What did you think of this talk? Do you agree with Hilary Lawson's view of our reality? Leave a comment below. Discover more of our philosophy content at: iai.tv/player?TH-cam&
We never arrive! but we must continue using observation and reason to achieve a “better understanding”.. A very good paradigm from Professor Hilary Lawson. Well done Professor, and thanks iai for producing and broadcasting this interesting and useful video.
I use decision in much the same way as Professor Larson uses closure. The world is so many possible things, and simultaneously so, the place to land one's thoughts seems impossibly difficult. How can one ever be right about anything? We discover right at the point of decision. This is where truth is to be found. We decide, we act, and we work as hard as we can to make our truth work for us in the world. There is no problem with post modernism, nor is there a problem with fixed belief. The problem is with unkind-ness. Because falsehood lies in believing one can hold any truth while walking on the backs of others.
We all must start from our pre-programed brains and at the level of its countless atoms firing millions of times per second generating neural signals to give us sense and to dictate our responses.
Truth is like the speed of light - no matter how close you get, you'll never get there all the way, there'll always be another decimal place between you and completion.
That's a good analogy, and I agree with it in the realm of empirical science. But we can reach the absolute truth in formal logic or in mathematics - like in the common example 2 + 2 = 4 (or 5 + 7 = 12, if you're into Kant). If the premises are satisfied and the reasoning is logically valid, a mathematical theorem is true - really true, not just approximately true. In the geometry of a flat surface, the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal. There is no way around that.
Truth Is That Which Exists; Objective Truth Is A Comprehensive Participant To The Subject Of Discussion. A Perspective Is A Translated Interpretation Of That Truth.
Excellent perspective and articulation! One point of pushback @14:00 . Lawson unfortunately mischaracterizes Idealism as an ontology which believes reality is only in the heads or minds of individuals and that there is no objective reality. This is fundamentally untrue of Idealism. Modern Physicalism and a reductionism of consciousness into brain activity is actually the ontology which believes reality is all in your head, or my head, or the head of a dog, etc. Idealism believes mind is fundamental, not that mind is all that there is. Mind gives rise to the "objectivity" of the subjective reality we experience. For a more nuanced, complete and elegant presentation of Idealism, check out what Bernardo Kastrup and/or The Essentia Foundation has to say.
I was thinking the exact same thing at that point! I also felt a strong familiarity with the ideas in this presentation and those of Analytic Idealism.
@@jb_ Yes! It's quite common to connect sound ideas about reality to Idealism. Haha. It's undeniably the best choice of ontology based on modern knowledge that I can think of. Although I've been feeling sorry for dualism. Why are we all so obsessed with a monism? And what if a monism could be committed as a monism of a fundamental relationship instead of a solitary fundamental substance. Thoughts?
Truth is whatever is the case...the epistemic problem has nothing to do with what is the case. Subjective experiencing is objectively true, it's real! The human problem on knowledge is not about truth but rather about shelf's and what fits what. I would like to finish with a tautology on the Ontology of Phenomenology: Dreams are real dreams!
To put it simply, Lawson is talking about what science and research is (trying to find observable reality), and it's ultimately rooted in human perception. Truth is a human concept and is not actually there.
There still needs to be a common goal we need to strive to that will select what patterns we should dig into and what stuff we should dig out of these patterns. There is limitless pool of patterns to explore, but there is very limited scope of patterns pursuing which does not end brief journey of intelligence in this sandbox of ours but rather improves the sandbox according to our specifications. We need to decide what is life , then we can try to decide what is good for life and what is bad for life and pursue the good. We cannot be a kid on the beach, just picking random seashells and enquiring, we are too powerful to be kids, there are seashells that end in hydrogen warheads in silos and in weaponized viruses. Its time to grow up. The biggest evil of postmodernism is not that it rejects possibility of any truth, but that it rejects possibility of useful "truths" and harmful "truths", but defining all of possible "truths" useful is not better ,imo. Our reach is already way beyond our grasp.
Excellent. Am so glad this was posted. Very appreciative of this summary of his theory. I have been listening back to Hilary's talks and contributions on IAI all year. I must say, I am quite sympathetic to his view.
Human existence is a never-ending dance between closure/truth/order/application and openess/perspective/chaos/seeking. I've been thinking about the series "The Leftovers" a lot lately....which is about this very thing. Then this pops up in my feed! Love it!
I believe it's not just humans, it's a fundamental dychotomy of reality. I think you can see this dychotomy reflected in all complex life forms. All nervous systems with a brain we know of are organized asymmetrically, with two functionally distinct hemispheres, and my intuition tells me that's biology's way to adapt to this fundamental contraposition, one half to deal with order, the other to deal with chaos
So, truth exists, but we can never really know it fully, due to the limitations of our existence. But, it is still worthwhile to use reason and other tools to understand reality, because we get better and better at it.
well... the models/concepts of 'truth' or in this context 'ultimate truth' exist in our minds. sadly in this talk, 'post modernism' gets unnecessarily reduced to a grotesque caricature, followed by a not so new method of approach which itself is very post-modern. it's a bit weird.🙂
Truth is more subjective than objective ........ Truth is the middle way of knowing not being both subjective & objective realities of Being existence...... According to Buddhism ........
The self-referential paradoxes Lawson discusses obtain only if reality is naturalistic and truth a passive entity to be discovered. It is only on the naturalistic hypothesis that knowledge is all about neuron firing, and so on. But if reality is theistic then truth is personal and intentional, wishing for and building a relationship with us. To use Lawson's metaphor, here the wind is moving the flags purposefully towards the truth. If theism is true then knowledge is not just about a large number of neurons firing. Incidentally, like many other modern philosophers as well as most physical scientists, Lawson seems to conflate physics with metaphysics. Physical theories expressed in equations describe patterns present in physical phenomena; they do not describe reality. The physical sciences do not describe reality but only a part of phenomenal reality, they describe reality as it seems to us and not as it is. And it is not the case that newer scientific theories falsify older ones; so for example Einstein's general relativity simply describes a deeper and more general pattern present in physical phenomena than Newtonian mechanics. We still teach and use Newtonian mechanics all the time; so it is rather evident that Newtonian mechanics has not been falsified.
