Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah: The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 3 (Pg. 23-25)

                                                                         Chapter Three
                                       Testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away
                                                                                                      Jalal Udo-Din Rumi
     The "sufficient evidence" requirement of justified belief leads to the truthseeker's application of scrutiny, which shall be our next focal point. In Chapter Five: The Challenge of Skeptisism, author Tom Morris shows "how the most basic form of skeptical inquiry can give us a fresh perspective on the foundations of all human knowledge." (p. 53)
     Skeptism puts all one "knows" in a new light and "can inspire us with a new and needed humility concerning all our claims to knowledge." Morris first points out that, etymologically, skeptism derives from a Greek word meaning "to inquire." Thus, "skeptisism at its best is not a matter of denial, but of inquiring, seeking, questioning doubt."
     The author next divides all our beliefs into three categories:Past Oriented, Present Oriented, and Future Oriented. Then, the skeptic asks two types of questions: those of source skepticism and radical skepticism. Regarding questions of source skepticism, testimony of others is our main source of  our past beliefs, along with our own first person memory. The skeptic asks how one is to know how reliable onc's memory is.
     There is a logical problem in the answer of past recollection of reliable memory because this reasoning is circular: relying on memory to justify memory is assuming the truth of the thing one is trying to prove. :-[ Regarding testimony as a reliable source for justifying past beliefs, one runs into the same circular reasoning problem when one justifies the reliability of testimony on the testimony of trusted sources (Mom, Dad, etc.). Further, if one reasons that many times in the past, other peoples testimony has proved reliable, "a bigger circle of reasoning is drawn because one is relying on memory  to justify testimony.*L*
     And as regards present beliefs, we base most of them on testimony (of family, friends, and news authorities), which leads to the same circular reasoning problem. :-[  How about sense experience? That is the medium through which we filter our memory and testimony of others. "Perhaps sense experience can give us the direct, provable tie to reality that the skeptic seems to be seeking." But no, the proof of sense experience reliability runs into the very same circular reasoning pitfall!
     One may recall (memory)having seen (sense experience)a penny on the street and upon closer inspection, it had-- in fact--turned out to be a penny. So is your sense experience proved reliable? Well,no, because you first invoked your memory- which cannot be proven reliable- then your memory was of seeing- a sense experience- an object, so once again the logical proof fails. :-[
     Just as our proofs of past and present beliefs fail "that just transfers over to any equal lack of justification for trusting our justification of beliefs about the future." Concludes Morris:
                Notice that the skeptic's questions don't just show that we can't prove the reliability 
                of our sources for belief. The point is much deeper. We can't provide one single,
                pure piece of evidence for this assumption that we all share and on which the
                credibility of our beliefs depends. The sources of our beliefs are sometimes
                reliable. And this fact is certainly perplexing, if not deeply troubling. (p. 61)
                                  
                
                         

Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philiosophical Wanderer Chapter 2 (Pgs. 19-22)

Can't, for example, we say that rape, torture and murder are absolutely wrong?

     I believe it will be it will be helpful here to interject my hypothesis (In my third manuscript Quest for Infinity) that because the universe is both finite and infinite-due to humanity's insufficient dualistic form of  communication (human language)-- our reality is by nature both absolute and relative. Let me once again attempt to explain; on the one hand, the universe is finite because it began with the big bang and will end with a big collapse into a big black hole. On the other hand,  the universe is infinite because a "new" universe is created by the incredible compression in the black hole leading to another big bang.
     But it is only by definition that this is a "new"  universe because it is of the same ingredients- the same light, matter, wave and particles -- as the "old" universe. Thus, the "flowing wholeness" of existence is such that human reality

is both absolute (because of the finite universe) and relative (because the universe is also infinite), given the frustrating limitation of human communication and understanding. *L*

     As I similarly wrote in my fourth manuscript, Transformation of the Rogue Messiah,given such a universe-both finite and infinite,both absolute and relative- I believe humanity shall achieve, by destiny and choice, a left/right brain consolidation that shall compose an "evolutionary transformation"  of human consciousness envisioned by Taoism's semi-mythical founder Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching.

     With this higher level of consciousness, our absolute and relative truths shall merge harmoniously, leading to a higher reality in which suffocating falsehood shall be overruled by self sustaining truth ^L^ My quest through all eternity has been,is, and shall always be for the coming of this new age of truthful synchronicity.

     Author/teacher Morris emphasizes the importance of truth to humanity's project:

                             Truth is our tie to the world. Believing a

                   truth, or stating a truth, is like hitting a target.

                   Falsehood misses the mark. Truth anchors us to

                   reality. Falsehood cuts our connection to the way

                   things really are. We need truth like we need

                   air, or food, or water. Falsehood, by contrast,

                   kills. (p. 47)

     I take pride in my dedication to truth; as I have written before, I am a "straight shooter." I am just trying to do what I believe God wants me to do- facilitate the coming of the new age of truthful reality by my thoughts and actions in our imperfect world.

     Beliefs must be properly justified truths to be considered knowledge. Proper justification comes through the application of rationality-reason-rather than sheer chance. "Reason is supposed to better connect us with reality, and thus better guide us into the future," writes Dr. Morris. "But reason is neither as extensive nor as pure as some philosophers of the past have given us to believe." In my fifth manuscript Synchronicity of the Rogue Messiah, I analyzed the psychological processes of  Synchronicity I and II, in which "the coincidence of events in space and time [mean]  something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdepence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers." That is, the subjective mindset of the observer is necessarily projected on the observed. Proper justification, writes Morris, does not require a belief  to be logically proved to qualify as knowledge,  but evidentialism requires "sufficient evidence in order to be justified in believing anything." (p. 51)

Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah: The Philosophical Wander Chapter 2 ( pgs. 18-19)

     Anyways, Morris next turns to "the truth about truth," describing the philosophy of relativism (which is the Eastern spiritual world's perspective). According to relativism, truth is subjective; what is true for me may or may not be true for you: there is no absolute truth. The author points out the logical flaw here:
     But notice a problem with the mere statement of relativism. There really is no such thing as absolute truth. Is relativism suggesting that this is the ultimate, absolute truth about? In that case it actually asserts what it denies, and so it's self-defeating, simply logically incoherent as a philisophical position. (p. 46)
     Ah ha! I could have stuck that to Sakamaki, my former shrink (he has since retired) when he- a buddhist- belittled my claim to being Messiah by barbing me with relativity crap. :-* (Emoticon meaning "bitter ,moi?") Actually, I think Dr. Sakamaki was being like Morris' rhetorical philosophy professor, who
          raises the specter of relativism...just to jolt his students into a deeper grasp of what is at stake
         in making truth claims. It is meant to be a rhetorical challenge to natural childhood feelings
          they've long had that what we believe is typically the absolute truth. (p. 46)
     "In philosophy," he continues, "everything can be challenged. But some views can meet the challenge and stand firm."
     An "utterly general relativism" is wrong, first of all, because it can be a "very persuasive intellectual excuse for very bad behavior." (If there is no absolute truth, anything goes.) :-[ (Emoticon meaning I am down and unhappy.) Morris continues,
          There is a second path to adult relativism that is certainly more respectable however
          wrong it nonetheless also is. Many academics have wanted to promote the virtue of
          tolerance in our pluralistic world, and have wrongly thought that relativism is the royal
          road to cultivating a firm and resilient openness to other people's beliefs. But the sort of      
          tolerance that is indeed a virtue is best grounded in respect, and it's not showing respect
          for any point of view to say that no points of view can possibly capture reality the way
          that it is. (p. 47)