Treasure Valley Podcast

Lol, had fun talking nonsense on the Treasure Valley Podcast. Thanks, Chuck & LowerGentry Studios for having me!

Also, I tricked Charles into doubling the length of the podcast by busting out my own set of questions after his! :D

#longestguest




www.lowergentrystudios.com

Balanced Training

There's a time to train, and there's a time to recover;
there's a time to learn, and there's a time to apply.

On Reading

I suppose I read for the same reasons I wear shoes and drive a car. I could live without those things, but not the same. I suppose the reasons others read vary as widely as choices of footwear and transportation. Exercise and parties may be a better analogy still.

A thought . . .

Defined Content in Theories As a Measure of Usefulness (rough draft)

The following is an idea about theories, assessing the issue that sometimes occurs where a theory becomes so encompassing that it loses some of the useful distinguishing qualities that presumably motivated the development of it, or the content of the theory is so vague and undefined that to know what the theory would mean is just to look at the world/thing it's referring to in order to gain insight- thus making the theory not as helpful as it was presumably intended to be; so I'm mostly attempting to identify an issue and speculate on some concerns of it. There may be a place for all-encompassing or vague theories, but I'm at least attempting to show how their usefulness differs, if not indeed lacking in usefulness. I haven't developed this idea as far as I think would be warranted for a full understanding, but it's a start and hopefully any mistakes are fewer than the insights. I might revise this idea in the future, so feel welcome to give feedback and criticism.

When theories are useful for our understanding of the world it is because there is a correlation between the theory and reality, and because there is information or criteria within the theory that is defined and the knowledge and understanding of which is transferable to our knowledge and understanding of the world. So a theory that wouldn't be useful for our understanding is one which has undefined information or criteria such that there is no understanding to be gained that translates to an understanding of the world. For example, when theories equivocate their content by defining it in reference to the content of the world then an understanding from the theory depends on knowledge of the information of the world and thus one's understanding is being formed by the world primarily and not the theory, thus making the theory not useful. This occurs when content is undefined, a classic example of which would be the Euthyphro problem- where the desired understanding ("what is good?") is given an undefined criteria ("whatever is loved by the gods"). This theory is not useful for understanding because it makes an identification (goodness with what is loved by the gods) without definition (is it good and therefore the gods love it, or do the gods love it and therefore it is good?; in other words, we're still left asking "what is good?").

I'm not saying that theories with undefined content or criteria are false, I'm just assessing usefulness. Mainly I'm addressing the issue that sometimes comes up when handling a theory where the theory becomes so encompassing by way of its referencing  that it approaches equivalency with the theorized object in consideration (the world, etc.), and thus it doesn't offer much of its own content except to refer to the object- thus knowing the theory is equal to knowing the object in terms of useful content. I'll give two examples of theories with contrasting ways of handling them just to illustrate this point; this is a theoretical comparison of a couple of ideas, I'm not asserting whether or not these topics necessarily fall into the problem I'll pose (it may be more a criticism of how they're handled, but certainly if they're posited in this problematic way then that instance of the theory would be subject to the same criticism). Before those examples (the way you might run into them academically), brief examples of ways people may commonly experience the type of thing I'm addressing (the way you might run into them popularly): someone saying something like "all communication is argument" or "everything is politics"; now, such statements shouldn't be readily dismissed merely for the scope of their claim, and there's often an element of truth to them. Sometimes the person saying it is just trying to imply the importance or breadth of that topic by showing how everything can be viewed through that lens, or how everything relates to that topic. But the difficulty that sometimes emerges with such types of statements is that a lack of distinction renders them less useful. If all communication is argument then to talk about communication is just to talk about argument, unless you specify that all communication is argument but that communication isn't only argument- to the extent there's no distinction it seems to make less sense (in terms of usefulness) to bring up such a point. Real quick- just to lay out some logic in a basic example, consider basketballs (bearing reasonable assumption):  all basketballs are round, but not all round things are basketballs. So on the topic of talking about a round thing it is useful to clarify that it is a basketball, but on the topic of talking about basketballs it is less useful to clarify that it is a round thing. However, even in clarifying that all basketballs are round it's the case, in this example, that all basketballs aren't only round- they also have other attributes such as color or size, which may differ. But insofar as all basketballs are round, the basketball is entirely round- but being all round doesn't excluding it from being something else in addition to round (red, blue, big, small, etc.). So to say all basketballs are round isn't to say all basketballs are the same.

