How did you change paradigm?

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Skepdick
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am EDIT: I get at this issue below, but I think I have a better way of questioning around it. People have beliefs and these often relate to larger models/worldview, etc. Thoughts in the head.
So, I am going to put on my nitpicker hat for a second just to demonstrate my point. Every vocabulary you make your own for the purpose of some discourse brings with it a bunch of connotations and denotations you just can't get rid of.

So for example you've stated that "people have beliefs". OK...
You've also used the expression "thoughts in the head." OK...

What's the difference between believing in God and simply having the thought of God in my head?

I fully expect you to begin saying things like "But do you think it actually corresponds to reality..."; or some such attempt to relate my epistemology with my ontology.

But... the epistemology/ontology distinction is just a rhetorical device. In pratice there's no difference between the two. Perception is reality - ontology is epistemology.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am That can lead to certain behaviors and actions and how the person approaches problems, etc.
This is true for all thoughts in all heads. They influence your thinking in one way or another - and your thinking influences your actions.

So it seems like a pointless thing to point out because it's never not true.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am But we also have behavior, as a potential starting point. You don't have a belief system, one. We can't even summarize you down to a couple in combination or three.
If we look at different people with particular worldviews, they can have very clear approaches to dealing with crises, with problem solving, with finding out more information.
Whether I agree or disagree with you on the particular issue above entirely depends on what you mean by "clear". Do some people have "clear" approaches to dealing with things; while other people don't?

Do you have a "clear" approach to riding a bycicle or driving a car? Could you tell us with absolute clarity what that approach is?

There's such a thing as tacit knowledge. And; of course you could always insist that you can "explain your approach to riding a bycicle or driving a car" but I could always argue that you can't. Not with any degree of sufficiency anyway.

Explain your approach to a robot and teach it how to ride a bike; or teach a car to drive itself.

Being able to teach a machine to do what you do is my criterion for "clarity of approach".

If you can explain it to the machine then you have clarity.
If you can't explain it to the machine then you don't have clarity yet.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You may well be a Muslim when talking to Muslims, but I would guess you don't feel any internal pressure to go to Mecca.
I would love to! I can already imagine the euphoria the participants experience. The sense of unity. The sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. Such level of devotion and submission is so rare in this day and age.

But once you scratch your human itch for feeling some sense of belonging - what happens then?
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You don't do the prayers 6 times a day.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Want to see my meditation app? 20 minutes every 3 hours.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You don't regularly consult the Koran or experts in it to decide what is moral.
Ehhh? Of course I do! Especially on moral issues that I've never encountered. I don't consult the Koran, but I sure consult the moral authorities and experts I recognize.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You don't follow traditions that arise or supposedly arise out of the Koran when it comes to relations with Jews or heathens or women or children.
Is that a pre-requisite for being muslim? Show me any person that follows any rule-based system verbatim.

Are you a Law-abiding citizen? Do you follow every single tratidion that supposedly arises out of case law with relation to - all human affairs?
Is a single legal transgression (and you know you've broken the law - lie to me but don't lie to yourself) sufficient to label you a non-law-abiding citizen? Who is a law-abiding citizen by such a strict standard of evaluation?

There is none righteous, no, not one ;)
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am What you do in crisis, what you do when you want more information, the kinds of experts you consult when you want information, they ways you approach, say, making your body feel better, function better, your moral code...these may well fit with some worldviews (including epistemology, ontology, ethics and so on) and not fit well with others.
You are using the vocabulary of "ontology", "epistmology" that already suggests that you self-identify as a Philosopher.

Most people just call it "reality" (ontology) and "belief" (espistemology). And they use phrases like "justified true belief" (e.g knowledge) for the relationship between epistemology and ontology. That's generally how the correspondence theory (supposedly) works.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am So, have you ever started acting in ways that fit better with a new worldview in a sustained way? And what does it take for such a thing to happen?
There's no way to assert whether they "fit" or not! Language does NOT correspond to reality except in the ways we use it.

Language is primarily coherent. Correspondence to reality is indeterminate.

👆 And at this point I've committed myself to epistemic coherentism over correspondence; but that would be a misinterpretation.

What I am actually saying is that nothing prevents an infinitude of coherent epistemologies (paradigms?) from "corresponding" to reality for some particular purpose. There's simply no privileged descriptions of reality in some universal context.

You call this color "red". I call it "blue". Call it whatever you want. It doesn't in any way say anything about its "true nature". It's just a way of speaking about it. Neither label "corresponds" any better or any worse.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am Perhaps you started getting accupuncture treatments and throwing the Dao. This doesn't mean you are now Confucian or Daoist, but for some reason you considered it possible/likely that there might be value in something that didn't fit with the medical/pharmcological/epistemological ideas that led to what you chose when wanting a new direction or for your bad knee.
Have you heard of Perennialism?

The only direction I want for my bad knee is an improvement from bad to good. What that looks like in practice could be anything.
How you work your way to a strategy for improving my bad knee - that could be anything also.

Ancient tribes used to praise their Gods for the miracle of tree bark - and when you eat the tree bark your knee was now "better". The pain went away!
Modern tribes praise the miracle of quinine's pain relief properties.

The effect/outcome is the same - the justification/language around it is different.

The semantic property, the feeling, the expience that results in either case is the betterness of your knee.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You may not have a language based, explicit belief based paradimg or mashup of a view, but it's possible that your actions reveal tendencies handed to you by paradigms you grew up in or move toward to get away from that.

If there have been changes in significant actions/approaches, let me know. And what led to them?
You appear to be reifying the paradigms as something real/tangible. I think of them as nothing other than mental instruments - thinking tools.

You can run Windows on your computer (brain); you can run Linux on your computer (brain). The operating system doesn't matter. It's how you use it.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am And my examples are just guesses. Perhaphs you've always gone to accupunturists and avoided modern medicine. Or perhaps you did for a long time and then you changed and use modern Western medicine more regularly.
That question doesn't even make sense in my taxonomy. I use whatever works. Some times it turns out that ancient traditional medicine works too.
It's just that Western reductionism hasn't quite isolated the precise reasons for why it works; or how it works. Some things are simply beyond the methods and understanding of reductionism.

Late recent developments in psychology - so many people are reporting that psylocybin has positive effects on depression and anxiety. People have been reporting this for 10000 years! Western society still outlaws psylocybin for psychotherapy.

There's no question that psylocybin has positive effects. Western medicine just doens't (yet) understand how it works and why. Because the relationship between subjective experience and brain physiology is not even close to being understood.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am My point is partially that even if there is a kind of openness to ideas and models and no committment to any particular on, the way we live may well come out of or be biased by models and paradigms...and then by habit/acculturation. Why fix what ain't broken? type stuff also.

So if there has been a significant change of the types I am mentioning, let me know.
The most significant change in my paradigm has been that I recognize that every human is basically an empiricist, but they don't really talk about themselves in those terms.

We learn by trial and error. Exactly like science does. The smarter humans are also capable of learning from other people's trials and errors.
But at some point or another just about everyone makes the error of assigning greater significance to their own experiences; than to the experiences of other people. This is where all the sampling biases come into play.