This video is probably going to blow up into the recommended videos of people like me who like watching long and thought-provoking videos, so I just want to put here that the view count is currently 1,083 and this video was released 7 hours ago.
By the way if someone didn't yet I am putting a name on what I meant about Truth up there, it is Hyper Realism! Instead of debating Truth versus false value. I am placing everything with True value with the caveat of things being separated by Domains of operations like Checkers and Chess. The idea that something is false springs from the same very mistake of believing Nothingness is something. Well it isn't!
In functional programming languages (different that procedural languages) a closure is the combination of a function with an environment in which it was created.
Is a combination of any two any better since it still doesn't connect with anything out there? Our models might seem to work approximately, not because they are true or real but because a collective agrees to use it to get something out of it, which are also just agreements and neither real or true. So, it is the agreements that seem (or supposedly) to work not necessarily the models, right? The tool of language is for the "agreements" and neither a tool nor useful for either the models or the objective truth, if any; post modernism or not.
The only trouble is not having a method of tapping into and merging with Truth (ie. Shankara's Sat-Chit-Ananda or Truth-Consciousness-Bliss). The philolsophy is known as Advaita Vedanta and says that the entire universe is pure Consciousness, the ultimate Reality of existence. The method recommended for tapping into that is via mantras. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. In due time you will mege with "Truth" In-Itself.
this view already exists, its called instrumentalism, or pragmatism if you like, but i do like the 'closure' perspective on it, because thats what seems to be happening with the whole debate on truth, people just want 'closure', and are uneasy when things are 'up for debate'. As well as the fantastic 'closure' ;) of the ending 'two sides of the same coin'
A quality comment 👍 this one of yours although I may not agree wholly with the opinion expressed by it. Kudos on the fine comment; it's brief, crispy, civil, informative and has even got humour embedded within it!
10 minutes in but I already find 3-4 of his major arguments not very convincing... That there are largescale disputes about what objective truth is hardly means it doesn't exist; further I would suspect a far greater convergence between those various thinkers on questions like whether we should arbitrarily torture children. There is a lot that interpolation can do to arrive at consensual commonsense morality beneath the surface that is widely serviceable. He also claims scientific theories are contextual such that the "facts" that emerge are perspectival. This seems a likely overstraining of some small epistemic point. QM and Relativity, verified to many digits of precision, are only "perspectival" in the most tautologous and quotidian senses of the word. And he suggests in a similar vein that postmodernism, emerging out of Enlightenment critiques, is merely an organic development. Again this is both beside the point but also elides that postmodernism may simply over-weight a constellation of concerns even if it has sane antecedents. It's that mal-weighting with which we are now coming to terms. (It could be held that all bad ideas organically arise out of better ones lol, their genesis hardly being exculpatory if they represent a rancid falling off into a perfidious ocd.) -- Okay by the end, this guy ends up at a more intelligent and humanistic place. There are still problems with the subjectivism of his argument, like how is it that two humans can assert the existence of a desk through their separate experience of qualia. That would seem to suggest an objective outer "truthful" world to graph, so I'm sure he must address this somewhere... The problem is the West is currently beset by the pathology of postmodernism and relativism tearing everything down -- without the salvific approach or saving throw that he makes here at the end. The nihilism is everywhere, and very few are making this more life-affirming statement of an approach between the maps in our brains and reality. (But he seems to hold the latter does not exist.)
Objective Truth: Since only That which is can either affirm or deny that there either is or is not That which is, there is That which is. Since there is That which is, there is not that which is that is other than That which is, for if there was something other, it would still be That which is, that we merely Call 'other'. Therefore, That which is, is all-inclusive. Since That which is, is all-inclusive, there is no other. Therefore, what appears as other is in Reality the Wholeness of the all-inclusive serving as the Continuum of Being functioning as a diversified unity of Creative Intelligence (potential), actualizing as a unified diversity or Uni-verse, and is thus, the one Absolute Being in which all relative beings live, move and have their being, the all in one in all. We are all It to an unknowable/inexhaustible extent. The facets of a diamond are distinct from each other 'and' are the diamond itself. Namaste'!
He says he’s not an idea list, but then he gives his flags in the wind example which sounds like the very basis for Idealism, simply that our perceptions are effects of some external cause to which we have no access.
Knowledge is perspectival doesn't mean one isn't more probabilistic true than the other. Everyone knows this intuitively. That's why no one pays attention to sparring philosophers. It doesn't matter man
The word "closure" is probably too strong for me. There is no closure, in an impenetrable, closed system sense. Because there is always the possibility of new evidence, which challenges an existing paradigm (Kuhn). Then the next thing comes along. There is a world outside, external to our conceptual boxes. I bet the folks at the LHC would like to find something different, that doesn't confirm what they already know, from the standard model. It is in the "anomalies", where the breakthroughs (or refinements) in science, often comes about.
Or we could simply say that truth T is simply the best program P to model target world W for hardware H? If two programs, P1 and P2, aims to implement some W on H, and P1 is better than P2 for H due to some measure M, then program P1 is more T than P2 for H due to M. So if H wants to install a P to model some part of W, say nuclear physics NP, H might choose to install the Structured Atomic Model SAM rather than the Standard Model SM, because SAM might explain/predict the relevant parts of NP in W for H better than SA as measured by M.
The noun "pen" is not an undecideable Kantian synthetic apriori proposition, like either the "Queen" subject, containing the predicate "of some territory", or "0", the matter numeral subject, containing the predicate "is the idea number zero". Also, there is no substantive explanation for the transformation between potential and kinetic energy for more electron ergodic motion associated with a neuron disturbance, because the energy conservation law : total physical system energy is constant, is accepted as adequate, where law is a generalization of some relationship in the past tense used for naive prediction, which may be supported by an epistemological refutation of god.
The foundation of absolute objective truth is that only your Maker can perfectly cover for you Himself and remake you again from the inside out by the power of His true word as no one else can. There is no other absolute truth.
