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Others ~ Selected Correspondence Agnosticism
An example of where ‘arbitration’ would have been handy was with the issue between you and Peter about ‘agnosticism’ and how one knows the universe to be infinite – it seems to me that this could have been cleared up readily by a more perceptive reading by Peter – but he appeared to be more interested in keeping with his own usage of the word ‘agnosticism’ and his own methods of investigating the infinity of the universe, rather than to tease out sources of the differences between you. Had you or he been more perceptive or interested in the sources of your divergences, those could have been clarified earlier in the conversation, and much of the butting heads that happened could have possibly been avoided. Now, of course I’m making these comments in light of your recent comments that lead me to think you now admit that it’s possible that one could know (in a PCE) that the universe is infinite. If you really don’t admit the possibility that one could know the universe is infinite, then just scratch everything I just said about the conversation you and Peter had on that topic – because that would make your agnosticism precisely what Peter was attacking. You certainly did make comments (as I recall) that made you an easy target, but it seemed to me that you were sometimes switching back and forth between two agnosticisms...
Number 2 is what Peter was (rightly) attacking – and you made statements at times that could only be interpreted that way – yet if you could have limited yourself to number 1 – which it seemed to me that you were groping for at times – then there needn’t have been any difficulty. No 37 to No 38
I’m recalling a long conversation you had with Peter about Relativity, Big Bang, etc. I remember that toward the end of that discussion Peter asked you whether you were still ‘open to believing’ in [whatever it was]. You replied that you were not. From time to time I’ve wondered about what exactly you meant by that. If I take a guess, will you confirm or correct it? Here goes: You meant that you’re no longer open to believing in X because you’re no longer open to believing in anything. You reject the very act of believing itself. Ok so far? Yes. Now, this does NOT necessarily mean that you disbelieve in X, or that you now regard ‘NOT-X’ as a fact. Correct? Correct. The reason I ask is because I have got the impression from some actualists that there is an equivalence between ‘I do not believe X because belief is the bane of human existence’ and ‘X is false’ and ‘Not-X is fact’. I gain this impression (rightly or wrongly) from the actualists’ attitude toward agnosticism. It’s as if one bloody well ought to make up one’s mind, regardless of whether the facts are known, because otherwise one is a ditherer who lacks the energy and initiative to suss out what’s what, or one is a believer in the Eastern spiritualist principle of ‘openness’—which I think is a completely false dichotomy. IMO, if the facts are not known, it seems to me the height of idiocy to make up one’s mind and declare one’s short-circuited reasoning process as the arrival at the ‘facts’ of the matter. I agree that it is not ‘sensible,’ ‘rational’ (substitute the appropriate word) to ‘make up one’s mind and declare one’s short-circuited reasoning process as the arrival at the ‘facts’ of the matter.’ At the same time, I don’t see this as what Peter, Vineeto, or Richard are advising. They are merely suggesting that one consider suspending believing altogether – not to replace it with another belief – but to replace it with the facts if and when the facts are known by that person. I think the actualist approach to agnosticism is often misunderstood quite simply because there are normally only 3 positions on for example, God.
You can take these 3 positions on virtually any issue – For, Against, and ‘I don’t know’ – but you might notice that they all involved belief – the 3rd is wondering about what to ‘believe.’ There is another kind of ‘agnostic’ – one who is not ‘open to believing’ – yet remains open to discovering the fact of the matter. That is where I am and where the only place I think that is sensible – since if one doesn’t know something – why believe either way – and why wonder about what to believe – just get rid of believing altogether. I also think that the reason why so many people get tripped up at this point is because they think that regular agnosticism is the only intelligent response to not knowing – then when they tout their precious agnosticism, they are befuddled to learn that they are not supported in that view by actualists. As I stated above, there are 2 ways to ‘not know’ – the most common way is to ‘not know what to believe,’ whereas another way is to ‘not know’ the facts. So, when one is ‘no longer open to believing’ something like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or the Big Bang theory, can you tell me what the go is? Does one ‘know’ these to be fictions/fantasies/ figments of a super-charged imagination, or does one simply refrain from investing ‘belief’ therein? Or is there a Third Alternative I’m not seeing? The way I see it is that I don’t ‘believe’ or ‘know’ one way or the other. I am currently making an educated guess – an estimation (based upon the evidence and experiences I have) that the actualists are correct. The ‘goal’ is to find out the facts for myself. No 37 to No 60 Web page designed by The Actual Freedom Trust |