All the studies in the world can tell you that medicine X is safe, but if two of your neighbors experience the (exceptionally rare) side effects listed on the brocuhure - there is "no way in hell you are putting that poison in your body!"

So of course I am talking about statistical reasoning. But statistics is just another vocabulary.
You can talk about statistical phenomena using that vocabulary; or you can talk about those exact same phenomena using the vocabulary of information theory.

The results will be the same. The two theories are mathematically identical - but their vocabularies differ.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am When you go about taking action in the world, solving problems, improving your abilities and social connections, trying to make the world better or more as you would like it....
how much do you use theist tools?
I have no idea. I use tools. The adjective "theist" or "atheist" does nothing about the denotation of the tool. It's just a characterisation of the tool with zero effect on the tool itself.

The adjective projects your state of mind onto the tool, but it says nothing about the tool itself.

To use a programing language analogy - suppose I am using an algorithm implemented in the programming language Haskell.

Obviously my tools are more "haskellian" than "pythonic" - but the tool/algorithm can be translated into any programming language in principle.

So you've learned nothing about the tool itself, but you have learned about which sub-culture implemented it in their favourite programming language.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am Are they any heuristics or acts that fit better with a theist model of the universe than an atheist?
Are there any heuricists or acts that fit better with magical models of causation than scientific ones?
You've started with the pre-supposition that the two paradigms are isolated/separate. But the entire point I am making is that they do coexist in my head. I've reconciled science and religion.

Religion is all the useful concepts upon which science rests.

Numbers. Where are those things? It's no more possible to demonstrate the existence of a number than it is to demonstrate the existence of God.

But if some 20 year old testosterone driven naive realist tried to attack me (as kids do while they are learning how to think) and challenged me on the existence of numbers they absolutely win in the eyes of other 20 year old status-driven kids struggling for status, dominion and social recognition on the intellectual battlefield.

So having lost the naive realist argument for the existence of numbers now what? Do I go and say "Oh! You are right. Numbers don't exist. I no longer believe in them."

OK... and now what? Do we abolish all of science? Do we burn it to the ground and rebuild it on some other foundation which makes no mention; or use of numbers?
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am I would guess you can see where I am heading. Even if you, perhaps, do not choose a worldview formally, might not your acts and approaches and heuristics fit one model more than others? That there is an implicit model/belief system.
No. Because those things aren't implicit. Their formalizatons/definitions/vocabularies are implict - but the paradigms remain in people's heads.

But words have intrinsic meaning independent of people's minds. Right! Right ?!?!? They don't ??? And the symbolist dream dies a painful death.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am I didn't mean all of your history or influences, but more like subpersonalities. I agree with what you say as far as summing up my entire set of experiences and attitudes ever. But in general I find I have a relative small number of subpersonalities.
In principle I have infinitely many subpersonalities. One for each possible emotional landscape, perspective and combination of acceptable and unacceptable concepts and foudnational beliefs.

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am I am using that term loosely, blackboxing if there is a real 'thing' for each of these. But it works for me, generally as a model. There are a handful of primary ones.
Yeah, you are talking about models and I am talking about model-building.

I intuitively understand the idea of The Creator - creating concepts using nothing but my own imagination as source of inspiration.

But, of course that metaphor gets too closely to make theists uncomfortable because I am almost painting myself The Creator.

So... what I really meant to say (so as to avoid triggering people) is that "I am made in The Creator's image" ;)
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am I suppose monism could imply no boundaries.
Well, that goes too far in the way of assaulting people's intuitions.

But for as long as we are talking about our conception of reality - each and everyone of us can chop it up however they want to!

We are The Creators of taxonomies. And so - We create all interpretations of reality.... in his own himage.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am So, you would guess (or know) that if there was the same number you'd be contrasting them pretty much equally?
I would guess if there were approximatelly the same number - I would be attacking the group that is pretending to be more self-righteous.

Trying to dominate another paradigm amounts to saying "The Steelman of my paradigm is bigger and better than the Steelman for your paradigm."
My Steelman is right!
Your steelman is wrong!

But that's just the same as saying "My God is bigger, better and more righteous than your God".
But we are made in God's image so.... that's exactly the same as saying "I am bigger, better and more righteous than you!"

First rule of life: don't be a ****.
Secondn rule of life: if you choose to be a domineering **** attempting to subjugate other people to your perspective, by the principle of "I don't want to start a fight, but I will gladly finish it" - I promise to be a bigger, more dominating; more subjigating ****.

Dialectic is about synthesising a higher truth that accomodates both of our perspectives. If either perspective dominates - there's no reason for higher truth or synthesis. Just as soon as you recognize that I am right and you are wrong - you can adopt my vocabulary/perspective ;)
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am
Yeah, I abhor categorical reasoning. I see dialectic in the spirit of thinking along continuums and nuance. If categories are a necessary evil and we have to have them - lets synthesize them from scratch.
How about implicit categories? What gets rejected out of hand, even if it is not formally argued against?
Nothing explicitly. Reality is one big bowl of soup. There's no categories/lines in it except the ones we choose to create.

I could explicitly create two categories: humans, reality
I could epxlicitly create one category: reality. With humans belonging to that category.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am A separate question: why wouldn't you approach social situations in the same way? I understand that the context of a philosophy forum more or less calls out for critique and questioning. But in general aren't both you and the person you are talking to, in a social situation, missing out on what could be gained through contrast (if a more gentle version)?
Because it's not useful. Unless we are attempting to work together towards some common goal.

Most people aren't skilled in dialectic. And even worse - most people in Western society are absolutely incapable of navigating contradiction.

You hit that contradiction and they dismiss you because their God/Religion (the "law" of non-contradiction) commands them to dismiss you.

Eastern cultures are far more dialectical than Western cultures. Yin and Yang etc.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am But aren't there consistancy in your arguments and reasons. IOW would that indicate beliefs and worldview if you tend to expect employers or people to act in certain ways and use certain methodologies?
My arguments are always consistent with the organisation's goals. Not necessarily with the organisation's principles.

Social norms get in the way of such overt pragmatism.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am Isn't your moral code a system of beliefs? And possbility one entailed or entailed by a main ontology and determined via some epistemology?
I have no idea :)

I go on intuition 99% of the time.
Iwannaplato
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 9:08 am So, I am going to put on my nitpicker hat for a second just to demonstrate my point. Every vocabulary you make your own for the purpose of some discourse brings with it a bunch of connotations and denotations you just can't get rid of.

So for example you've stated that "people have beliefs". OK...
You've also used the expression "thoughts in the head." OK...
For now, let's look at how the thoughts influence behavior. You mentioned your participating in Jewish traditions in an earlier post. I took this to mean that on a number of occasions in the context of doing this with others, perhaps with a tinge of when in Rome....