Now on to two theories and examples of different handling (I'm not asserting that I'm representing these theories correctly, these are just examples for the sake of comparison; but the comparison should make sense regardless of the accuracy of representation). Take Evolution and Behaviorism for example; evolution dealing with biological adaptation to the relative environment and reproductive development, and behaviorism dealing with behavioral psychology with respect to reward and punishment. Now say, theoretically (i.e.- I'm making this up), that one were to posit evolution as the development of biological life with respect to lifespan and offspring, and behaviorism as the understanding of behavior with respect to the subject's preconceived or recalled assessment of an experience's effectual reward and punishment. With a bit of elaboration and assessment those two theories (as just posited) would be potentially useful given the defined content (lifespan and offspring; preconceived or recalled assessment of an experience's effectual reward and punishment) and criteria (development of biological life; understanding of behavior). The use of these theories as such would look something like- life is developing evolutionarily if and when their is an increase in length of lifespan or an increase in quantity of offspring (another example could be the sustaining of length of lifespan and quantity of offspring in relation to a changing environment); and, we're understanding behavior behavioristically if and when we know a subject's assessment of a behavior's potential reward and punishment and their inclination toward reward. So in these examples, these theories would be useful in that we can, on one hand, understand if a species is adapting to its environment (and thus whether it's tending toward extinction or expansion, or sustained) by measuring and comparing different points of lifespan length and offspring quantity; and on the other hand, understand the reason for one's behavior (and thus the likelihood of certain behavior with respect to the experience in consideration) by knowing the subject's assessment of an experience's outcome of reward and punishment, along with their inclination toward reward.

Taking the same topic of theory, but handling it in an undefined way, will show how such a theory is much less useful:  say we define evolution as the adaptive changes of biological life to its environment, and behaviorism as the understanding of behavior where one's choices are done for reward. When inquiring for understanding of the theories as to what defines "adaptive changes" or "reward" their usefulness as theories is diminished (or lost) when the answer is merely an unqualified reference to the very instance in consideration. It's all-encompassing in a way that doesn't offer insight into any part, or it's tautologous in a way that is necessarily true but useless. So if someone says that evolution is simply the occurrence of all changes between living things and the environment- that biology necessarily evolves in relation to the environment (and parts of the living thing in consideration might be considered as environmental causes to other parts of the living thing) because living things are composed with the environment and so for living things to reproduce they must do so compatibly with the environment and when there is incompatibility the living thing ceases to be sustained, and thus all life and evolution become connected- since you couldn't have a living thing that isn't evolved (since it would cease). Notice that the difference between this conception of evolution and the one theorized earlier is that this one is about adaption of a living thing to its environment (thus to be alive is to be adapted to some extent) and the other one was about some defining characteristics of adaption as they relate to reproduction and lifespan. In the mere adaption one you can have a living thing adapting to its environment (thus changing in a way that if it didn't change it would've died off) but still having a reduction in lifespan and offspring (thus the changes were sufficient to sustain life but not advantageously in comparison to its relation to the previous environmental factors); in the other theory the living thing in consideration is deemed to be evolving with respect to a sustaining or increase in lifespan or offspring. Both theories may be true, but their usefulness differs; to answer whether something is evolving for one is just to ask whether it's still living and reproducing at all with respect to environmental changes, to answer whether something is evolving for the other is contingent on (in this example) an increase in lifespan or offspring and thus some living things will be considered evolving and some not.

As for behaviorism, say it is posited that all behavior is done for reward. But pursuant to this assumption, in answering "what was this behavior done for?" it isn't debated as to whether what it was done for was a reward or not, but rather, being done for a reward, what was it done for since that is the reward. Thus "reward" becomes synonymous with the reality of whatever it is, in all circumstances, that anyone behaves the way they do for. And thus "reward" becomes as broad in definition as there are reasons for behavior. Although it seems very similar, there is a difference between saying that someone did something because it was rewarding (thus a defined or preconceived notion of reward; the reason for something that was done is compatible with what is, at least in that person, considered rewarding; this way of positing it doesn't preclude the possibility of doing something not for reward) and the reward for which someone did something is whatever the reason they did it for was (thus having done it for reward is a matter of necessity, not a matter of compatibility, since reward is being identified as equal to the reason for a behavior). So saying "everything is done for reward" doesn't become helpful because there isn't anything that isn't done for reward and the reward is just whatever anything is done for- which is presumably unique to each event and thus the theory has no common attribute.

Please note that I'm not attempting to over-exert myself for the perfect example comparison- I'm just attempting to offer two different aspects of a theory to show that when held in a certain way the theory isn't as useful (unless expanded in a way that includes the qualities of the more defined theory).

