is.

This is what you have not internalized, Nick_A, because you blindly do and say what you are told to say and do, and you falsely believe you are a wise man, because you follow the recipe blindly which recipe tells you what makes a man wise and what makes a man a fool.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Nick_A, you are posting all over the site brandishing "wisdom" as if you had owned it.

No, you don't own wisdom, Nick_A. You are one pathetic user on this site who tries to mask his or her problems of dealing with other user's input with an empty and meaningless clinging on to the ideation, that he or she is the only one who knows what wisdom is, and he or she is the only one who is wise.

You decry intellect, thought, clear thinking and logical follow-through with one sweeping motion of brandishing the idea that you are the knower and bearer of wisdom.

Whereas you are just using it for ego gratification, as a self-deceptive protective ego-shield to mask your other problems on the site and to mask your problems you encounter when conversing with other users on the site.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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I think the oracle meant that he was the wisest because he always questions without answering. If you notice his dialogues, he is constantly questioning without any answering anything except for the dialectic leading to such a conclusion. Thus he 'knows nothing' by questioning everything. These learned people who he questioned had their foundations shaken by Socrates, the gadfly of the people, when he asked them if they truly know what they are talking about, which it was evident that they were not learned by the man who questioned everything to its limits. Thus, Socrates knew nothing in the end for he found fault with everything known.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Viveka wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:28 pm I think the oracle meant that he was the wisest because he always questions without answering.
If the oracle meant what you said he meant, he would have said so. I am sure the oracle was lucid enough in his thinking to have come up with the idea to say what he means.

Yes, Socrates in Plato's books did ask a lot of questions, without providing his own answers to the same questions, but he also made statements. Affirmative statements, that contained a claim.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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-1- wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:48 am
You and Socrates and Plato, however, forget one thing. It is true that you can't know reality with absolute certainty. But there is a chance, and we don't know how large or how small that chance is, that the reality we experience is the real reality. There is no way of knowing; true. But there is a system of belief, that the reality we experience is the true reality.
I think Socrates/Plato (and later philosophers) would argue this cannot be the case because we cannot pin down 'the reality we experience'. There is no simple pure 'experience' which we could say was the same as some simple and pure 'reality'.

Rather than use experience to construct a picture of reality, we can only understand an experience if we already have a picture...or rather pictures.

Because when Socrates starts to question us about any particular picture we must admit that it is incoherent. For example the picture of the world offered through science contradicts the one pictured through our senses. It turns out we have several pictures, pictures that contradict each other and contain contradictions.

So the paradox is that if we are to have a useful picture, we have to abandon the idea that any particular version is 'real'.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Londoner wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:35 am
-1- wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:48 am
You and Socrates and Plato, however, forget one thing. It is true that you can't know reality with absolute certainty. But there is a chance, and we don't know how large or how small that chance is, that the reality we experience is the real reality. There is no way of knowing; true. But there is a system of belief, that the reality we experience is the true reality.
I think Socrates/Plato (and later philosophers) would argue this cannot be the case because we cannot pin down 'the reality we experience'. There is no simple pure 'experience' which we could say was the same as some simple and pure 'reality'.

Rather than use experience to construct a picture of reality, we can only understand an experience if we already have a picture...or rather pictures.

Because when Socrates starts to question us about any particular picture we must admit that it is incoherent. For example the picture of the world offered through science contradicts the one pictured through our senses. It turns out we have several pictures, pictures that contradict each other and contain contradictions.

So the paradox is that if we are to have a useful picture, we have to abandon the idea that any particular version is 'real'.
I understand what you say and more-or-less agree with it. It is our primary sensors that we think is experiencing reality, and I actually believe that it is reality that our primary sensors experience. (Touch (pressure), sound, sight, heat, and taste.) I am talking on this basic level, not on interpretive levels such as scientific inquiry or superimposition of stimuli to build pictures.

On this basic level we experience reality, is what I believe, but it's not necessarily the truth. I may be experiencing sensations not due to reality, but due to other influence(s). I may be misexperiencing reality. But there is a chance that I am truly experiencing reality -- except that is not certain at all, by how much certainty. Could be anywhere from 0 certainty to 100% certainty. I just don't know, I am not a judge of that, and there is no judge I can rely to tell me what percentage of a certainty can I rely on my experiences that they are experiencing reality.