But that to whatever degree you are an Orthodox Jew, it doesn't lead to you keeping the lights off regularly on their Sabbath, praying to the deity as conceived within that tradition (within the range of ways it is conceived in that tradition), follow the dietary laws, do regular and intensive study of the Torah - iow not at some point you read the Torah, but have this as a regular practice and so on.
Whether I agree or disagree with you on the particular issue above entirely depends on what you mean by "clear". Do some people have "clear" approaches to dealing with things; while other people don't?
There are a lot of overlaps in behavior in modern, Western people with their relations to many things. And then belief systems make differences. It is those differences I am looking at. I am now blackboxing the reasons there are differences, and now also the difference between thoughts and beliefs, and just plain old blackboxing or ignoring the beliefs themselves. Just focusing, at this point, on behavior.

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You may well be a Muslim when talking to Muslims, but I would guess you don't feel any internal pressure to go to Mecca.
I would love to! I can already imagine the euphoria the participants experience. The sense of unity. The sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. Such level of devotion and submission is so rare in this day and age.

But once you scratch your human itch for feeling some sense of belonging - what happens then?
If you view your loving it as a duty in part to doing what God tells you, well, then in that way we could call you Muslim.
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You don't do the prayers 6 times a day.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Want to see my meditation app? 20 minutes every 3 hours.
That's meditation. Or do you figure out where Mecca is and bow in that direct while reciting from the Koran?
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am You don't regularly consult the Koran or experts in it to decide what is moral.
Ehhh? Of course I do! Especially on moral issues that I've never encountered. I don't consult the Koran, but I sure consult the moral authorities and experts I recognize.
That's a no. Experts in it (the Koran)
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:29 am What you do in crisis, what you do when you want more information, the kinds of experts you consult when you want information, they ways you approach, say, making your body feel better, function better, your moral code...these may well fit with some worldviews (including epistemology, ontology, ethics and so on) and not fit well with others.
You are using the vocabulary of "ontology", "epistmology" that already suggests that you self-identify as a Philosopher.

Most people just call it "reality" (ontology) and "belief" (espistemology). And they use phrases like "justified true belief" (e.g knowledge) for the relationship between epistemology and ontology. That's generally how the correspondence theory (supposedly) works.
I use that vocabulary here. I don't consider myself a philosopher, whatever that judgment says about me. But I do use their terms, when in contexts like this one. Some of their terms. For me ontology and reality don't mean the same thing.
There's no way to assert whether they "fit" or not! Language does NOT correspond to reality except in the ways we use it.

Language is primarily coherent. Correspondence to reality is indeterminate.

👆 And at this point I've committed myself to epistemic coherentism over correspondence; but that would be a misinterpretation.

What I am actually saying is that nothing prevents an infinitude of coherent epistemologies (paradigms?) from "corresponding" to reality for some particular purpose. There's simply no privileged descriptions of reality in some universal context.
I'm not disagreeing with that. My aim with the thread was to see what happened when people shifted belief systems. Given what you've said you've said to me I am setting the stage, hopefully, for asking and getting answered about what happened, if it ever happened, that led you to change behaviors in core ways on a regular basis.

These changes might look, to a correspondance theory believer like you have changed your beliefs. We can black box that. But if through some kind of out in the world exploration, traumatic incident, relation with a specific person or activity, finding out something about something or whatever you started engaging in new activities, having very different emotional reactions to them and so on.

Let's take an example. Perhaps once you read the Koran out of interest in a world religion. You had whatever reactions you had to it, but set it aside, returned it to the library. You don't decide you won't read it again, but it seems not of great importance to your daily life. (or you never read it).

Years pass.

Your wife dies. You are depressed. You're walking down a street and a Muslim man approaches you, notices your pain and you guys have tea. He consoles and is kind to you and also intersperses his conversation with you with quotes from the Koran and his advice and kindness, he claims, comes from the Koran or following the Koran.

This encounter has a big impact on you.

Now when you meditate you face Mecca and see your meditation as having something to do with Allah and include quotes from the Koran. Perhaps even now think of your prayer as meditation, perhaps not.

Now you regulary attend a Mosque.

The Koran becomes a regular part of your study.

At no point do you need consider yourself Muslim.But a set of significant to you changes in your behavior occurred. Other might say you changed beliefs or you are now a Muslim. But that doesn't matter. I'm not hinged on belief or even self-identity. For most people here I think that's a good way to approach the issue. Because, yes, they have correspondance beliefs around knowledge. Because of how they identify themselves.

And yes, of course, people who identify as Muslims can every day break Muslim prohibitions and even central ones. Self-identification, while it may correlate with some statistical tendencies guarantees nothing.

At root I my goal in this thread is not centered on beliefs or epistemology but things that affect us in core ways however one couches the issue.

What leads to significant changes in how we relate to the world? How is related to our own conscious explorations or analytical thinking? How is it related to events we experience and what are those events? What other 'things' seem to have had these types of effects on us?

And of course what causes what is a complicated issue and involved other philosophical conundrums. But still, I find it interesting to see what people say and have been able to learn from such things in the past about change in myself (or so it seems).
Have you heard of Perennialism?

The only direction I want for my bad knee is an improvement from bad to good. What that looks like in practice could be anything.
How you work your way to a strategy for improving my bad knee - that could be anything also.

Ancient tribes used to praise their Gods for the miracle of tree bark - and when you eat the tree bark your knee was now "better". The pain went away!
And some would have thanked the tree. That's more my cup of tea. Though I would do be pleased with whoever led me to the bark or its chemicals, whether science, friend, shaman, my own intuition, etc. I'm grateful in a number of directions for such things. If there were a number of directions.
Modern tribes praise the miracle of quinine's pain relief properties.

The effect/outcome is the same - the justification/language around it is different.

The semantic property, the feeling, the expience that results in either case is the betterness of your knee.
Sure, if you had an experience related to your knee and this led you to regularly approach shamans or herbalists for remedies in general and went from acting like that all was bullshit to acting like it was a good heuristic to approach them first, that would be an example of what I am looking for.

This is a very interesting conversation and I think I think more like you seem to that it might seem.

But that's not the key part for me, as said.
You appear to be reifying the paradigms as something real/tangible. I think of them as nothing other than mental instruments - thinking tools.
Me too.
That question doesn't even make sense in my taxonomy. I use whatever works. Some times it turns out that ancient traditional medicine works too.
Oh I agree. Some people might share many of your mental practices, the ones you are contrasting with mine or what seem to be mine. They might share them but never, ever consider accupunture. Then they have an experience, perhaps nothing else helped, where it works for them. From that moment forward, they often try what gets batched as alternative treatments. They still have your metaposition, but something happened and now they behave quite differently due to something that happened. Perhaps their diet changed due to alternative advice they decided was helping them. Activities, sleep.

So, even if they never believe anything in particular and never view it as having changed their paradigm, not having one, a big change happened that regularly affects their life.

thats what I'm interested in.


[/quote]
I have no idea :)

I go on intuition 99% of the time.
[/quote]So, does everyone else, at least in significant part. In any case, I do.
But can they admit it? That intuition is a part of every analytical process.
Skepdick
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am For now, let's look at how the thoughts influence behavior. You mentioned your participating in Jewish traditions in an earlier post. I took this to mean that on a number of occasions in the context of doing this with others, perhaps with a tinge of when in Rome....