Let me just quote Timothy Williamson, as my own objection to Lawson's view is not very different from his: "Lawson wants logic without truth. In rejecting truth, he takes himself to be relying on logically valid arguments. But the standard account of logical validity is in terms of truth: for an argument to be logically valid is for the truth of its premises to require the truth of its conclusion (exactly what ‘requires’ means here can be spelt out in different ways, which we needn’t go into). Without truth, there is no logical validity in the standard sense. Of course, Lawson might try to understand logical validity in truth-independent terms. Others have attempted to do so, though with little success. Lawson seems not to recognize that his project of keeping logic while dumping truth faces this massive challenge-like keeping the molecules while dumping the atoms they are made of. Similar problems arise for Lawson’s assumption that after he has dumped truth he can still have ‘learning’ and ‘rigorous rational and empirical principles’. Rigour gets its significance from an attempt to exclude various kinds of error. But, for Lawson, there are no errors. For error involves falsity, and for Lawson there is no falsity, since there is no truth. By his post-realism, we cannot learn from our errors, because we never make any. If only!"
i do not see a practical difference between the idea that our scientific theories describe objective realty and the more explanatory and predictive power a theory holds the better the the theory describes objective reality and the idea that what we perceive is just a reaction to reality
Yeah. Okay. Engineering and technology indisputably demonstrates the general objectivity of scientific observations and theory. If it's not truly "out there" then you certainly don't want to depend on the physics of your next air flight. And, "I just don't think it's like it's the way we think" is a completely unsubstantiated claim. What a load. (I would love to hear Sabine Hossenfelder's response to this.)
It's rather strange to start a conversation about "truth" and use the same word to describe absolutely different situations and definitions and contexts. A politician's ( or a religious or pious (wo)man) "truth" can easily be related and deconstructed to ideology, fear, self interest, strategy etc. But if a man says this a wall when he sees a wall and anpther says no this is jelly ..and another says this is an assemblage of bricks covered by cement and paint ...the wall will remain a wall ..and you could neither traverse it without hurting yourself ..nor can you change its consistency. There is a very instructive and analytic book by late french philosopher Jacques Bouveresse ( actually all his books dig around the matter of truth) " ne pas croire ? Sur la vérité, la croyance et la foi " ( can we: "not believe" . On truth, belief and faith)
@@spiralsun1The metaphors aren't an end in themselves. The 'point' is communication of ideas, surely? It doesn't feel opposite to me. More of a refinement, extension, an update for the 21st century. It's concise, and addresses the conflict I've wanted a resolution to for years! I remember a uni friend, so smug when he discovered Derrida. I just found it infuriatingly pointless.
It’s a cultural problem. Every culture has its own values and morals, and subcultures within these with their own. Problem begins when these cultures start to interact with each other, now, with the invention of the internet,, they are all interacting. Question is…will all the worlds cultures allow each other’s truths, or will we tear each other apart?
We should start from the living cells at their atomic level, including our neural cells. There is this pre-programing and external control that makes our life in this world. Atoms do not move and act like that based on physical or chemical reactions. So, our life and consciousness are external to our body's atoms (if our bodies are not just another simulation) as the atoms do not know or care if we are alive or not. In other words, all things point to an external creator who created our consciousness and everything we sense, feel and get the motive to act. He is one master for everything starting from time, space, matter, energy, waves, fields, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, ...etc.
Claiming that "truth" is a theological notion is flatly incompetent. This blunder cannot be overstated. Aristotle gives the best recorded origin for objective knowledge and truth by excluding contradiction. Contradiction is objectively wrong. Concepts that are shown to be free of contradiction are objectively correct, true, and "ultimately real" in the most practical sense possible. Lawson should have bothered to learn math and logic.
@@PedroPereira-si3sy primarily math. Math is a language of logic whereby mathematical expressions are required to exclude contradiction. Excluding contradiction is the single basis for math. The better you can describe an idea mathematically, the better knowledge you can claim about it. This is why math is a vital tool for science.
@@oversquare6625 I do not think you are correct, you have Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. You have Tarski's undefinability theorem, which states that arithmetical truth cannot be defined in arithmetic. And you have Turings machine halting problem, which states that there are mathematic theories that are not decidable. Aristotle was a very intelligent person, but he lived more than 2000 years ago.
@@PedroPereira-si3sy It is simple to ascertain directly for yourself that you are incorrect. It is an objective fact that 1+1=2. I.e., it is an objective truth. 1+1=3 resolves in a contradiction and is therefore objectively wrong. These two facts contradict your claim by the same enduring standard set by Aristotle more than 2000 years ago. There are three obvious errors in your propositions/arguments: 1 - Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems only implies that humans can never have complete knowledge. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion. 2 - Tarski's undefinability theorem only applies to a case where one might try to use arithmetic to define an arithmetical truth. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion. 3 - The halting problem only applies to descriptions of arbitrary computer programs paired with inputs. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion.
@@oversquare6625 i understand your point, but i do not agree. But please understand that's my knowledge is limited, but i like the debate :) What you say of 1+1=2 is not a truth. It is a construction: a conceptual function to assist humans to interact with our perceived reality. i do think there are no unities in the universe, there is no object who's limits are completely sure, as all existing as sort of a vibration, tending all limits to infinity (not being infinite, but being function, never hold a rigorous number). Some parts more, enough to create an perceived thing, and sometimes less, and not being perceived by us humans. As such, i claim, that 1+1=2 is not true. Except inside your mind.
Looking at the definition, in that to Post Modernism reality is subject to change, I see the likes of Donald Trump as the ultimate Post Modernist and I reject that philosophy completely. Reality does not change, only perception of reality can change or be false in the first place. Life is a sensory exploration experience. Our perception of reality is achieved through our senses, and perception is dependent on our cognitions, our interpretations of the senses. I think that this is what Hilary is clumsily attempting to say. Our connection with reality has many levels, most of which are extremely practical. We walk on the ground, it has shape and affects how we walk, we all experience this the same way. We eat food and it sustains us, we all experience this reality. However we see a color, red, and it can steer our thoughts and actions dependent on how we choose to think. To some red means rust .. which must be cleaned, to some it means blood … which must be feared or contained, to some it means excitement and adventure .. which gives delight. Regardless of our cognitive interpretation, the reality is that there is red. To a scientist/engineer reality is hard rigid unchanging and predictable. To an artist reality is selectively useful, to a post modernist politician/con artist reality is a hindrance. So where does closure fit into that highly selective world construct? It all depends on ones connection with, and use for reality.
