[MD] Intuitive Reasoning?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Case --


Case said:
> However, intuition and insight are frequently wrong and
> in the absence of any conceivable test are best kept private.

You made this statement before, but it bothers me now.  Intuition and
insight are what we use to conceptualize ideas for which there are no
objective tests: ontology, epistemology, and morality, for example.  Do you
suppose we would be discussing causation, duality, awareness, and ultimate
reality if such concepts were objectively verifiable?   To me insight,
intuition and logic are the tools of philosophy; they afford an approach to
understanding the "what", "how" and "why" of reality, as opposed to
factually ascertainable knowledge.

Ham (previously):
> I submit that the value of truth lies in its capacity to be believed.

Case:
> Truth has neither capacity nor necessity to be believed.

Do I translate this correctly as meaning that truth is incapable of being
believed?  How do you justify this assertion?  What do you believe, then?
Is one of your beliefs that
there is no necessity to search for truth?

Ham, previously:
> I would argue that what we believe has more value
> to the individual than what can be verified on the intellectual
> grounds of logic and universal testing.
> I think that realization of the 'Greater Self' stressed in
> Buddhism and Eastern mysticism generally supports this
> view, as does Judeo-Christian religion.

Case:
> How do unsupportable beliefs support each other?

Belief systems arrived at through the application of intuition and reasoning
usually have
logical consistency or cogency, in that the principles support the thesis,
and vice-versa.  They are typically predicated in the form: 'If X,
then....'; in other words, they assume a fundamental truth from which the
axioms are deduced.  Thus, using Quality as the assumed fundamental reality,
the MoQ posits an non-objective epistemology with an evolutionary foundation
and a multi-level theory of Organic, Inorganic, and Intellectual
development.  Using Essence as the fundamental reality, Essentialism posits
a primary division of awareness and beingness whose mutual affinity
differentiates the experienced world.  One could also say that Darwinism and
the Theory of Relativity are intuitively reasoned concepts that include
empirical observations.  Within their respective  frameworks, all of these
theories are held together by the consistency of the deductions with the
fundamental thesis.

Case:
> Among evangelical Christians the requirement of scriptural support
> for revelation is common place. I would refer you to Hank Hanagraff,
> Lee Strobel, Tim LaHay, John MacArthur etc.
> But it can be traced to the Reformer's insistence on Sola Scriptura.

Evangelists are authoritarians who preach the Word of God as accepted on
faith.  Unlike the gnostics and philosophers who preceded the establishment
of Christendom, evangelists substitute canonical law for intuition and
reason.  Christianity as an institution discourages free thought that
departs from the 'holy word'.  The institutional purpose of Catholicism was
to control the masses by binding the flock to their faith.  The Greek root
"religio" literally means "to bind back".

Case:
> The Jews valued wisdom over reason, that is true but the
> rabbis were so obnoxious in their quibbling that Jesus called
> them liars and hypocrites.

I don't remember whether the Pharisees were lawyers or accountants, but they
were  certainly traditionalists.  A prophet, such as Jesus or Mohammed,
gains a reputation by going against tradition, and new or revealed insights
are not usually welcomed in a devoutly religious culture.

Ham, previously:
> Truth, like morality, is relative to the conditions that affect it.
> Logical positivism holds that subjective truth has no validity.

Case:
> I prefer to think that the positivists were saying that subjectivity
> is not meaningful unless is can be objectified. This does not
> make subjectivity invalid, only irrelevant.

Subjectivity is irrelevant to the positivists because it doesn't fall within
their objective framework, and because they can't explain it.  However, if
everything that exists is objective, how do you account for its experience?
Subjective experience is what brings the objective world into being.
Without awareness -- proprietary sensibility to Value or Quality -- there
would be no existence.  That's why I say existence is a self/other,
awareness/object dichotomy.

Case:
> The utility or conformity of any belief is assessed by each
> individual subjectively; this can NOT be dispensed with.
> But a system of beliefs or a "philosophy" survives because
> it is objectified and held collectively.

I think you're stating what I said above about the need for logical
consistency in a philosophical thesis.  However, I'm not sure what you mean
by "objectified" in this context.  Could you elaborate on this?

Ham, previously:
> So that, rather than jump to reason and universal validation
> as the final "proof" for a given proposition, I maintain that
> unless we can accommodate subjective value in our appraisal
> of what is true, we are restricting knowledge to facts about
> objective phenomena, and this cannot be the "whole truth"...
> If physical reality is an intellectual construct based on perceived
> values, is it not more rational to say that the "proof is in the
> Value" rather than in the appearance?

Case:
> I kind of agree with you, partially, in a strange kind of way and
> it is frankly creeping me out. Individually, we accept or reject
> ideas based on our subjective feelings and our individual
> application of reason. But the only people who cling to views
> that have no supporting facts or logic are the religious and
> the mad.

Are we "mad" because we toss around ideas that have no "collective"
acceptance?
Is the mystic who has a revelation mad?  Are the hypotheses of a Bob Pirsig
or a Ham Priday nonsensical because they can't be objectively validated?  If
our experience of reality is constructed from Value, then I submit that
Value is closer to Truth than the objects of our experience.

Essentially yours,
Ham