Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 3 (Pgs. 26-28)

     Asking "where is our anchor to reality? What ties our beliefs-forming mechanisms to the way things really are?" Morris moves onward for answers in his next question, The questions of radical skepticism.
  Radical skepticism of the past, present, and future presents itself in Bertrand Russell's Five Minute Philosophy, which asserts, "The entire universe sprang into existence from nothing five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, apparent fossils in the ground, wrinkles on people's faces, and other signs of age all instantly formed and thoroughly deceptive." If this hypothesis is true, writes Dr. Morris, all his past-oriented beliefs would be false because, "nothing existed before that cosmic appearance act five minutes past." The point of radical skepticism's Five Minute Hypothesis is not to convince the student of its assertion, but to challenge her/him to prove the hypothesis to be false.
      Turning now to our beliefs of the present, Morris turns to the "Father of Modern of Philosophy," Rene Descartes, who in the 17th century asked, "How do you know that it's not all a dream?" Or, Descarte asked, "How can we be certain our beliefs are not created by an evil demon who has us hypnotized?" Writes Tom Morris,
             We cannot refute The Dream Hypothesis, or the Demon Hypothesis, or any such  
              wild,comprehensive scenario. We can't even come up with a single shred of positive,
             independent evidence that either of these radical alternatives is false. (p. 64)

      The author then glances at radical skepticism about the future by employing Futuristic Nihilism. In this philosophic vehicle, " the future is now just one huge void."

             The futuristic nihilist points out that the future does not exist. In order for a
             belief to be true, the object about which it is true must be among the furniture
             of reality, and that object must have the property attributed to it in that belief.

             At any second, we could wake up from Descartes Dream and find things in
             the immediate future to be very different from what we might have inductively
             inferred. [derived a conclusion using part to whole reasoning]

             Or Descartes' Demon could snap his fingers and wake us up to a radically divergent
             future from anything we had in time. (p. 64)
     There is no good answer to the suppositions, as radical skepticism " shows us that there is very little room in human life for cocky, arrogant dogmatism." Morris thus concludes Chapter Five, and goes on in Chapter Six: The Amazing Reality Of Basic Beliefs to further test the cajones of our beliefs by evaluating the foundations of knowledge held in Empiricism (experience) and Rationalism (reason) , the tests of knowledge provided by Evidentialism, the Principle of Belief Conservation, and the rational choice to believe the possibility of achieving the impossible through the application of Precursive Faith.

                                                             By doubting we come at the truth.
                                                        Cicero

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)
    

Rogue Messiah:The Philisophical Wanderer by Stewart N. Taba Chapter 2 Pgs. 15-17

     Six or seven years later, I was in basic training at Fort Bening, Georgia, and I could sense a daily testing of my mettle at the age of nineteen. There was this drill corporal named Stout from the deep south who targeted me for his special scrutiny. (I thought the lean, fit soldier was training to become a drill sergeant, but he actually was just out of basic training himself, and I think he just went on to his first assigned base after the three- month training ended.) He always seemed ready to verbally pounce on me whenever I let my guard down. :-[ (Emoticon sideways meaning I am unhappy.)
     One day, my platoon was at a field-training site standing in line and Corporal Stout was watching our group. I heard him ask another Japanese recruit from Hawaii, "Are you a Jap?" That other guy passed it off as a joke, but I told myself if Corporal Stout asked me the same, I'd say, "Corporal Stout, 'Jap' is a racial slur I don't cater to;if you want to settle this man to man, just take off your stripes and we can--though I think we're one man short."
     When the line moved forward, I was standing right beside Stout, but he said nothing-just kinda sized me up. When the three month cycle ended, I thought about telling him off but didn't. :-\ (Emoticon sideways meaning I am resolved.)
     Then there was this time in basic where we got to go to a weekend night ballgame in Columbus. The drill sergeant in charge allowed only some of us to go to the stadium concessions stand, and I was one who went. A couple of East coast men in my platoon asked me to pick up some snacks for them and I said sure. I should have stopped at that, but a handful of recruits from other training groups begged me to pick up stuff for them. Before I knew it, I was in way over my head, and I was unable to fulfill all the orders. :-\  I got dirty looks from the guys whose orders I failed to get, and the East Cost guys in my platoon groused that I should have prioritized them, since they were in my platoon. I felt under the gun, but Moore, an African American recruit whose bunk was across mine, later assured me that I had done nothing wrong. In fact, Moore said the East coast recruits were in the wrong for getting pissed at me. Apparently hearing this sentiment after awhile-or arriving on it themselves-they confirmed that I had acted properly. "You're a good man, Taba," one of them said to me awhile later, with a respectful tuck of the chin. The lifelong test continues. :-\

Stewart N. Taba's The Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer Chapt.2 Pg 14

     For example, theres this young Japanese guy who worked at the Y, who would give me real dirty glares (stink eye, we say in Hawaii) when I'd nod to him. That was when I'd see him in the weight room, and I was thinking, "Does this guy want to fight, or what?" But after awhile, I was kinda surprised when I saw him at a YMCA sponsered bible study class. As he sat there glaring at me- as we were taught of Christ's love of his fellow man-- I finally saw through his surface surliness and realized he was no adversary.:D I guess all I can say is that my knowledge is/was problematic. *L*
     And such testing/training has gone on for all my life. I remember at Stevenson Intermediate School (from Papokolea Valley, a kinda tough local neighborhood) in 1973 or '74, a local male student who was a year younger than I who totally dissed me one weekend at Ala Moana Shopping Center. A rather tall, lanky boy, he mocked the Japanese boys from Manoa Valley I was hanging with and kicked me in the arse as I hurriedly scampered away. A while later, however, he greeted and joked with me as I sat on some bleachers by the P.E. field and we were all cool. I was totally surprised at the time, but now---some thirty-five years later- chalk the incidents up as an early test which was meant to train me not to be such a wussy. *L*

Stuart N. Taba's Rogue Messiah:Philisophical Wanderer Chapter 2 Pg.13

     I could have- and should have- resisted this false belief  by attaining true knowledge through straight discussions with knowledgeable persons, but chose to go lone wolf : el lobo solo. ^L^ (Happy Emoticon)

     Here's a second tool for our project: Knowledge = Properly Justified True Belief. Belief, writes Morris, is necessary for knowledge.
     You can believe something that is false. And you can think you know it. But you can't genuinely know something that is false. You can know of something false that is false. But to know something is to know something to be true. And you can't know something to be true unless it is; which is to say, you can't know something unless it's not false. Got it? (p. 45) *L*

Moriss then quotes Confucious on Knowledge:
     When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it, is knowledge. (p. 64)

In years past-seven years, or so- I was reawakening to my destiny, and having a certain difficulty figuring out people who "dissed" (disrespected) me. That is, if they "acted" like jerks, were they "in fact" jerks? Alot of times, I believed they  kinda stepped out of "true" character to kind of test/toughen me up.