In the meantime, I act and behave on the notion that I do experience reality. Reatlity thus sensed is consistent enough for my purposes, and I am able to navigate the world around me relying on the superstructure of thoughts built upon my experiences, so I figure they must be true.

But knowledge that they are true, I have none of. Not even a certainty of how certain my experiences are true if they experience reality at all in the first place.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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-1- wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:49 am
Viveka wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:28 pm I think the oracle meant that he was the wisest because he always questions without answering.
If the oracle meant what you said he meant, he would have said so. I am sure the oracle was lucid enough in his thinking to have come up with the idea to say what he means.

Yes, Socrates in Plato's books did ask a lot of questions, without providing his own answers to the same questions, but he also made statements. Affirmative statements, that contained a claim.
Here's what Wikipedia says about metaphysical solipsism: " As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

The Bolded is where the point is.

Here's what the Stanford Encyclopdia of Philosophy says:
"For the solipsist, it is not merely the case that he believes that his thoughts, experiences, and emotions are, as a matter of contingent fact, the only thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Rather, the solipsist can attach no meaning to the supposition that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own."

Same, yet again.

I haven't quite kept up with the discussion, but if socrates was wise because he knew he didn't know, then that's impossible. You cannot know what you don't know, if you don't know it. Therefore, that interpretation of what the oracle said makes no sense.

I know he made claims, as I stated: "he is constantly questioning without any answering anything except for the dialectic leading to such a conclusion."
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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" As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

The italicized portion is where the point also is.

I am talking from an epistemological point of view, as metaphysics is not a defined area of philosophy. Metaphysics comprises mysticism, faith, religions, and therefore I don't touch metaphysics. It is an inscrutable, unknowable area, and everyone who claims a metaphysical truth is a marketeer: all puff, no substance. All smoke and mirrors. Metaphysics died along with god.

If you are speaking from a metaphysical point of view, sure, you are right, but anyone that says anything from a metaphysical point of view is right, or, rather, can't be proven wrong.

Viveka said:
"I haven't quite kept up with the discussion, but if socrates was wise because he knew he didn't know, then that's impossible. You cannot know what you don't know, if you don't know it. Therefore, that interpretation of what the oracle said makes no sense."

Absolutely. I am on the same position as you.

I explained my version of Socrates wisdom somewhere up there. My view. It does not have to be yours. But I'll be darned if I will type the whole thing again. The crux was that Socrates thought he knew that did not know, not that he knew he did not know. There is a very strong difference, and the ensuing conclusions are explained up there.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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-1- wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:11 am " As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

The italicized portion is where the point also is.

I am talking from an epistemological point of view, as metaphysics is not a defined area of philosophy. Metaphysics comprises mysticism, faith, religions, and therefore I don't touch metaphysics. It is an inscrutable, unknowable area, and everyone who claims a metaphysical truth is a marketeer: all puff, no substance. All smoke and mirrors. Metaphysics died along with god.

If you are speaking from a metaphysical point of view, sure, you are right, but anyone that says anything from a metaphysical point of view is right, or, rather, can't be proven wrong.

Viveka said:
"I haven't quite kept up with the discussion, but if socrates was wise because he knew he didn't know, then that's impossible. You cannot know what you don't know, if you don't know it. Therefore, that interpretation of what the oracle said makes no sense."

Absolutely. I am on the same position as you.

I explained my version of Socrates wisdom somewhere up there. My view. It does not have to be yours. But I'll be darned if I will type the whole thing again. The crux was that Socrates thought he knew that did not know, not that he knew he did not know. There is a very strong difference, and the ensuing conclusions are explained up there.
I see, and I agree. My point was that, generally, the metaphysics of solipsism is what people are talking about when speaking of solipsism. Anyways, metaphysics of religion isn't such an unfertile ground as you believe it is. For instance, Buddhism has the idea of interdependent arising, which makes sense if there is cause and effect and impermanence; all three of these notions are self-evident in experience, which makes them a valid metaphysical system. Many other religions have interesting viewpoints on metaphysics, and I have written one paper on metaphysics of 'windowed' monads which I am very proud of. I don't accept a singular metaphysical position as definitive, but rather write of a metaphysical system carried out to create a universe from such due to a certain angel's intervention in reality. In my 'windowed' monadism I used a praeternatural being/angel named Chronautilus to define reality through time-space.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Also, why is everyone so stuck on 'cogito ergo sum' when it could be 'imagination ergo sum' or 'belief ergo sum' or 'faith ergo sum' or even 'intuition ergo sum'. To me, faith would be the starting point of doubting doubt, as it gives grounds to believe in what is not seen nor heard.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Viveka wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:18 pm Here's what Wikipedia says about metaphysical solipsism: " As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