I agree, we can only grasp a "working knowledge" based on our personal experiences and the transmitted information of our "trusted group". But it all starts from the programming of the trillions of trillions of trillions of atomic Sodium/Potassium pumps firing in our brains every second to give us the image of our world and our position inside it.
Well he is saying that to name something is a form of closure , and that we need ,that closure to understand something, but that closure is just a collectively agreed description and not what is real.
Gravity, time and space in combo function as weak or no forces in temporal life predicament and we have seen how enormous the force created by this simple weak dimension is. We have seen the enormous change in energy of nuclear exploration and also the acceleration of the universe on a larger scale into a very huge expansion. However, the reverse or the return of energy to matter almost invisible and which we hear about, and also the de-acceleration of the universe to contraction. All of this, gravity, time and space on the combo that works and warps where appropriate. The geology which also works the same underground can be seen on the enormous development of the change at the surface. Fact-based truth is always to be found and further investigation to make the predicament of temporal life ("touch and go" or "born and die") work.
It might be useful to consider instead of the trouble with truth which there is none, the trouble with lying which there is an infinity of. I will put here a three part sentence which is among the truest sentences to be, and each part or combinations of, are impossible to be true because of the trouble with lying. The three part sentence is a most direct human to human contact, and as a consequence is to be considered a flirting linguistic method structure, which is precisely why it is one of the truest sentences to be. Applied accordingly to anyone's corresponding state of being, the sentence is this... (You are beautiful, I really like you, and I want to sleep with you.) The trouble with lying makes this most true sentence, impossible to be true, as each separate part or as a whole three part sentence. There will never be trouble with truth, only trouble with lying.
The creative nothing. “The Unique and Its Property “, Max Stirner, 1844/2017 Landstreicher translation. “ I have set my affairs on nothing.” Few dare this.
Isn't the idea of giving up on finding ultimate truth, is itself, a ultimate truth claim? Is this geezer omniscient, that he can devour all of man's future time to know, that statement is correct?
Hello to all and good Night. What is this troubles with true. Look what I am seeing Watching this serie,'B' actualy this bad taste laywer caricature Who say Je look at sky billion STUFF but he Pick that and that it's a Tools. To make it real, he say this true and framework, yes I give so mutch to Humanity, and I love saying true and Watching All of you who realy are the purpesous of Why I came here. To anniling the élites, destruction of Scottish RITE, no hard feeling your only one Creator Who Will completly destroy those élites Who Are planning war, killing people Who juste whant a good simple Life. Too mutch young people Will not even have Time to be love by some one because those Who love Cash, Blood death of the mass to those I Will be no Mercy, Blood in Blood out philippe 😎 your worst ennemis
The earth is expanding at 16 feet per second per second constant acceleration or 1/770,000th its SIZE. Many years- 300,000?- of human thought has failed to realize Galilean relative motion has the earth approaching the released object. Even more- 20? billion- brains have “ missed the boat” including these ‘ esteemed guests,” “You can’t handle the truth.” Laugh.
Absolute (objective) truth is dual to relative (subjective) truth -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Thesis is dual to anti-thesis creates the converging thesis or synthesis -- the time independent Hegelian dialectic. Mind (the internal soul, syntropy) is dual to matter (the external soul, entropy) -- Descartes. "Always two there are" -- Yoda.
A view eminently compatible with the Copenhagen interpretation. And a worthy continuation of Darwin's insight. Poor old Dick Dawkins, that petrified reactionary.
What did you think of this talk? Do you agree with Hilary Lawson's view of our reality? Leave a comment below.
Discover more of our philosophy content at: iai.tv/player?TH-cam&
Excellent and very helpful/stimulating. Thanks 🙏🏻 🥰
According to his view there is no reality lol.
This content is for mature, well grounded adults. Young people are confused enough already.
We never arrive! but we must continue using observation and reason to achieve a “better understanding”.. A very good paradigm from Professor Hilary Lawson. Well done Professor, and thanks iai for producing and broadcasting this interesting and useful video.
Actually we can arrive. But then the real work begins 🤔 so… 😂🤷♀️
Keff akbarak hajji?
I use decision in much the same way as Professor Larson uses closure. The world is so many possible things, and simultaneously so, the place to land one's thoughts seems impossibly difficult. How can one ever be right about anything?
We discover right at the point of decision. This is where truth is to be found. We decide, we act, and we work as hard as we can to make our truth work for us in the world.
There is no problem with post modernism, nor is there a problem with fixed belief. The problem is with unkind-ness. Because falsehood lies in believing one can hold any truth while walking on the backs of others.
We all must start from our pre-programed brains and at the level of its countless atoms firing millions of times per second generating neural signals to give us sense and to dictate our responses.
The answer is that ‘rightness’ does not belong to the individual.. It is an aspect of the nature of reality, and therefore a universal phenomenon..
A highly engaging and thought provoking presentation. Really enjoyed this, thanks.
Truth is like the speed of light - no matter how close you get, you'll never get there all the way, there'll always be another decimal place between you and completion.
That's a good analogy, and I agree with it in the realm of empirical science. But we can reach the absolute truth in formal logic or in mathematics - like in the common example 2 + 2 = 4 (or 5 + 7 = 12, if you're into Kant). If the premises are satisfied and the reasoning is logically valid, a mathematical theorem is true - really true, not just approximately true. In the geometry of a flat surface, the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal. There is no way around that.
Is that statement true?
Truth Is That Which Exists; Objective Truth Is A Comprehensive Participant To The Subject Of Discussion. A Perspective Is A Translated Interpretation Of That Truth.