One of the qualities of a good theory with defined content is that the theory can be used for prediction and mechanistic identification; if there's a correlation between the theory and reality, and the theory has defined content, then when something in reality correlates to that defined content then the implications within the theory will have transitive application to understanding the instance of reality in consideration that the theory is being applied to. The defined content allows one to identify the association between the parts in the theory and the correlating parts of reality. Theories that are so undefined that they get all of their content from reality, or that are so encompassing that there's no distinguishing contrast, don't seem to then develop enough internal understanding that would then be clarifying in it's application to the world, the understanding will emerge in the perception of the information one gains from reality, but the usefulness that follows from this will be owing to the understanding developed from perceiving reality rather than from the conception of the theory. A possible exception might be if such a theory wasn't aimed at adding understanding but rather removing misunderstanding- so the example of saying all communication is argument may not be informative but may be clarifying by virtue of challenging the preconceived idea that there are types of communication that aren't argument (if such were the case).

The dual role of moral drive and intellectual consideration in one's decision making

[first posted 12/11/13]

The distinction between, or dual operation of, the moral and intellectual reasons for decisions and behavior. There's a sense in which we're rational and hold ourselves to it- even demanding intellectual understanding for things we might believe; I think there's also a moral dimension that drives our decisions and can include or not include intellectual understanding- a sense, whether intellectually verified or not, that we ought to behave in a certain way- either somewhat inherent or contingent- a natural moral sense or also a contingent moral sense which assessing that if something is true then it requires a certain moral behavior from me, which then may be acted upon even without intellectual understanding. One may be acting morally while still working out their intellectual understanding, and they may or may not continue their behavior based on the role they think intellectual understanding should play- but I at least think its a peculiar (at least to say not everyone takes account of and appreciation for the fact) aspect of being human (finite, temporal/in-time, yet rational) that we're sort of forced to make, or to forego, decisions about things we don't fully understand. So I think there is a role for moral and intellectual drive in our decision making process; or perhaps may be distinguished as moral drive and intellectual consideration- which then becomes part of our moral drive. I think one could then operate on one and not the other- one could be acting on moral (natural or contingent) drive while working out intellectual consideration/understanding; also, one may believe something (or understand) intellectually without acting on it morally (and I use "moral" somewhat loose, like ethical, but not excluding traditional sense of right/wrong, but including more- like ones contingent goals, or subjective/objective sense of duty, etc.). This would include someone intellectually having reason for something- exercising for health, recycling for ecology, etc., but not acting on it- perhaps not having moral reason for it, which seems almost ironic but this occurs and thus may suggest another element of decision making- that which affects our use of moral sense and intellectual consideration- our values. Thus you may sense or know something but not value it. The other consideration might be that someone who intellectually understands something but doesn't morally respond doesn't actually intellectually understand. So the relationship between moral drive and intellectual understanding may need to be further understood to assess how they correlate to decision making.
[. . . a thought; please take with a grain of salt, take it for what it's worth]

A thought on, but not full consideration of, the value of studying

[first posted 12/10/13]

Some consider knowledge and contemplation of the truth to be inherently valuable- that it is self-fulfillingly valuable. While I think that is a worthwhile consideration and aims at a higher role of knowledge and understanding (and thus study), the following is more of a consideration about the mediate role of studying, which would well include higher purposes of study, but is focused more on resolving, to an extent, mundane concerns, which would point one to the possible pursuit of further and higher considerations. The following is an idea I wrote out a little while back:

