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(((THE DARK SIDE OF ME))) Have you ever been trapped in your own body and mind knowing that what you feel and what you think can never be understood by anybody? Ever lose your breath, feel like your heart is racing for reasons unknown? To feel hideous inside when supposedly you are beautiful on the outside? Tired of pretending you are someone that you're not and hiding behind a mask of lies? I'm sick of this!!! I WANT TO BE WHO I AM!!! I can not speak it, I can not act upon it. Drown myself in my own clouded thoughts. I can't explain, no one could possibly understand. Those dearest to me, why do I feel so closed off? I want to explore. I want to delve deep into my own soul and body...even if it means I have to face the depths of hell. Just so I can know who and what I am. There is something about me. Something strange, dark, special, and mysterious, yet I can't even figure it out. Am I living a fantasy world? No, I don't think so. But I'm tired of holding it all in. I know what I have to do. I have researched. But I still don't know. I need guidance. I need ambition. I am a fallen angel, or so I feel. I have a light that burns so deep within my soul yet I live my life in darkness. it's my solitude, it's my comfort. It's the only thing I know. I doubt. I fear. I question. I wonder if it's all real. I believe so. I have faith. I have hope. On my dying day I will always have my beliefs. Yet I believe in no God. Is this wrong of me? Is this why I live the way I do inside my head? Of all the things that happened in my life because there really was not a God? Or because He has condemned me for NOT believeing in him? I've cried too many times. Why would He allow that? Why would He let me suffer like that? I have come to the conclusion that there really isn't such a "thing".
Oh here I go again with rambling, though at least I am making the 1st step and admitting, at least opening up to, the person I am. The mind within the mind of KRATOS . I live in the shadows. I am hideous of mind, but beautiful of body and soul. I go by each day doing what everybody else does. I mean to do good. What I think is completely different. I am damned, cursed. No one will ever know the true me. If only people knew what I really thought....
"Every day it's still the same
I don't know what to do with my life
I don't know where I belong to
Every night it's still the same
I wake up crying from my dreams
I have these nightmares again
All these past visions
Good, Evil, Good, Evil, God, Devil
I'm asking me, should I pray?
Or does nothing really make sense?
Is there someone watching over me?
Does anybody care about my life?
Can anybody rescue my soul?
Will I be damned forever more?
Or will there be a light at the end?
Will I go to Heaven, will I go to Hell?
Will there be a life after death?
Or will I be, will I be
Will I be forever lost?
Will the darkness take control me?
Do I have to serve the Devil?
Should I try to remain holy?
Should I regret my sins?
I don't want to be only like you
And I will not regret my sins)" ((THE PROBLEM WITH TRUTH)) Classically, it is said that truth is a necessary component of knowledge. For instance, one cannot say they know that unicorns exist if they do not in fact exist.
But there seems to be a problem with knowledge relying on truth. Or at least a posteriori truth, which is what I wish to focus on here. The problem is that we may not have any reliable method for independently accessing such truths.
For example, let's take the theory of evolution. We want to know whether or not it's true. Through scientific means, we can boost our degree of belief in the theory. But probability in and of itself has little or no necessary connection to the truth value of a proposition. People tend to believe several things with high probability when in fact those things are later believed to be false - even when those people are using the best methods available to attempt to access such truths. Science abounds with such beliefs, such as classical mechanics. Even though classical mechanics is now thought to be false (according to our current knowledge) as a precise theory, I doubt many would say that an 18th century physicist would be irrational for believing it to be true.
Thus, we are left with a dilemma: how can we say that one holds a rational belief when that belief may not be true? The problem is compounded as, to my knowledge, there is no firm underpinning for how one can reliably assess the truth value of any given a posteriori proposition. Thus, we're left to say at least one of the following: a) People like the 18th century physicist didn't and/or couldn't have good reason to believe that classical mechanics was true. But then, how can we know anything's true? b) The physicist was rational in believing a false proposition. But then, what good is rationality if it has no linkage to (a posteriori) truth? c) The 18th century physicist irrationally believed that classical mechanics was true. But if so, then what in the world does it mean to be rational?
Bayesian epistemology escapes this problem by not concerning itself with truth value at all. Instead, one adjusts one's belief in a proposition based on evidence without concern for the proposition's truth-value. If one obeys the (a priori) laws of probability while doing so, we say that one is behaving rationally. When one doesn't, we say the person's behaving irrationally. Why? Because there are what are called Dutch Book Arguments that essentially show that if one does not adjust one's beliefs in light of evidence according to the rules of probability, one's beliefs are self-contradictory. And basic propositional logic informs us that contradictions are (a priori) false.
In short, Bayesian epistemology gives us rationality without truth, thus circumventing the problem described above.
Is rationality without truth disturbing? Perhaps. But being disturbed is not in itself an argument ((The Logic of Omniscience & Free Will)) I decidedthat it'd be a good exercise for me to test for contradictions in omniscience & free will using formal logic, which I haven't done before. I currently believe that only an omniscient, omnipotent creator of an agent with free will lead to a contradiction. I don't think anything less than that does (e.g. just one being who's omniscient and another who has free will). I'll work on it in this thread, which I'm posting now to motivate myself to actually do it.
After initially thinking about how to translate the problem into logical forms, I'll probably need to at least brush up on my modal logic, if not learn to work with temporal logic, in order to translate accurately, so I'll do it when I have the time.
For now, here's my plan:
-Translate omniscience and free will into the logic I need
-Test for inconsistance in this set of propositions (hopefully by tableaux)
-If no contradiction ensues, translate omnipotence into the logic, and add this/these proposition(s) to the set
-Test for inconsitancies in the new set
-If no contradiction ensues, translate creator-of-a-being-with-free-will into the logic, and add to the set
-Test for inconsistencies in this final set
Any constructive critique of the general method? |
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