But that to whatever degree you are an Orthodox Jew, it doesn't lead to you keeping the lights off regularly on their Sabbath, praying to the deity as conceived within that tradition (within the range of ways it is conceived in that tradition), follow the dietary laws, do regular and intensive study of the Torah - iow not at some point you read the Torah, but have this as a regular practice and so on.
Sure. But there is also the "tinge" of is prayer the same thing as meditation?

Because the question of whether I pray hinges a lot on whether meditation counts as prayer.

Now, if you are trying to make the argument that there's no such thing as "belief as a mental state", but there is such a thing as "belief as a tradiction/practice/ritual" then everyone's a believer given your tautology.

So you really really have to delineate on the difference between somebody who IS an "Orthodox Jew" and performs those exact rituals as a matter of consequence of their belief; and somebody who IS NOT an Orthodox Jew who happens to perform those exact same rituals and behave in the exact same way as a matter of coincidence.

Does identity determine behaviour; or does behaviour determine identity?
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am There are a lot of overlaps in behavior in modern, Western people with their relations to many things. And then belief systems make differences. It is those differences I am looking at. I am now blackboxing the reasons there are differences, and now also the difference between thoughts and beliefs, and just plain old blackboxing or ignoring the beliefs themselves. Just focusing, at this point, on behavior.
OK. So if we are going to wear the behaviourist hat I am still going to ask you to explain to me the behavioural difference between prayer and meditation. Is it a matter of what is being done; or is it a matter of why it's being done? You can choose different strategies/course of action to bring about some worldly change - but ultimately you could both be pursuing the same goal. This is the principle of equifinality. You could say that two very different behaviour/rituals which attain the exact same outcome/utility are "identical" because they are being done for the exact same reason.

Or pick two essentially simillar practices given a different name by different sub-cultures.
And when you do that - would you consider fasting to be a "religious" practice?

You can play the categorical game ad infinitum. Is it "in" or "out" the category.?

Your understanding dictates where you draw the lines.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am If you view your loving it as a duty in part to doing what God tells you, well, then in that way we could call you Muslim.
Well sure. If you tweak all the knobs in all the right ways you can make any person fit in any box.

I am doing what God tells me (as in - I listen to my intuition). Who doesn't?

Which is sorta my point about the fluidity of all categories; and categorization-schemes.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am That's meditation. Or do you figure out where Mecca is and bow in that direct while reciting from the Koran?
Why is that particular property which defines "prayer"?

Christians and Buddhists don't do that any of the Mecca or Koran stuff - it still counts as prayer.

So what's the essence of some ritual/behaviour for it to count as "prayer"?

Does God have to command you to do it? My God (my intuition) commands me to do it.
Do I feel relief from anxiety; stress? Do I feel unburdened after prayer/meditation? Yes I do!
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am That's a no. Experts in it (the Koran)
I consult Experts (in Case Law). That's the moral authority I recognize.

But on certain moral issues the Experts in the Koran agree with the Experts of Case Law.
And on certain other moral issues - they disagree.

So... no different to any other moral dilemma.

One God tells you to do X.
Another God tells you not to do X.

Which God is the right God?

What if your own God (your own moral intuition) contradicts himself. Now what?

Dialectic? Coin toss? You have to resolve it somehow...
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am I use that vocabulary here. I don't consider myself a philosopher, whatever that judgment says about me. But I do use their terms, when in contexts like this one. Some of their terms.
So even though you behave like a Philosopher. Even though you speak like "them" using words like "ontology" and "epistemology" you don't self-identify as one? That seems contrary to your earlier statements that behaviour determines identity ;)
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am For me ontology and reality don't mean the same thing.
Well. There's a perspective from which they are identical and interchangeable. And there's a perspective from which they aren't.

I am speaking from the former.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am My aim with the thread was to see what happened when people shifted belief systems. Given what you've said you've said to me I am setting the stage, hopefully, for asking and getting answered about what happened, if it ever happened, that led you to change behaviors in core ways on a regular basis.
What leads me to change behaviour is evidence that the change is beneficial to me; and that it better aligns with some of my goals/values etc.

But that would be a separate question to "What leads to change paradigms of thought/speech/vocabularies".

What would make me change paradigms is if my social circle changed to the extend that my current paradigm/speech/vocabulary was the sort of language the bad guys use. Imagine speaking German in post-WW2 Europe. It's probably a good idea to abandon your paradigm to avoid guilt by association.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am These changes might look, to a correspondance theory believer like you have changed your beliefs. We can black box that. But if through some kind of out in the world exploration, traumatic incident, relation with a specific person or activity, finding out something about something or whatever you started engaging in new activities, having very different emotional reactions to them and so on.
OK, sure. Words/languages contain connotation. In so far as there are cynical vs optimistic words for the same denotation there are such things as cynical vocabularies to justify one's feelings.

But it's also a self-fulfiling prophecy - you can re-describe the entire universe in cynical terms. And then you "become cynical".
It's pretty difficult to escape this trap so you might (in principle) choose to describe the world in positive/optimistic/forward-looking connotation. And at some point you hope the warm fuzzy feelings will follow. And then you fall into the trap of being overly optimistic.

In the grand scheme of things both pessimism and optimism are errors. Just not about the same issues.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am Let's take an example. Perhaps once you read the Koran out of interest in a world religion. You had whatever reactions you had to it, but set it aside, returned it to the library. You don't decide you won't read it again, but it seems not of great importance to your daily life. (or you never read it).

Years pass.

Your wife dies. You are depressed. You're walking down a street and a Muslim man approaches you, notices your pain and you guys have tea. He consoles and is kind to you and also intersperses his conversation with you with quotes from the Koran and his advice and kindness, he claims, comes from the Koran or following the Koran.

This encounter has a big impact on you.

Now when you meditate you face Mecca and see your meditation as having something to do with Allah and include quotes from the Koran. Perhaps even now think of your prayer as meditation, perhaps not.

Now you regulary attend a Mosque.

The Koran becomes a regular part of your study.

At no point do you need consider yourself Muslim.But a set of significant to you changes in your behavior occurred. Other might say you changed beliefs or you are now a Muslim. But that doesn't matter. I'm not hinged on belief or even self-identity. For most people here I think that's a good way to approach the issue. Because, yes, they have correspondance beliefs around knowledge. Because of how they identify themselves.

And yes, of course, people who identify as Muslims can every day break Muslim prohibitions and even central ones. Self-identification, while it may correlate with some statistical tendencies guarantees nothing.

At root I my goal in this thread is not centered on beliefs or epistemology but things that affect us in core ways however one couches the issue.
Who knows? The cookie could crumble either way. You could embrace any given tradition/culture. Jainism? Buddhism? I spent a few years around ashrams in India in my youth.

I think the sort of thing that might pull somebody in such a direction is the deep desire for self-knowledge/self-understanding.

Seeking God/your true self. Or whatever you want to call that journey.

