"SomeoneT" <bogus@test.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96D9DDA83B78Btesttestcom@216.168.3.44...

Since the time that I was a little kid I asked myself "What can I be
absolutely certain of?".

There is no certainty until one knows something, and many people go
throughout their entire lives without being certain, knowing, anything

all.

Knowledge, certainty, has to be searched for with every fiber of one's
being.
When knowledge, certainty is found, one knows it is knowledge,

with no shadow of a doubt at all. It will be the very first time he

doubt about anything at all.

From then on, knowledge, certainty, has a certain ring to it, and can

quickly recognized.

Dear Someone T,

To all that know me on this NG, please be patient. Some of it will be
repetitive. But I need to do this to introduce something new.

Sometimes certainty and doubt are just mere things taken from context.

"If you say I have doubts", you are in fact making a determinate
statement about your state of mental awareness.

If you say "I wonder of the existence of God," you are saying
something determinate about what you are wondering.

These two statements have content/subject matters that are
undetermined, but are still meaningful. The grammar is determining a
very clear intention.

If follows that language should be about determinate issues. This is
not about prescription method. It is a matter of pragmatic necessity in
order for me to even sit here and have an argument with you.

When do languages not consist in determination?

When it violates its internal rules of the game, i.e. "saying the
unsayable." The meaning is confused. This is an oxymoron with a
dangling participle. The statement is self-contradicting itself,
followed by a predicate that does not latch onto a noun to describe
anything.

Context must be contextualized.

Context can be seen in terms of vagueness or clarity. I rather see it
in terms of clarity.

This is the nature of semantics. Of course, semantics can be confused.
But if confusion is brought into your mental state, you are certainly
certain of that. If not, then the question of certainty should never
have arisen.

This falls into the question of "can a person have a false belief?"
If you say, "I am confused, I have a false belief." You have a
determinate statement of something.

It may look like "I am lying", but it is not really a paradox, esp.
if you take a look at the time reference of the "I" that **is
confused** and the "I" that **said** that it is confused,*** then
they are really two different "I"s. It does not fall into
self-reflexivity.

Plus, you would need to also reference that false belief to some
content. That way, it would not also get mired into "I am lying."
It is maybe about the weather, or something about politics. It does not
refer back to a self-reflexive "I."

A computer will see it as a paradox and breakdown, but your
supercomputer human brain does not breakdown. It has already computed
it into something meaningful. You grasped it so quickly you did not
even know you just did it.

In mathematics, what we see as uncertain is probably not so uncertain.
Again, context is contextualized to clarity.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that the probability of a coin
flip will be .5. That number will not change no matter how many times
it gets flipped.

That so called uncertainty principle is not so uncertain.

It is still guided by probability laws. The probability laws are not
what are probable. You will be certain of it, otherwise you would not
be able to do probability math. It is the variables that are
indeterminate, not the math.

I don't want people to think I am arguing for certainty. I am a cynic
and a skeptic by trade.

I am true to my faith. You come to me with doubts of certainty, I will
tell you not to ***grasp to that.***

The great thing about skepticism is that when people are less than
certainty, it is up to you to persuade them to believe. That is the fun
of being skeptical. It is also highly democratic.

Cynics and skeptics are not the same people.

Stoics are skeptics, but they are sticks in the mud.

Cynics have greater fun. They elaborate with wonderful and sometimes
biting humor.

I am with Diogenes up to a certain point. I don't live in a bathtub.
:-) I prefer to take a bath in one. Other than that, we are both
strange people.

To all, I am strike at my dept., so I will frequent this NG a little
bit more often. :-)

They are no longer hog tying me in some broom closet every single time
there is a metaphysical conference. :-) They are outright bypassing me
in the cue, to which I am very upset. ;-(

The Union of Skeptics and Cynics have rights!!! :-)

SomeoneT wrote:

Since the time that I was a little kid I asked myself "What can I be
absolutely certain of?". I guess the need for security of knowlege is
quite
natural for many people. As a child I could not find anything exept
uncertainty itself that I could be certain of. Later I was rather upset
that all the proofs that I could find in the philosophical or religious
literature were so unconvincing or their language was too complicated for
my understanding.

The main problem with the proofs was that they assumed too much. All
those
"Great Thinkers" assumed validity of questioning in general and of that
qustion in particular, assumed validity of logic, coherence of casuality,
possibility of order, etc, etc. For some strange reason, the simple fact
escaped their attention, that all tools with wich we measure reality
including reasoning itself were uncertain.

There is a chance of cause that I miss some very obvious point and can
not
veiw the problem from different angle.

Doubt and certainty are two sides of the same coin.