Excellent perspective and articulation! One point of pushback @14:00 . Lawson unfortunately mischaracterizes Idealism as an ontology which believes reality is only in the heads or minds of individuals and that there is no objective reality. This is fundamentally untrue of Idealism. Modern Physicalism and a reductionism of consciousness into brain activity is actually the ontology which believes reality is all in your head, or my head, or the head of a dog, etc. Idealism believes mind is fundamental, not that mind is all that there is. Mind gives rise to the "objectivity" of the subjective reality we experience. For a more nuanced, complete and elegant presentation of Idealism, check out what Bernardo Kastrup and/or The Essentia Foundation has to say.
I was thinking the exact same thing at that point! I also felt a strong familiarity with the ideas in this presentation and those of Analytic Idealism.
@@jb_ Yes! It's quite common to connect sound ideas about reality to Idealism. Haha. It's undeniably the best choice of ontology based on modern knowledge that I can think of. Although I've been feeling sorry for dualism. Why are we all so obsessed with a monism? And what if a monism could be committed as a monism of a fundamental relationship instead of a solitary fundamental substance. Thoughts?
I thought the same as well but I knew what he meant. Idealism is just not the right word for it lol
Truth is whatever is the case...the epistemic problem has nothing to do with what is the case. Subjective experiencing is objectively true, it's real!
The human problem on knowledge is not about truth but rather about shelf's and what fits what.
I would like to finish with a tautology on the Ontology of Phenomenology:
Dreams are real dreams!
The word of Truth is ever faithful/isomorphic to Reality (That which is).
To put it simply, Lawson is talking about what science and research is (trying to find observable reality), and it's ultimately rooted in human perception. Truth is a human concept and is not actually there.
There still needs to be a common goal we need to strive to that will select what patterns we should dig into and what stuff we should dig out of these patterns. There is limitless pool of patterns to explore, but there is very limited scope of patterns pursuing which does not end brief journey of intelligence in this sandbox of ours but rather improves the sandbox according to our specifications. We need to decide what is life , then we can try to decide what is good for life and what is bad for life and pursue the good. We cannot be a kid on the beach, just picking random seashells and enquiring, we are too powerful to be kids, there are seashells that end in hydrogen warheads in silos and in weaponized viruses. Its time to grow up. The biggest evil of postmodernism is not that it rejects possibility of any truth, but that it rejects possibility of useful "truths" and harmful "truths", but defining all of possible "truths" useful is not better ,imo. Our reach is already way beyond our grasp.
Honesty is the Ultimate Truth.
In physics these are called "models" and in social sciences "lenses".
Excellent. Am so glad this was posted. Very appreciative of this summary of his theory. I have been listening back to Hilary's talks and contributions on IAI all year. I must say, I am quite sympathetic to his view.
So basically Post Modernism with extra steps
That is why we have a left brain and right brain for Closure. 2 sides of the same coin.
Human existence is a never-ending dance between closure/truth/order/application and openess/perspective/chaos/seeking. I've been thinking about the series "The Leftovers" a lot lately....which is about this very thing. Then this pops up in my feed! Love it!
I believe it's not just humans, it's a fundamental dychotomy of reality. I think you can see this dychotomy reflected in all complex life forms. All nervous systems with a brain we know of are organized asymmetrically, with two functionally distinct hemispheres, and my intuition tells me that's biology's way to adapt to this fundamental contraposition, one half to deal with order, the other to deal with chaos
It is ironic....so many red flags on this talk...
So, truth exists, but we can never really know it fully, due to the limitations of our existence. But, it is still worthwhile to use reason and other tools to understand reality, because we get better and better at it.
Yes
well... the models/concepts of 'truth' or in this context 'ultimate truth' exist in our minds. sadly in this talk, 'post modernism' gets unnecessarily reduced to a grotesque caricature, followed by a not so new method of approach which itself is very post-modern. it's a bit weird.🙂
Don't expect a really new approach 8n some video. When such things happen it is a line genius publishing a short paper or book
Truth is more subjective than objective ........ Truth is the middle way of knowing not being both subjective & objective realities of Being existence...... According to Buddhism ........
If your worldview denies knowledge, that should raise a red flag.
His appeal to neurons firing is assuming neurons, ironically.
If you try to find nothing you will find everything and if you try to find everything you will find nothing.
The self-referential paradoxes Lawson discusses obtain only if reality is naturalistic and truth a passive entity to be discovered. It is only on the naturalistic hypothesis that knowledge is all about neuron firing, and so on.
But if reality is theistic then truth is personal and intentional, wishing for and building a relationship with us. To use Lawson's metaphor, here the wind is moving the flags purposefully towards the truth. If theism is true then knowledge is not just about a large number of neurons firing.
Incidentally, like many other modern philosophers as well as most physical scientists, Lawson seems to conflate physics with metaphysics. Physical theories expressed in equations describe patterns present in physical phenomena; they do not describe reality. The physical sciences do not describe reality but only a part of phenomenal reality, they describe reality as it seems to us and not as it is. And it is not the case that newer scientific theories falsify older ones; so for example Einstein's general relativity simply describes a deeper and more general pattern present in physical phenomena than Newtonian mechanics. We still teach and use Newtonian mechanics all the time; so it is rather evident that Newtonian mechanics has not been falsified.
Outstanding
This video is probably going to blow up into the recommended videos of people like me who like watching long and thought-provoking videos, so I just want to put here that the view count is currently 1,083 and this video was released 7 hours ago.
Its 9000 after 3 month. Probably reached its natural limit.
@@firstal3799 A video's viewcount can flatline and then suddenly surge at the whim of Al Gorithm
Yes. I meant in terms of potential audience
Everyone else is watching American idol
By the way if someone didn't yet I am putting a name on what I meant about Truth up there, it is Hyper Realism!
Instead of debating Truth versus false value. I am placing everything with True value with the caveat of things being separated by Domains of operations like Checkers and Chess.
The idea that something is false springs from the same very mistake of believing Nothingness is something. Well it isn't!
Excellent lecture.
Hard disagree
In functional programming languages (different that procedural languages) a closure is the combination of a function with an environment in which it was created.