4/26/13     Part of my interest in studying is because of my sense that a lot of our time is wasted on dealing with solvable problems, which keeps us from putting our attention on life's bigger purposes- both personal and universal; it doesn't have to, we could have ourselves not be distracted by the various temporal issues in our life, though they remain, and in that regard I don't think extensive studying is a necessary interest for everyone to have, assuming a general sufficient ability for one to take care of their self without wasted attention- by desiring to focus on other things, and by hopefully having less temporal things to cause difficulty for them by the shared and trusted insight of one who studies and practices to master them to a degree. However, to the extent that a person chooses not to be distracted by such issues nor to put an effort to work toward understanding and mastering them, they may more likely be hindered to a degree in their natural efforts in, and attention to, bigger things. The problem, however, concerning wasted time on solvable problems, I believe is sometimes catalyzed by a moral dimension- that people use daily temporal issues to arrest their attention from bigger purposes, and do not desire to overcome, to a reasonable extent, these temporal issues so that they could then put attention on life's bigger purposes. This isn't to say that sometimes this issue isn't owing to ignorance or lack of means, or injustice, etc. "Temporal issues" generally I mean to refer to things we often consider a means to our ends- such as health (and thus diet, exercise, rest, mental, etc., the more temporal aspects of health, as opposed to social, spiritual, etc.), finances, politics, industry, etc.; and by "bigger purposes" generally I mean to refer to things that would be the ends of the temporal things of life (the things that are the ultimate reason for the other things we do), such as love, worship, one's calling/service (which may have its own bigger purpose but is the purpose of the things used for it), community/family, justice, etc. I'm not so much talking about specialized study which might pertain to a career/calling, but rather am generally talking about the effort to understand and improve one's temporal issues so that they don't actually end up taking away more effort and time by neglecting or being distracted by them. But unless a peculiar similar issue arise- becoming obsessed with temporal improvement, so that it ends up consuming more and providing less in the realm of bigger purposes than it would have otherwise, its important to engage in and pursue what matters (assuming it's true, good, and beautiful), and to occasionally ask "what am I living for?"

knowledge, perception, thoughts on deception, attempt at establishing a basis for objectivity

[first posted 06/18/12]

[all of the following was originally a response/thought comment on a post]:

Well there's a difference in discussing the truth or validity of a thing, which assumes your ability to know in some way and then whether you can know specifically the thing in question; it's another thing to attack knowability itself, the ability for any knowledge or truth, or perception of anything beyond one's self- the very assertion of which defies itself by speaking about something other than itself, and even elsewise would be admitting something about the nature of that person's self. There could be an honest confusion that the person thinks that because everything they know is something that, in order to know, comes TO THEM they therefore don't perceive it in anyway beyond their self and therefore have no confidence that it is anything beyond their self; but it would seem that any measure of discernment admits, rather demonstrates, that that isn't the case entirely- for if in seeing those things coming to you and not knowing if they were ever apart from you (for example "is this all just my imagination?") and thus not being able to solidify any of those things as objective truth then your doubt itself would be dismissed by the same means since it's something arising from you and how then could it be ANYTHING (objective) in its claim about your situation- it would never "be the case" that you couldn't know. It would seem the only way to really be deceived is to not have any ability whatsoever to discern your deception- because for the moment you suspect you're entirely deceived, if you are, you have become aware of one true and undeceived point- that you're deceived- and if that were true then why not just believe the opposite of everything you believe? But maybe you're only deceived about some things, but then now you're admitting that there are even more things you're not deceived about, and if deception is trickery and knowledge is not, then you must not be tricked into knowing things that are true but really know them and if that's the case then there is a genuine means by which you know the things you do know, and so you should be able to think of what those things are- not that you have full and exhaustive knowledge of the things you know, but you have knowledge of something of them (and something that is not reduceable to just being a part of you but the thing outside you that you're perceiving). This perception of something might be, from what I'm gathering, what Aquinas would call a perception of "Ens" a word meaning something like "being" but captures the notion of the thing itself, of its essence- so maybe you aren't necessarily so readily perceiving a whole lot of "what it is" but you readily regard something of "that it is"; I could be wrong, I'm new to Aquinas and what he thought.

Let me address preemptively two possible concerns- 1, what if the things I know are actually known by trickery and so there's still no legitimate method for knowledge? 2, what if it's a greater deception to think that I know I'm not deceived because of my awareness of deception, but I actually am deceived?