I can tell you that the sort of conversation I've had with my wife goes something like this "I am tired of being an outsider to every community because I don't have the inherent wolfpack instinct. I am ready to belong, but I can't belong to the Christian creed - they are way too submissive/passive. Islam is better suited to my fiery spirit. Their archetype appeals to me and my nature more than Jesus does."

But then I remember the quote "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools". And Jesus was a scholar, while the other guy was a bit of a hothead, so you know - I like different aspects of different things and I find no paradigm that has it all.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am What leads to significant changes in how we relate to the world?
Surely your entire question could be squarely planted on your view of what's "significant" and "insignificant"?

For some extremely critical interpretation any change - however large is "insignificant" in the grand scheme of things.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am How is related to our own conscious explorations or analytical thinking? How is it related to events we experience and what are those events? What other 'things' seem to have had these types of effects on us?

And of course what causes what is a complicated issue and involved other philosophical conundrums. But still, I find it interesting to see what people say and have been able to learn from such things in the past about change in myself (or so it seems).
So, on that view learning and change in behaviour is approximately the same thing as "adaptation" in Biology; and adaptation's sole purpose is to survive the habitat.

You could ultimately end up with Darwin's paradigm - where everything we do is about survival.
Or you could end up with Newton's paradigm - where we are 100% objective/factual ontological peons with no moral value system.

I have no way of comprehending Newton's paradigm except through Darwin's lens.

Good science allows to effectively exploit the environment for our benefit. Of course, push too far against the biological homeostasis and nature will eject you and your species from the game. Permanently.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am And some would have thanked the tree. That's more my cup of tea. Though I would do be pleased with whoever led me to the bark or its chemicals, whether science, friend, shaman, my own intuition, etc. I'm grateful in a number of directions for such things. If there were a number of directions.
But there's literally no difference in outcome. Only Western medicine is more precise - they can isolate the single active chemical in the tree bark.

Put it in a capsule even. Wrap it in sugar. So you don't have to eat bitter tree bark (and whatever else is in and on it).
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am Sure, if you had an experience related to your knee and this led you to regularly approach shamans or herbalists for remedies in general and went from acting like that all was bullshit to acting like it was a good heuristic to approach them first, that would be an example of what I am looking for.
Yeah! Double-blind placebo controlled A/B testing! But this sort of stuff is only necessary for effects that are super difficult to detect and isolate.

You know damn well that a splinter works for broken bones; or that a parachute can prevent you from hitting the ground. You don't need A/B testing for that! It's bloody obvious!

Science is only useful for when you are trying to find a needle in a haystack. A/B testing is a divide and conquer tactic.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am Me too.
OK, so do you then separate the paradigm from the practices/rituals from the reasons for the practices/rituals. e.g it's in the Muslim tradition to perform funerals within 24 hours.

Now, the reason for this ritual has nothing to do with God or Koran dictating this. It was simply common sense in those parts of the world to not let a dead body sit around for too long in that kind of climate.

It was simply a hygienic/common good/public health concern that nobody questions anymore. It's a relic, but a relic that's so deeply rooted in tradition that you'd be swimming upstream if you tried to change it.

A bit like wearing masks during a pandemic - there is very good reason to do it in context. Some people simply chose to carry on doing it even out of context.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am Oh I agree. Some people might share many of your mental practices, the ones you are contrasting with mine or what seem to be mine. They might share them but never, ever consider accupunture. Then they have an experience, perhaps nothing else helped, where it works for them. From that moment forward, they often try what gets batched as alternative treatments. They still have your metaposition, but something happened and now they behave quite differently due to something that happened. Perhaps their diet changed due to alternative advice they decided was helping them. Activities, sleep.

So, even if they never believe anything in particular and never view it as having changed their paradigm, not having one, a big change happened that regularly affects their life.

thats what I'm interested in.
Yea, you are looking for the trigger. But, unfortinately it's almost never one thing but a sequence of events - drops that become an ocean.

At what point did I flip from calling myself Christian to atheist? No idea. Like - the distinction hasn't even mattered to me. I've never been oppressed by the Church - my denomination is Eastern Orthodox. I have none of the horror stories of gay people being ostracized; or Roman Catholic paedophilia. I have absolutely no reason to hate the establishment.

But Logic and Reason! Intellectual Domination! Clear objective difference between Right and Wrong. MUST PREVAIL. So my 20-something aggressive dweeb found solace and comraderie with the militant atheists.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am But can they admit it? That intuition is a part of every analytical process.
I mean. That's where I painted the distinction in my vocabulary...

The journey of theism to atheism to theism again is what I call Philosophy.
In that context the way I use the word "theist" is somebody who hasn't commenced the journey yet. They've merely inherited their beliefs and ideas but haven't yet examined them at depth.

What I call an "atheist" is somebody half way through the journey. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They want murder to be objectively wrong, but they have no grounding for this belief whatsoever. And there is no grounding for the belief, except by appealing to some moral authority (which the atheist abolished too hastily).

And what I call a "Phlosopher" is someone who has completed the journey. They want all the subjective moral stuff to remain. They also want all that sciencey/pragmatic stuff to remain. They want to integrate the two, but ontologically speaking the Philosopher is still a theist for one simple reason alone!

The Philosopher is unable to ground; or justify ANY of their moral beliefs; and yet - they still hold them! More so - the Philosopher wants; or needs those moral beliefs to remain social norms. He needs to persuade; and prosletyse without getting caught with their pants down on the origin/justification of those moral attitudes!

The difference between a theist and a Philosopher (with respect to their moral code) is such that a theist has been told to practice those morals or go to hell;
whereas a Philosopher has chosen to continue practicing them (despite knowing their subjective nature) or else he will end up living in hell.

Of course God is just an idea. An idealization. SO what? That doesn't preclude one from believing in it. You believe in justice, morality, democracy. And you believe in God (the ultimate Good) in the exact same way.

"A little knowledge of science make a man an atheist, but an in depth study of science makes him a believer in God."--Francis Bacon
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 12:46 pm So you really really have to delineate on the difference between somebody who IS an "Orthodox Jew" and performs those exact rituals as a matter of consequence of their belief; and somebody who IS NOT an Orthodox Jew who happens to perform those exact same rituals and behave in the exact same way as a matter of coincidence.
I don't think you are either one of those. Or? In any case, I can focus on the behavior. I've written one way that I think works to elicit the category of answers I am looking for from most people. Now that I've read your posts, I am focused on behavior.
I am doing what God tells me (as in - I listen to my intuition). Who doesn't?