Is a combination of any two any better since it still doesn't connect with anything out there? Our models might seem to work approximately, not because they are true or real but because a collective agrees to use it to get something out of it, which are also just agreements and neither real or true. So, it is the agreements that seem (or supposedly) to work not necessarily the models, right? The tool of language is for the "agreements" and neither a tool nor useful for either the models or the objective truth, if any; post modernism or not.
This is great, getting close!
The only trouble is not having a method of tapping into and merging with Truth (ie. Shankara's Sat-Chit-Ananda or Truth-Consciousness-Bliss). The philolsophy is known as Advaita Vedanta and says that the entire universe is pure Consciousness, the ultimate Reality of existence. The method recommended for tapping into that is via mantras. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. In due time you will mege with "Truth" In-Itself.
this view already exists, its called instrumentalism, or pragmatism if you like, but i do like the 'closure' perspective on it, because thats what seems to be happening with the whole debate on truth, people just want 'closure', and are uneasy when things are 'up for debate'. As well as the fantastic 'closure' ;) of the ending 'two sides of the same coin'
A quality comment 👍 this one of yours although I may not agree wholly with the opinion expressed by it. Kudos on the fine comment; it's brief, crispy, civil, informative and has even got humour embedded within it!
@@Arunava_Gupta thanks!
@@Arunava_Gupta also feel free to express your disagreement
How to know if you are evil in one easy step.
Ask yourself if there should be more or less censorship.
But all the Nazis claim to be for freedom of speech Crush.
No
By that you make entire human race evil.
10 minutes in but I already find 3-4 of his major arguments not very convincing...
That there are largescale disputes about what objective truth is hardly means it doesn't exist; further I would suspect a far greater convergence between those various thinkers on questions like whether we should arbitrarily torture children. There is a lot that interpolation can do to arrive at consensual commonsense morality beneath the surface that is widely serviceable.
He also claims scientific theories are contextual such that the "facts" that emerge are perspectival. This seems a likely overstraining of some small epistemic point. QM and Relativity, verified to many digits of precision, are only "perspectival" in the most tautologous and quotidian senses of the word.
And he suggests in a similar vein that postmodernism, emerging out of Enlightenment critiques, is merely an organic development. Again this is both beside the point but also elides that postmodernism may simply over-weight a constellation of concerns even if it has sane antecedents. It's that mal-weighting with which we are now coming to terms. (It could be held that all bad ideas organically arise out of better ones lol, their genesis hardly being exculpatory if they represent a rancid falling off into a perfidious ocd.)
--
Okay by the end, this guy ends up at a more intelligent and humanistic place. There are still problems with the subjectivism of his argument, like how is it that two humans can assert the existence of a desk through their separate experience of qualia. That would seem to suggest an objective outer "truthful" world to graph, so I'm sure he must address this somewhere...
The problem is the West is currently beset by the pathology of postmodernism and relativism tearing everything down -- without the salvific approach or saving throw that he makes here at the end. The nihilism is everywhere, and very few are making this more life-affirming statement of an approach between the maps in our brains and reality. (But he seems to hold the latter does not exist.)
Objective Truth:
Since only That which is can either affirm or deny that there either is or is not That which is, there is That which is.
Since there is That which is, there is not that which is that is other than That which is, for if there was something other, it would still be That which is, that we merely Call 'other'. Therefore, That which is, is all-inclusive.
Since That which is, is all-inclusive, there is no other. Therefore, what appears as other is in Reality the Wholeness of the all-inclusive serving as the Continuum of Being functioning as a diversified unity of Creative Intelligence (potential), actualizing as a unified diversity or Uni-verse, and is thus, the one Absolute Being in which all relative beings live, move and have their being, the all in one in all. We are all It to an unknowable/inexhaustible extent. The facets of a diamond are distinct from each other 'and' are the diamond itself. Namaste'!
He says he’s not an idea list, but then he gives his flags in the wind example which sounds like the very basis for Idealism, simply that our perceptions are effects of some external cause to which we have no access.
Knowledge is perspectival doesn't mean one isn't more probabilistic true than the other. Everyone knows this intuitively. That's why no one pays attention to sparring philosophers. It doesn't matter man
Hokus Pokus?
The word "closure" is probably too strong for me. There is no closure, in an impenetrable, closed system sense. Because there is always the possibility of new evidence, which challenges an existing paradigm (Kuhn). Then the next thing comes along. There is a world outside, external to our conceptual boxes.
I bet the folks at the LHC would like to find something different, that doesn't confirm what they already know, from the standard model. It is in the "anomalies", where the breakthroughs (or refinements) in science, often comes about.
Why do highly intelligent people think if you build on solid foundations you can’t progress. Instead we build more mazes?
Wonderful. A glimpse with a potential to foster sanity. Just this understanding alone could resolve most conflicts in our world.
Or we could simply say that truth T is simply the best program P to model target world W for hardware H? If two programs, P1 and P2, aims to implement some W on H, and P1 is better than P2 for H due to some measure M, then program P1 is more T than P2 for H due to M. So if H wants to install a P to model some part of W, say nuclear physics NP, H might choose to install the Structured Atomic Model SAM rather than the Standard Model SM, because SAM might explain/predict the relevant parts of NP in W for H better than SA as measured by M.
A fact is a pattern that can help you do something.
The noun "pen" is not an undecideable Kantian synthetic apriori proposition, like either the "Queen" subject, containing the predicate "of some territory", or "0", the matter numeral subject, containing the predicate "is the idea number zero".
Also, there is no substantive explanation for the transformation between potential and kinetic energy for more electron ergodic motion associated with a neuron disturbance, because the energy conservation law : total physical system energy is constant, is accepted as adequate, where law is a generalization of some relationship in the past tense used for naive prediction, which may be supported by an epistemological refutation of god.
The foundation of absolute objective truth is that only your Maker can perfectly cover for you Himself and remake you again from the inside out by the power of His true word as no one else can. There is no other absolute truth.
Jordan Peterson comes to mind in this conversation....
Brilliant preaching sir!
The thumbs up is for the word “preaching”. Yep. Choose your religion: life or death.
