How to destroy the validity of your own mind.

by Terry 56 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  Terry, what happened to 'common sense'? Many people are intellectual but do not have common sense. Where does common sense fit in? Why the neglect of common sense?

  We put down the lesser to reach for the greater.

  In the case of intellectual abandonment it is that simple. We abandon the practical (what exists in our hand) for the mere promise and expectation of something much better. The problem with that bargain is that our life runs out waiting. We hold nothing...in the meantime.

  JW's, at some point, look down at their empty hand and sigh.
  "I can't afford to quit now!"

  Like a losing gambler, they double their bet to break even.

  Time runs out.
• 

  Terry

  I dont think you can examine your thought process without using your thought process which in turn may be fatally flawed.
  
  As I cannot step out of my thought process.

  Stop a minute! YOU JUST DID!

  To be aware that your thought process may be flawed is recursive reasoning. You step outside.

  This is why science demands FALSIFIABILITY. You test against a standard and see how far off you are.

  How do we send little camera robots (Rover) to Mars if our thought process is mush?

  How have we catalogued DNA?

  The mind is as accurate as it is testable against reality.
• 

  thetrueone

  On studying nature, analytical-constructive reason (or reasoning) finally arrives at empty, abstract concepts of magnitudes, relations and forms. Mathematics is a product of pure reason. Thus at the end of the road down at the atom and sub-atom level reason sees itself in a mirror as it were. It seems that to "geometrical" (Pascal) reasoning the respective equations are what the empirical outer world "is." Not so to the mind as a whole. Logic is just its tool. Philosophy of Science investigates and explains the scientific method of gathering, measuring, counting, weighing, integrating, dematerializing observational data. Philosophy of Nature incorporates analytical reasons' last word in gnoseology. Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature have little to offer Philosophy of Religion in its quest for meaning.
• 

  jay88

  The introductory comments of the OP, brought to mind how JW's(WTBTS) project the "real life" as future conditions on earth. When did the Watchtower Society began using the term "real life" to mean "paradise earth"?

  and how loaded is that term "real life" when used within WT context?

  jay,
• 

  PSacramento

  I think that reality is just that, applicable to the reality we all live in and trying to "play around with it" is countr-productive for most people.

  That said, reality outside of our everyday existence tends to be highly subjective on a personal level and soemtimes beyond it.

  Philosophical questions work on that level, the level of subjective reality, not on the level of "concrete reality".

  Gravity is reality, how and why gravity is what it is and not something else, has nothing to do with relaity but everything to do with subjectivity.

  To say that reality is all there is is incorrect, BUT to say that reality as it is, isn't important is silly.
• 

  Terry

  Terry, you're absolutely right about 1914.

  Actually, does anyone doubt that if WW1 had started in 1915, 7million JWs would now believe Jerusalem was destroyed in 606.
  Either that or they would have called 1914 doctrines sincere hearted misguided eagerness...

  Originally it WAS 606 b.c.e.!! Poor Pastor Russell was ignorant of the fact there was no year zero!

  When this was finally pointed out---guess what? 606 B.C.E. just simply transformed overnight to 607 B.C.E. How?

  MAGIC! Actually, when you are using fake dates it is no problem.
• 

  Terry

  I think that reality is just that, applicable to the reality we all live in and trying to "play around with it" is counter-productive for most people.

  Reality is only one thing. There aren't many and various realities! Subjective belief, yes; reality? No.

  Reality is what is. It is accessible by all regardless of opinion or point of view.

  You can tell a blind person in a room there is a chair in the middle of his path. When he reaches the spot your words will either be proved true

  or false.

  Playing around with reality could only really be changing your mind opinion-wise. What we think does NOT impact on real things.

  You can, for example, think "this gun is not loaded". Go ahead and pull the trigger. That is Falsifiability! What happens within reality always has the last laugh on our opinion of reality.
• 

  PSacramento

  Reality is only one thing. There aren't many and various realities! Subjective belief, yes; reality? No.

  There is concrete reality and philosophicla reality and subjective reality.

  Reality is what is. It is accessible by all regardless of opinion or point of view.

  Yes.

  You can tell a blind person in a room there is a chair in the middle of his path. When he reaches the spot your words will either be proved true

  or false.

  Yes, but if he misses the chair, doe sit make reality false or his perception of reality false?

  Playing around with reality could only really be changing your mind opinion-wise. What we think does NOT impact on real things.

  Of course it does, how can you say it doesn't?

  Do you k now why we fly? because someone thought that, against reality, we could.

  You can, for example, think "this gun is not loaded". Go ahead and pull the trigger. That is Falsifiability! What happens within reality always has the last laugh on our opinion of reality.

  100 years ago the reality was the a "virgin birth" was NOT reality, and here we are now, in a different reality where, if a virgin wanted to have a child, she could, quite easily as a matter of fact.

  50 years ago, running the 100 under 10 seconds was not reality, no way it was humanly possible and yet, here we are in a time where running under 10 seconds is common place in elite level competition.

  Reality is subjective to our perception and our place in time.

  Certainly certian realites are concrete- we all die for example, yet we shouldn't believe for a minute that O UR reality of today will be the reality of tomorrow.
• 

  trevor

  Reality is absolute. What we call our subjective reality is really only our take on things, it is not actually reality. It is based upon the often faulty view of life that is uniquely and peculiarly ours. Reality can change but only within the laws that govern it.

  If a man believes he can fly and jumps of a tall building, he is alive as he plummets towards the ground. Seconds later he is dead and the reality of him being alive has changed. This is because the ground is real as is gravity. His subjective view of reality has met reality which always has the last word.

  That’s how I see things but if I am wrong I will bump in to reality - otherwise known as Terry. :)
• 

  PSacramento

  If a man believes he can fly and jumps of a tall building, he is alive as he plummets towards the ground. Seconds later he is dead and the reality of him being alive has changed. This is because the ground is real as is gravity. His subjective view of reality has met reality which always has the last word.

  And that is concrete reality, pardon the pun.

  But the reality of man being or not being able to fly, is a subjective reality and that is my point.

  Absolute reality? yes.

  Reality being absolute? no.