Which is sorta my point about the fluidity of all categories; and categorization-schemes.
Sure and dishwashing could also be praying if you want to stretch it, if you find it meditative. I'm not sure why you mentioned meditation. You seemed to think that was indistiguishable in your case from other states, it implies a kind of categorizing. Meditation, masturbation, dishwashing, watching TV.....we could probably make them all a kind of Wittgensteinian example of a game, I mean an example of prayer. But we can set all this to the side and focus on if you changed in the ways I mentioned in my last post at some point and what, if anything, you attribute this to.
So even though you behave like a Philosopher. Even though you speak like "them" using words like "ontology" and "epistemology" you don't self-identify as one? That seems contrary to your earlier statements that behaviour determines identity ;)
I'm sure you've heard of code switching.
What leads me to change behaviour is evidence that the change is beneficial to me; and that it better aligns with some of my goals/values etc.
Great.
But that would be a separate question to "What leads to change paradigms of thought/speech/vocabularies".
Oh, that questions works fine in relation to many people. At least, I find the answers interesting and I think useful in relation to the issue I am mulling in relation to myself. But I heard you: so I am changing my approach. Have changed, in transition. I don't know yet if I will get the kind of response I am looking for from you, but it could very well lead to me finding out that at a certain point in your life you went from one set of behaviors to another and these changes were important to you and guided everyday and/or regular practices. We'll see.
But then I remember the quote "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools". And Jesus was a scholar, while the other guy was a bit of a hothead, so you know - I like different aspects of different things and I find no paradigm that has it all.
that's fine. That's not really my interest that it fits everything you do. Not remotely. Mainly that there was a large change in what you do regularly to solve problems, find answers and tools, activities that you consider very important and the like. I don't mean that it has to be some kind of conversion experience.
Surely your entire question could be squarely planted on your view of what's "significant" and "insignificant"?

For some extremely critical interpretation any change - however large is "insignificant" in the grand scheme of things.
It the changes were significant to you that's fine for me. If you felt, for example, that experience X, led you to have different ways of interacting with people, different approaches to solving problems, different first go to experts, different practices to change yourself in ways you want to and the like in significant ways, that's what I want to hear about.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am And some would have thanked the tree. That's more my cup of tea. Though I would do be pleased with whoever led me to the bark or its chemicals, whether science, friend, shaman, my own intuition, etc. I'm grateful in a number of directions for such things. If there were a number of directions.
But there's literally no difference in outcome. Only Western medicine is more precise - they can isolate the single active chemical in the tree bark.
Sure, they're better, in general at short term precision with all the attendent benefits and problems. And I don't find a lack of difference. For me starting to thank trees (again, I did such things when I was a kid) is a significant difference, and it's part of a set of significant differences. For my knee, in the short term, it's not a significant difference.
Put it in a capsule even. Wrap it in sugar. So you don't have to eat bitter tree bark (and whatever else is in and on it).
I love bitter medicinal herbs.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:19 am Sure, if you had an experience related to your knee and this led you to regularly approach shamans or herbalists for remedies in general and went from acting like that all was bullshit to acting like it was a good heuristic to approach them first, that would be an example of what I am looking for.
Yeah! Double-blind placebo controlled A/B testing! But this sort of stuff is only necessary for effects that are super difficult to detect and isolate.

You know damn well that a splinter works for broken bones; or that a parachute can prevent you from hitting the ground. You don't need A/B testing for that! It's bloody obvious!

Science is only useful for when you are trying to find a needle in a haystack. A/B testing is a divide and conquer tactic.
I don't know what you're talking about here. I was focused on changes in strategies when dealing with health issues. If some experience(s) led you to have a different behavioral pattern in regard to your own health that you consider significant. For me, for example, if I never tried alternative approaches, then as a last resort or for some other reason did and it helped and this led me to try others, perhaps also research the FDA and alternative medicine and say Japanese or Chinese or even German approaches which from our perspective often combine modern Western Medicine and other approaches and began to approach health through diet, certain specific exercises that I never did, and went to alternative practitioners as a rule for non-trauma illnesses and even for things not really considered treatable by Western doctors, I would consider that a significant change in my behavior. Perhaps, there is nothing in your experience, related to health or anything else that has any resemblance to that kind of change. That's obviously fine. If you can think of anything, let me know.
Yea, you are looking for the trigger. But, unfortinately it's almost never one thing but a sequence of events - drops that become an ocean.
Absolutely. It does not have to be an event. Relationships can do this. Study can do this. Travel over long periods of time can do this. Explorations of all sorts can do this slowly over time. I have used event examples because I think some people can relate and also it's easier to track or at least think you are tracking the change. And given that how we react to an event can also depend on many things that happened before and our own temperments, etc., attributing cause is complicated and intuitive at best.

That said, I have found that I can get useful information from people even when they likely oversimplify.
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm I don't think you are either one of those. Or? I can focus on the behavior. I've written one way that I think works to elicit the category of answers I am looking for from most people. Now that I've read your posts, I am focused on behavior.
It still doesn't get you anywhere useful precisely because you can describe the exact same behaviour using very different words.

Everything from the reason for the behaviour to the reason for why you are describing it will influence which word you choose to describe the behaviour with.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm Sure and dishwashing could also be praying to Mecca if you want to stretch it, if you find it meditative. I'm not sure why you mentioned meditation. You seemed to think that was indistiguishable in your case from other states, but not dishwashing. But we can set all this to the side and focus on if you changed in the ways I mentioned in my last post at some point and what, if anything, you attribute this to.
I don't think any changes of my life have been "radical" to the extent you are trying to characterize them. If they were you'd almost be describing a bipolar person. Or a person who can detach quickly and rapidly from their previous life.

Which might suggest they have attachment issues? But is it an "issue" for them? Who knows?
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm I'm sure you've heard of code switching.
Of course. But then you necessarily separate linguistic behavior from other kind of behavior.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm that's fine. That's not really my interest that it fits everything you do. Not remotely. Mainly that there was a large change in what you do regularly to solve problems, find answers and tools, activities that you consider very important and the like. I don't mean that it has to be some kind of conversion experience.
Yeah. I don't have an "Eurekaa!" moment that draws high contrast between "new" and "old" me.

The most radical change has been change of country, change of city, change of career, change of partners, change of diet once or twice. But that's mundane stuff.

I can't think of any outsized events.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm It the changes were significant to you that's fine for me. If you felt, for example, that experience X, led you to have different ways of interacting with people, different approaches to solving problems, different first go to experts, different practices to change yourself in ways you want to and the like in significant ways, that's what I want to hear about.
I guess - the moment I successfully integrated science and religion. The inner conflict ceased and I no longer had use for the label "atheism".

But calling it a moment is a lie.

All I know is that there were times in my life when those were mutually exxlusive activities; and there's the time of my life (now) where they can be integrated.

And I have no clear timestamp on when the switch happened. That's "big" for most people. Or at least it's very big when it goes the other way (from theism to atheism) and people lose their faith. Only - I never cared for my faith much. It was a social thing.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm Sure, they're better, in general at short term precision with all the attendent benefits and problems. And I don't find a lack of difference. For me starting to thank trees (again, I did such things when I was a kid) is a significant difference, and it's part of a set of significant differences. For my knee, in the short term, it's not a significant difference.
Yeah, it's super hard to identify any single thing with compounding interest.

It's just... the whole growing up thing.
Put it in a capsule even. Wrap it in sugar. So you don't have to eat bitter tree bark (and whatever else is in and on it).
I love bitter medicinal herbs.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm I don't know what you're talking about here. I was focused on changes in strategies when dealing with health issues. If some experience(s) led you to have a different behavioral pattern in regard to your own health that you consider significant.
Sure. I have a metric. I use the decibel scale to weigh evidence. If there's an order of magitude of difference in small changes in behaviour you have my attention.
🤷‍♂️
e.g vaccination during pandemic made 40x-50x improved odds. That's a ridiculously good gamble/bet!
But if I have to spend 3 years of my life in gym to live 2 years longer - that's a bad gamble.