The Bolded is where the point is.
That seems self contradictory to me. To say things are 'unsure', that 'they cannot be known' and 'might not exist' is quite different to asserting as a fact 'the world and other minds do not exist'.

Saying I know not-X is true contradicts me saying that I cannot anything about X

And as it says, this is anyway a metaphysical idea. How can we 'conclude' anything about metaphysical ideas? All the evidence we use to decide the truth or otherwise of propositions only apply to the physical world. There are no end of such ideas, e.g. we are all in the Matrix, or everything happens by God's Will etc. They cannot be proved or disproved, and whether they are true or not makes no practical difference.
Here's what the Stanford Encyclopdia of Philosophy says:
"For the solipsist, it is not merely the case that he believes that his thoughts, experiences, and emotions are, as a matter of contingent fact, the only thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Rather, the solipsist can attach no meaning to the supposition that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own."
That is more like it; it is about meaning. We can attach a metaphysical theory to the universe but it adds nothing to the meaning of the words we use to describe it.

(I do not think there is anything exotic or extreme about solipsism. We are all quite used to the idea that not only are there not 'other minds', but there are no minds at all. That the 'ghost in the machine' is a category mistake, that there is no thought, experience or emotion that could not be fully described in physical terms. Thus we eliminate mind altogether!)
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Viveka wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:19 am Also, why is everyone so stuck on 'cogito ergo sum' when it could be 'imagination ergo sum' or 'belief ergo sum' or 'faith ergo sum' or even 'intuition ergo sum'. To me, faith would be the starting point of doubting doubt, as it gives grounds to believe in what is not seen nor heard.
Because that's what he said. It's short, easy to memorize, and easy to understand.

It's like why do we not quote M.L.K. differently from "I have a dream" saying "I have a vision", "I have an idea", "I have a goal". Or Larry King, sorry, I can't remember that guy's exact name, who said, "why can't we all get along" instead of saying, "stop kicking me to death already", or "you should try hitting yourself with those sticks, you'll see how much they hurt."
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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-1- wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 11:33 am
Viveka wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:19 am Also, why is everyone so stuck on 'cogito ergo sum' when it could be 'imagination ergo sum' or 'belief ergo sum' or 'faith ergo sum' or even 'intuition ergo sum'. To me, faith would be the starting point of doubting doubt, as it gives grounds to believe in what is not seen nor heard.
Because that's what he said. It's short, easy to memorize, and easy to understand.

It's like why do we not quote M.L.K. differently from "I have a dream" saying "I have a vision", "I have an idea", "I have a goal". Or Larry King, sorry, I can't remember that guy's exact name, who said, "why can't we all get along" instead of saying, "stop kicking me to death already", or "you should try hitting yourself with those sticks, you'll see how much they hurt."
It's not as quite as you think. MLK said a sentence that can have different meanings. Imagining and thinking and having faith are not translatable into a same singular meaning unless it was known that Descartes said 'mind ergo sum.' Instead, he said 'cogito' which means 'think'.
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Re: Socratic Ignorance vs Secular Intelligence

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Nick_A wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:58 pm Which do you think serves the love of wisdom and the goal of philosophy more: Socratic ignorance (I know nothing) or secular intelligence (I am an educated man)? Socratic ignorance is pursued with others through the dialectic method while secular intelligence is demonstrated by debate to determine who knows more.
IMO, there's no doubt that secular intelligence wins the contest!

Despite the fact that Plato's Tripartite definition of knowledge is (still) a successful one, the emphasis in today's world is the use of sheer intelligence and not these outrageous denials against common sense!

:D
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