📍28:45
Let me just quote Timothy Williamson, as my own objection to Lawson's view is not very different from his:
"Lawson wants logic without truth. In rejecting truth, he takes himself to be relying on logically valid arguments. But the standard account of logical validity is in terms of truth: for an argument to be logically valid is for the truth of its premises to require the truth of its conclusion (exactly what ‘requires’ means here can be spelt out in different ways, which we needn’t go into). Without truth, there is no logical validity in the standard sense. Of course, Lawson might try to understand logical validity in truth-independent terms. Others have attempted to do so, though with little success. Lawson seems not to recognize that his project of keeping logic while dumping truth faces this massive challenge-like keeping the molecules while dumping the atoms they are made of.
Similar problems arise for Lawson’s assumption that after he has dumped truth he can still have ‘learning’ and ‘rigorous rational and empirical principles’. Rigour gets its significance from an attempt to exclude various kinds of error. But, for Lawson, there are no errors. For error involves falsity, and for Lawson there is no falsity, since there is no truth. By his post-realism, we cannot learn from our errors, because we never make any. If only!"
"Anarchic chaos" is an oxymoron
i do not see a practical difference between the idea that our scientific theories describe objective realty and the more explanatory and predictive power a theory holds the better the the theory describes objective reality and the idea that what we perceive is just a reaction to reality
Yeah. Okay. Engineering and technology indisputably demonstrates the general objectivity of scientific observations and theory. If it's not truly "out there" then you certainly don't want to depend on the physics of your next air flight.
And, "I just don't think it's like it's the way we think" is a completely unsubstantiated claim. What a load. (I would love to hear Sabine Hossenfelder's response to this.)
Is a rapprochement between Analytic and Continental Philosophy the way out?
Knowledge is a sample of objective reality stored within an agent, and perception is the compression(lossy) algorithm.
Very interesting. Thank you!
Same, "old faces" ... nobody new ... no new ideas ...
It's rather strange to start a conversation about "truth" and use the same word to describe absolutely different situations and definitions and contexts.
A politician's ( or a religious or pious (wo)man) "truth" can easily be related and deconstructed to ideology, fear, self interest, strategy etc.
But if a man says this a wall when he sees a wall and anpther says no this is jelly ..and another says this is an assemblage of bricks covered by cement and paint ...the wall will remain a wall ..and you could neither traverse it without hurting yourself ..nor can you change its consistency.
There is a very instructive and analytic book by late french philosopher Jacques Bouveresse ( actually all his books dig around the matter of truth) " ne pas croire ? Sur la vérité, la croyance et la foi " ( can we: "not believe" . On truth, belief and faith)
How one can speak for so long without saying anything of substance remains a mystery
👏 👏 👏
So is it 'true' that we can't get to truth? He said we have to deconstruct the deconstruction, but i didn't hear him do that to his own presentation
Well I think what he is saying applies to what he is saying,lol.
Absolutely fantastic. It's like Alan Watts without excessive metaphor.
Um…. I thought the whole point of Alan Watts WAS metaphor. 🤔 So maybe you should have said this was the opposite of Alan Watts? 😳🤷♀️
@@spiralsun1The metaphors aren't an end in themselves. The 'point' is communication of ideas, surely? It doesn't feel opposite to me. More of a refinement, extension, an update for the 21st century. It's concise, and addresses the conflict I've wanted a resolution to for years! I remember a uni friend, so smug when he discovered Derrida. I just found it infuriatingly pointless.
It’s a cultural problem. Every culture has its own values and morals, and subcultures within these with their own. Problem begins when these cultures start to interact with each other, now, with the invention of the internet,, they are all interacting. Question is…will all the worlds cultures allow each other’s truths, or will we tear each other apart?
Did this guy just discover Hegel?
I love this story
We should start from the living cells at their atomic level, including our neural cells. There is this pre-programing and external control that makes our life in this world. Atoms do not move and act like that based on physical or chemical reactions.
So, our life and consciousness are external to our body's atoms (if our bodies are not just another simulation) as the atoms do not know or care if we are alive or not.
In other words, all things point to an external creator who created our consciousness and everything we sense, feel and get the motive to act.
He is one master for everything starting from time, space, matter, energy, waves, fields, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, ...etc.
very inspiring talk
Wow! Thx for this insight
I disagree
Physicists already understand this since at least Fresnel and Einstein. But interesting to see how it applies to other fields as well.
Claiming that "truth" is a theological notion is flatly incompetent. This blunder cannot be overstated. Aristotle gives the best recorded origin for objective knowledge and truth by excluding contradiction. Contradiction is objectively wrong. Concepts that are shown to be free of contradiction are objectively correct, true, and "ultimately real" in the most practical sense possible. Lawson should have bothered to learn math and logic.
And what objects are free of contradiction then?
@@PedroPereira-si3sy primarily math. Math is a language of logic whereby mathematical expressions are required to exclude contradiction. Excluding contradiction is the single basis for math. The better you can describe an idea mathematically, the better knowledge you can claim about it. This is why math is a vital tool for science.
@@oversquare6625 I do not think you are correct, you have Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems.
You have Tarski's undefinability theorem, which states that arithmetical truth cannot be defined in arithmetic.
And you have Turings machine halting problem, which states that there are mathematic theories that are not decidable.
Aristotle was a very intelligent person, but he lived more than 2000 years ago.
@@PedroPereira-si3sy It is simple to ascertain directly for yourself that you are incorrect. It is an objective fact that 1+1=2. I.e., it is an objective truth. 1+1=3 resolves in a contradiction and is therefore objectively wrong. These two facts contradict your claim by the same enduring standard set by Aristotle more than 2000 years ago.
There are three obvious errors in your propositions/arguments:
1 - Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems only implies that humans can never have complete knowledge. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion.
2 - Tarski's undefinability theorem only applies to a case where one might try to use arithmetic to define an arithmetical truth. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion.
3 - The halting problem only applies to descriptions of arbitrary computer programs paired with inputs. That does not apply to the 1+1=2 case and so it is orthogonal to your proposition and conclusion.
@@oversquare6625 i understand your point, but i do not agree.