Most recently I saw that 1 minute of high intensity cardio 4x a day is sufficient to reduce heart attack risk by 63% or something.
That's a lifestyle change I can deal with. Giving up 2 hours of my life every day for similar cardiac benefit - that's not the kind of thing that fits in my equation.

In general I seek opportunities for outsized results - I seek outsized return on investment.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm For me, for example, if I never tried alternative approaches, then as a last resort or for some other reason did and it helped and this led me to try others, perhaps also research the FDA and alternative medicine and say Japanese or Chinese or even German approaches which from our perspective often combine modern Western Medicine and other approaches and began to approach health through diet, certain specific exercises that I never did, and went to alternative practitioners as a rule for non-trauma illnesses and even for things not really considered treatable by Western doctors, I would consider that a significant change in my behavior. Perhaps, there is nothing in your experience, related to health or anything else that has any resemblance to that kind of change. That's obviously fine. If you can think of anything, let me know.
I went vegetarian for 5 years (no longer); and stopped drinking for 7. Now I drink wine on weekends - still don't smoke. 🤷‍♂️

Reason: I was a stubborn youngster and I figured I'll self-impose some self-control upon myself as a matter of discipline and lifestyle change. Because getting drunk with my friends got super lame and repetitive by the time I was 24 - and seemed like enforcing stupid and pointless habits.

What triggered it? I spent 2 weeks in some ashram in India (total accident). Unbeknown to me I had survived on a vegetarian diet for 10 days. It was at that point where I realised the whole "You can't survive without meat!" was total nonsense. So I stopped believing anything I said to myself to justify my current habits.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:41 pm Absolutely. It does not have to be an event. Relationships can do this. Study can do this. Travel over long periods of time can do this. Explorations of all sorts can do this slowly over time. I have used event examples because I think some people can relate and also it's easier to track or at least think you are tracking the change. And given that how we react to an event can also depend on many things that happened before and our own temperments, etc., attributing cause is complicated and intuitive at best.

That said, I have found that I can get useful information from people even when they likely oversimplify.
I find it far easier to do this when I identify some contrast.

My brain has a bias towards "smoothness" and consistency - the turtle, not the rabbit wins the race.
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 2:10 pm It still doesn't get you anywhere useful precisely because you can describe the exact same behaviour using very different words.
I've already gotten useful things out of this thread (including from our dialogue, though between us not related directly to the topic).
I don't think any changes of my life have been "radical" to the extent you are trying to characterize them.
OK, good to know.

Yeah. I don't have an "Eurekaa!" moment that draws high contrast between "new" and "old" me.
I don't have a time limit and it doesn't have to be a specific event or choice.

From the OP...
Me: What happened that led to this change?
Was the change gradual or due to a single event/epipheny/something else?
[emphasis added now.]

Back to you....
The most radical change has been change of country, change of city, change of career, change of partners, change of diet once or twice. But that's mundane stuff.

I can't think of any outsized events.
I also mentioned processes, including chosen ones, of exploration and others.
I guess - the moment I successfully integrated science and religion. The inner conflict ceased and I no longer had use for the label "atheism".
Anything in particular that you think of that led to this change?
In general I seek opportunities for outsized results - I seek outsized return on investment.
So, this leads to two questions:
was their anything that led to this criterion, to you having/focusing on this criterion? and Do you have any other examples of something that did this for you?
I went vegetarian for 5 years (no longer); and stopped drinking for 7. Now I drink wine on weekends - still don't smoke. 🤷‍♂️
Any key seeming events/processes that led to these changes?
Reason: I was a stubborn youngster and I figured I'll self-impose some self-control upon myself as a matter of discipline and lifestyle change. Because getting drunk with my friends got super lame and repetitive by the time I was 24 - and seemed like enforcing stupid and pointless habits.

What triggered it? I spent 2 weeks in some ashram in India (total accident). Unbeknown to me I had survived on a vegetarian diet for 10 days. It was at that point where I realised the whole "You can't survive without meat!" was total nonsense. So I stopped believing anything I said to myself to justify my current habits.
Yes, this kind of thing has led to changes in me. To be really general: anomalies. Here's the rule, wait, here's a clear exception. Sometimes it's stand alone evidence the rule is messed up. Sometimes there needs to be more digging (my assessment, intuition if you ill regarding specific cases). Anomaly leads to research which indicates that not only is it not a rule but even a poor generalization. In other cases it's ever worse or the anomaly remains a rare exception (as far as I can tell)[/quote]
.
Absolutely. It does not have to be an event. Relationships can do this. Study can do this. Travel over long periods of time can do this. Explorations of all sorts can do this slowly over time. I have used event examples because I think some people can relate and also it's easier to track or at least think you are tracking the change. And given that how we react to an event can also depend on many things that happened before and our own temperments, etc., attributing cause is complicated and intuitive at best.

I like the unbeknowst aspect of the story. This can also give the story/experience more drama, since you get the news all at once, which has a big impact. The shock (perhaps an exaggerated word for what you experienced) can lead to more likely change.
I find it far easier to do this when I identify some contrast.

My brain has a bias towards "smoothness" and consistency - the turtle, not the rabbit wins the race.
I try to be a turtle, but sometimes life forces me into a rapid rabbit mode - and I did choose to move out of my country and that led to a lot of rabbitting (and also turtling). I learn and change from both - I mean, jeez, a twenty year so far marriage has added so many tools to my tool kit, but slow, even when I realized quickly I was missing some important ones she has. Even when I'd like to be a rabbit I'm a turtle.

But sure, distributed practice and the Zone of Proximal Development.
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Found this 3 step formula (lol, men perhaps a little useful) for changing people's worldview, aimed at organizations.
1. Start by validating their current worldview or perspective. (I don't think they gave a good example of how this is done, but here in philosophy this might be easier. If they are a monist and we are dualist, we could speak to how monism (seems to, perhaps) fit experiences well, or makes sense in certain deductions. If atheist, we could point to the common undertandable reasons people are skeptical about God. Or ask the person and affirm as much of the reaction one can.
2. Offer up possibilities.
Here one presents the possibilities in the form of questions, rather than statements. Have you ever thought.....? Is it possible that....?
3. Present a new reality.
Finally, give proof or evidence that and/or new view is possible and true.
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by bahman »

Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Jan 11, 2023 10:59 am So..paradigm, belief system, worldview is what I am asking about. (not political worldviews)
Some examples...
You changed from Christian to atheist (or the reverse).
You went from monist to dualist (or the reverse).
Physicalism to idealism (or any other similar ontological shift).

Not just this or that belief but rather a shift in your whole worldview/ontology/metaphysics/paradigm.