1, for this I just have a couple thoughts. You may accept a true conclusion but for false reasons. And, you may know a true conclusion but not see it as a conclusion and have no need for its reasons. Accepting a true conclusion but on the basis of its false reasons, and having no experience or true reason for the conclusion otherwise, it would seem you don't know that the thing you accept is true. But you do accept it, and so as soon as you act on it and it is verified then now you actually have reasons to know the thing you accepted. So say someone says a magical bird put a ball in a basket, and so you believe there is a ball in that basket; say there actually is a ball there, you accept that there's a ball there but only because you heard that the magic bird put one there- so your accepting it depends on the reason for why you think it's there, then you don't know its there. But say you act on this acceptance and open the box and there's a ball, well now (to the extent that you perceive the ball, and that it is a ball) you know its there, and now you can dismiss those false reasons and know it based on these true reasons (that it's a ball and you have truly perceived it). But say that a good friend or trusted relative, who doesn't usually intend to mislead you, has told you this same story about the bird to get you to accept that there's a ball in the basket. Now you're not merely accepting the conclusion by those reasons alone, but because of the reason for those reasons being suggested- the former reason being that this trusted person tells you things to lead you to true thoughts. Now you accept the conclusion with mixed reasons, one of which is reliable and the other not- one being because your trusted person told you and the other being the reasons they told you (the magic bird); let it be noted that the trusted person's emphasis was on the conclusion and so the implication in this communication was obvious that he was wanting the conclusion to be accepted albeit the reason given was fanciful and doesn't line up with common experience. So now in this case you accept a true conclusion, but not for reasons that logically imply it but which do strongly suggest it- your trusted person's explanation; here I might say that one doesn't know the ball to be there but believes it, and the validity of the belief is correlated to the integrity of the reason for the belief- but not logical reason but social/relational/authoritative/trust/etc. reasons; and say you come to realize the story that person gave is false but it is understood it wasn't intended strongly to be the thing to accept then you pass it by knowing the implication of the suggestion was to accept the conclusion- now your belief is the same, and the reason for it, but it has been clarified; so though that there is logical reason to believe the conclusion and it is given to you by the same person now that you've grown and can better understand, now your belief has been strengthened, and if truly logically implied then to the extent that the premises are known then you know the conclusion; the same can be said for if you directly experience the conclusion- you see the ball in the basket (in this case I'm not sure there could be a logical implication for a material situation like that, but an experiential one is plausible). More could probably be said but I'll leave it there for now.

On to the second point, you may know a true conclusion but not see it as a conclusion and have no need for its reasons. Here I'm basically just narrowing in on a specific point of the first explanation- that if you truly perceive the real thing then you have knowledge of it, at least that it is and from there you may distinguish many more things about it (at least "that it is" it is something, and not just you in this case, and you're perceiving it; let me make a note on hallucination, you may say "what if I think I see something that isn't really there, a hallucination" then I would suggest that the error arises at the point you take that thing to be "something else"- something associated with things other than you; "how do I know that everything isn't a hallucination?" if it were you couldn't know it- but the fact that we know that if it were you couldn't know it seems to suggest that we truly know something about it, which suggests that it is in fact something, and something to know and thus not a hallucination- in fact I think that in a hallucination everything would seem more real, that is that you would accept everything without distinction or qualification, because everything is only appearances and nothing is distinct from anything else as "being something" but is all one collective illusion whereby no discernment would have a foothold for criticism; perhaps this is why dreams seem "so real" until we wake up, but notice you're not questioning the reality of things in your dream when you're dreaming; so the fact that we do perceive ourselves as existing and as distinct and that things seem to differ in what they are and how we know them, that we don't accept everything at face value be try to perceive what things are and understand what things might just be personal sentiment, etc., seems to suggest that we live in a real world where we are different from the things around us, and they from each other, but we and they are related to others (and in many ways dependent, generally and materially speaking: food, shelter, water, etc., which may also suggest a distinction between ourselves and those things, that we change/suffer/benefit/etc. in part when we do or don't have certain resources, and if it were illusion- illusions aren't things that have properties in relation to each other, unless you suggest that psychologically we formulate those properties and thus those things have rules in our mind, in that sense I would hope we could perceive the difference but I'd also say that what if everything in this world is an expression of the mind of God with it's correlating properties allotted to those things?))2, I think I've already answered this but I'll say that if our conviction of the inability of deception by things we experience that we consider contrary to the nature of a deception is itself a deception- then this is not anything more extensive than just to recast the problem in a more complex way, that we are deceived and there's no way to know it, but even if we are to accept that notion as true we would have to admit that we know something about the situation or possibility of how things might be (that we're deceived) in which case we aren't totally deceived. So if you want to defeat the possibility of deception, just consider every possible notion of the conditions of deception and you've then demonstrated that the most fundamental quality of deception is not real- namely its being hidden from us. Say then "it may be possible that in some or any way whatsoever that I am ultimately deceived, even in thinking this, and this, and this, or any possible subsequent abstraction of this thought, and even of the whole consideration that I have just laid down, ad infinitum, and then after that, ad nauseam" and you demonstrate that your awareness can constantly pull down the veil of ultimate deception, but there will always be things outside those considerations you say? Well what about the notion that wherever your mind is (that previous thought experiment, for example, or anywhere else where the suspicion of deception is possible) ultimate deception is not.This does not mean that you can't have false ideas or be wrong- but it means you're wrong or false about something- that you don't know what is, by believing what's not; so although one may be false in this way, ultimate reality fails to be- false, and remains what it is.