Kara Connor

Simon…about the reply from the evangelical street hawker – He was confused  as to why I treated what he said as a subjective claim rather than an objective truth.  These people are very well versed in controlling the conversation. They can dodge the question or reply with a question and most people don’t realize this.

EG, if I say I don’t b…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Me, in conversation with a evangelical street preacher in Dublin last week.

What did they say back?  Anything?  Very well put.

Thanks Reg!!

“Most of my friends are so well educated they can scarcely believe God exists.”

Theologian Lelio Sozzini in a letter to John Calvin on 14 May 1549 from Switzerland, commenting on the unusually high level of skepticism about God’s existence among educated men in Italy. It was an early encounter with what later historians see as the rise of s…[Read more]

Have a great week!!

“I must respect your beliefs?? Some chance of me doing that when I don’t even respect my own. I don’t believe things to feel safe. You don’t want your beliefs respected. You want them immunized for criticism. Once they are protected from scrutiny, beliefs will metastasize into ideology and when ideology remains unchall…[Read more]

The link works. I have a full NYT sub so can share 10 stories per month. I was on the phone with a friend in Zaporizhzhia a few nights ago. We had drones and gunfire for almost all of the call.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
The Gettier Problem: True Justified Belief without Knowledge.

Again, I think the problem with True Justified Belief is the statement, I am factually justified.  To know I am factually justified, I must know that my belief is true, yet I use this justification as proof that the belief is true.  I justify the truth o…[Read more]

From AI Welfare to AI Warfare. This is a great read.                                 .

Thanks, Reg!!

Have a great week everyone!

@regthefronkeyfarmer – but I never said the truth had to be justified – just “true”.  Anyway I like your definition of understanding better – understanding the factors that make something happen, and everything has a causative structure.

I understand that the concept of truth is not simple and is hard to define precisely.  If something is l…[Read more]

@Simon – Understanding is true belief. False beliefs are either redundant or harmful because delusion is always unsatisfactory.

That’s incorrect in modern epistemology. The old school of thought was that “Knowledge is justified true belief”. It is difficult to shake that idea because it is ‘folk epistemology’ and it has been around for centuries…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Religious justification is more powerful than anger or hatred and that is how ordinary people become instruments of atrocity.

I actually think that extremist religion and politics can justify “righteous” anger and hatred, blotting out all compassion or respect for human rights.  That’s because morality has an…[Read more]