What happened that led to this change?
Was the change gradual or due to a single event/epipheny/something else?
Did you do anything intentionally that led to the change? (for example, intentionally sought out experiences that might confirm a new way of seeing, or intentionally challenged authority figures/experts in the view you then left)

Some other possible categories one might have shifted to or from: Agnosticism
Atheism Atomism Deism Determinism Dualism Essentialism Existentialism Fideism Idealism Intellectualism Materialism Monism Monotheism Naturalism Nominalism Nihilism Objectivism Panentheism Pantheism Phenomenology Physicalism Pluralism Polytheism Realism Reductionism Relativism Solipsism Subjectivism Theism Voluntarism
a switch from one religion to another
or even within science: constructivism, interpretivism, positivism, pragmatism
You have to believe to move on. You are trapped without doubt in your belief. For me, it is a process of doubting and believing until I find some foundation that I can stand on.
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Impenitent »

change paradigm?

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Iwannaplato
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

bahman wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:42 pm You have to believe to move on. You are trapped without doubt in your belief. For me, it is a process of doubting and believing until I find some foundation that I can stand on.
For example?
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bahman
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by bahman »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:58 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:42 pm You have to believe to move on. You are trapped without doubt in your belief. For me, it is a process of doubting and believing until I find some foundation that I can stand on.
For example?
For example my belief in God. I was Muslim first. Reading through Koran and discussing it with other people I had some doubts while I was still a believer. I hold on to both belief and doubt. I then tend to believe in Christianity. I then found an argument against Omniscient God. Later I found an argument against the act of creation from nothing. So I left Christianity aside. I refine my argument by discussing it with people here and there. So now, I found a foundation that I can stand on. So I am an atheist. No need to say I still believe in God/Gods who can create humans from something, or at least I have no argument against it yet. Well, if you think about it, if humans can be the by-product of evolution which is a random process that takes billions of years then how come a super-intelligent being with magnificent knowledge cannot create humans from something?
Skepdick
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Skepdick »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:33 am For example my belief in God. I was Muslim first. Reading through Koran and discussing it with other people I had some doubts while I was still a believer. I hold on to both belief and doubt. I then tend to believe in Christianity. I then found an argument against Omniscient God. Later I found an argument against the act of creation from nothing. So I left Christianity aside. I refine my argument by discussing it with people here and there. So now, I found a foundation that I can stand on. So I am an atheist. No need to say I still believe in God/Gods who can create humans from something, or at least I have no argument against it yet. Well, if you think about it, if humans can be the by-product of evolution which is a random process that takes billions of years then how come a super-intelligent being with magnificent knowledge cannot create humans from something?
Oi vei! You too have fallen into the trap of ambiguous language - that loaded phrase "believe in". Let me land a helping hand.

Do you believe in democracy?
Do you believe in love?
Do you believe in justice?
Do you believe in fairness?
Do you believe in morality?

Notice how the phrase "believe in" could be construed as something like "Do you want to mainifest democracy, love, justice, fairness, morality into the world?"

Notice how the phrase "Do you believe in God?" is construed to mean something entirely different. That's just idiosyncratic in my view.

Interpret the question in the exact same way you interpret it for democracy, justice, fairness, morality etc.
ALL of those ideas are abstract human constructs invented from nothing. That is how all creation/invention works. That is how ideation works.

To believe in God is to hold the desire to manifest God into existence.
To believe in God is to posess the desire to reify your understanding of God.
reification : the act of changing something abstract (existing as a thought or idea) into something real
God is not an ontological thing! Not yet anyway.
God is an abstract idea. Like democracy, love, justice, fairness etc. God is something we constantly strive for not something we already have.

And who doesn't want to reify God? It's just humanity's deep desire to reify Morality in a universe that has none.

The theist/atheist/agnostic game is all fucking nonse. The God we all believe in is not ontological. Not yet anyway. Not until the reification is completed (which is never - because it's an unattainable ideal).

If you are talking about the ontological god then the only rational position is agnosticism. The atheists are wrong in this regard. We don't know and we can't know. It's all speculation. If you want to play the ontological game - The SImulation hypothesis is all the fad now! God is the programmer of the simulation.

Once you land at this perspective you should have no problem realising that atheists and theists is merely a difference in vocabulary, but not a difference in belief.

Atheists believe in God in exactly the same everyone else does. Atheists want to bring about a moral society - everybody does! The work is slow but progress is happening.

As to which denomination/ideology you choose - it doesn't matter. Pick the denomination of your community. If you are surrounded by atheists - be an atheist. If you are surrounded by Muslims - be a Muslim. If you are surrounded by Christians - be a Christian.

Or choose the God whose temperament and traits most closely resembles your own personality, and become absolutely unapologetic for holding that belief. Don't even feel the need/desire to defend it.

Philosophy has sure fucked everything up with this silly notion of justifying and arguing for one's beliefs and positions. Get the fuck out of here - I am no more going to justify my use of concepts than I am going to justify my use of a tooth brush. Freedom of thought is the only absolute right we have.

And lastly: make sure you read all of the scriptures metaphorically and not literally. Least you turn into a fundamentalist.
Apply the principle of charity gratuitously to everything you read in scripture and see the humanity of it all.
Iwannaplato
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Iwannaplato »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:33 am For example my belief in God. I was Muslim first. Reading through Koran and discussing it with other people I had some doubts while I was still a believer. I hold on to both belief and doubt.
OK, thanks for the specifics. So, in the first place it sounds like you were a quasi believer. You have mixed beliefs. Then perhaps you got more doubts in conversation with others.
I then tend to believe in Christianity. I then found an argument against Omniscient God.
So, you actually changed you mind based on reasoned argument. I think this is rare with paradigmatic beliefs, but it does happen. 'Omniscient' and the other omni words aren't in the Bible. One could be Christian, think of God as vastly more powerful than we are or even than can be imagined, but not more powerful than limits that are logically proscribed, for example. The omni stuff is the game of theologians and only some of them.
Later I found an argument against the act of creation from nothing.
I think there's also interpretive swingroom on this one also. But I see again that arguments led to no longer believing.
Skepdick
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Skepdick »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:33 am No need to say I still believe in God/Gods who can create humans from something
This point is super subtle! Creating humans is a metaphorical expression, not a literal one. It's about constructing the mind of a human, not constructing the physiology of a human.

Before you became "human" you were just an animal. A product of nature and biology - subject to survival of the fittest. Wild, uncultured, rude, uncivilied, unsophisticated, violent, aggressive etc. An animal.

You made yourself a human. Because "human" is just a concept. Still - you humanised yourself in accord with the ideal.
You became civil, reasoned, moral, just etc. etc. etc. - In God's image.

That's why Philosophy is called the "humanities". Perhaps it should be called "the humanisations".

Either way - it's about making humans.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: How did you change paradigm?

Post by Flannel Jesus »

I've changed paradigm a lot in my life. Non religious to extremely religious to atheist. Politically from anarcho capitalist to... whatever I am now, which is mostly liberal ideals but still thinking capitalism, in some form, is a strong positive.

I don't know exactly how I changed paradigm, I think each time I shifted drastically it was preceded by peeking behind a curtain so to speak and seeing I was maybe not right to intellectually respect the people I held in high regard.
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