But please understand that's my knowledge is limited, but i like the debate :)
What you say of 1+1=2 is not a truth. It is a construction:
a conceptual function to assist humans to interact with our perceived reality.
i do think there are no unities in the universe, there is no object who's limits are completely sure, as all existing as sort of a vibration, tending all limits to infinity (not being infinite, but being function, never hold a rigorous number). Some parts more, enough to create an perceived thing, and sometimes less, and not being perceived by us humans.
As such, i claim, that 1+1=2 is not true. Except inside your mind.
Looking at the definition, in that to Post Modernism reality is subject to change, I see the likes of Donald Trump as the ultimate Post Modernist and I reject that philosophy completely. Reality does not change, only perception of reality can change or be false in the first place. Life is a sensory exploration experience. Our perception of reality is achieved through our senses, and perception is dependent on our cognitions, our interpretations of the senses. I think that this is what Hilary is clumsily attempting to say. Our connection with reality has many levels, most of which are extremely practical. We walk on the ground, it has shape and affects how we walk, we all experience this the same way. We eat food and it sustains us, we all experience this reality. However we see a color, red, and it can steer our thoughts and actions dependent on how we choose to think. To some red means rust .. which must be cleaned, to some it means blood … which must be feared or contained, to some it means excitement and adventure .. which gives delight. Regardless of our cognitive interpretation, the reality is that there is red. To a scientist/engineer reality is hard rigid unchanging and predictable. To an artist reality is selectively useful, to a post modernist politician/con artist reality is a hindrance. So where does closure fit into that highly selective world construct? It all depends on ones connection with, and use for reality.
I agree, we can only grasp a "working knowledge" based on our personal experiences and the transmitted information of our "trusted group". But it all starts from the programming of the trillions of trillions of trillions of atomic Sodium/Potassium pumps firing in our brains every second to give us the image of our world and our position inside it.
If only was that simple... there is no colour red.
but our brain simplistic interpretation of phenomena too complex for us to understand.
Well he is saying that to name something is a form of closure , and that we need ,that closure to understand something, but that closure is just a collectively agreed description and not what is real.
Like, I also agree that religion and science are 2 faces of the same coin!
Gravity, time and space in combo function as weak or no forces in temporal life predicament and we have seen how enormous the force created by this simple weak dimension is. We have seen the enormous change in energy of nuclear exploration and also the acceleration of the universe on a larger scale into a very huge expansion. However, the reverse or the return of energy to matter almost invisible and which we hear about, and also the de-acceleration of the universe to contraction. All of this, gravity, time and space on the combo that works and warps where appropriate. The geology which also works the same underground can be seen on the enormous development of the change at the surface. Fact-based truth is always to be found and further investigation to make the predicament of temporal life ("touch and go" or "born and die") work.
no mention of Nietzsche????!!!! you're paraphrasing him!!
The correct answer is that spirit exists.
Sure (whatever you may mean by that word).
@@ludvikkaaber3222 disembodied intelligences and the physics that governs such forms of existence.
“The Final Theory: Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy “, Mark McCutcheon.
Nobody's telling it
It might be useful to consider instead of the trouble with truth which there is none, the trouble with lying which there is an infinity of.
I will put here a three part sentence which is among the truest sentences to be, and each part or combinations of, are impossible to be true because of the trouble with lying.
The three part sentence is a most direct human to human contact, and as a consequence is to be considered a flirting linguistic method structure, which is precisely why it is one of the truest sentences to be.
Applied accordingly to anyone's corresponding state of being, the sentence is this...
(You are beautiful, I really like you, and I want to sleep with you.)
The trouble with lying makes this most true sentence, impossible to be true, as each separate part or as a whole three part sentence.
There will never be trouble with truth, only trouble with lying.
« I am not an idealist, I think there really is something out there, it’s not all in our head » - this guy doesn’t even understand idealism !
"truth is a theological concept" That's interesting
The creative nothing. “The Unique and Its Property “, Max Stirner, 1844/2017 Landstreicher translation. “ I have set my affairs on nothing.” Few dare this.
Isn't the idea of giving up on finding ultimate truth, is itself, a ultimate truth claim?
Is this geezer omniscient, that he can devour all of man's future time to know, that statement is correct?
NTS 20/nu
Bs
This was a very good talk. I think he summed things up very well, and I agree. He pegged it pretty good with the “inevitable gaps.” Very grounding
Hello to all and good Night. What is this troubles with true. Look what I am seeing Watching this serie,'B' actualy this bad taste laywer caricature Who say Je look at sky billion STUFF but he Pick that and that it's a Tools. To make it real, he say this true and framework, yes I give so mutch to Humanity, and I love saying true and Watching All of you who realy are the purpesous of Why I came here. To anniling the élites, destruction of Scottish RITE, no hard feeling your only one Creator Who Will completly destroy those élites Who Are planning war, killing people Who juste whant a good simple Life. Too mutch young people Will not even have Time to be love by some one because those Who love Cash, Blood death of the mass to those I Will be no Mercy, Blood in Blood out philippe 😎 your worst ennemis
The earth is expanding at 16 feet per second per second constant acceleration or 1/770,000th its SIZE. Many years- 300,000?- of human thought has failed to realize Galilean relative motion has the earth approaching the released object. Even more- 20? billion- brains have “ missed the boat” including these ‘ esteemed guests,” “You can’t handle the truth.” Laugh.
This is quite naive! Very naive!
Snake Pit Banana Complex Lever Levera Leverag Leverage Leverager Leveragera Leveragerae Leverageraen Leverageraenf Leverageraenfi Leverageraenfif Leveragenfifi Hera Serr Serra Serrae
So, Pyrrhonism, basically
waffle waffle waffle
B S
Youre not so smart if you don't know what a flag is.
Absolute (objective) truth is dual to relative (subjective) truth -- Hume's fork.
Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant.
Thesis is dual to anti-thesis creates the converging thesis or synthesis -- the time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Mind (the internal soul, syntropy) is dual to matter (the external soul, entropy) -- Descartes.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
Substantive human rights confederation religion kingship authority
Go back to the Bible
A view eminently compatible with the Copenhagen interpretation. And a worthy continuation of Darwin's insight. Poor old Dick Dawkins, that petrified reactionary.