Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedom?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Socraticpupil
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Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedom?

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Knowledge is applied using language and memory to distinguish the elements of the universe. The description of the elements can always become more precise, depending on the preference of the observer.

Knowledge can become more and more precise in proportion to the information witnessed by the observer through his five senses. Knowledge can be as precise as the sophisticated differences prevalent in that information. Perhaps those differences are infinite, perhaps they are not.

A skeptic questions the validity of a claim of fact concerning an observation as to whether it is true. The skeptic creates uncertainty into present knowledge, as well as future knowledge. By creating uncertainty in the knowledge of future events, future events become indeterminate relative to the skeptic's frame of mind. By clouding his certainty in determinism, the skeptic has created the possibility of freedom to create his own future.

A skeptic is a living organism, with desires, fears, emotions. When the skeptic is faced with the prevalence of an undesirable fact, the skeptic may assume his application of doubt to resist the fact and maintain a sense of freedom. The most ardent skeptic may resist morbid determinism only until the point of attaining total knowledge of existence. When the skeptic attains absolute knowledge, should he continue to resist he is in self denial, rather than virtuous skepticism.

Is near-absolute skepticism, the kind I have described, a proper epistemological argument for freedom?
Spraticus
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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Socraticpupil wrote:Knowledge is applied using language and memory to distinguish the elements of the universe. The description of the elements can always become more precise, depending on the preference of the observer.

Knowledge is used for a lot more than distinguishing the elements of the universe. It is used to navigate our path through it.

Knowledge can become more and more precise in proportion to the information witnessed by the observer through his five senses. Knowledge can be as precise as the sophisticated differences prevalent in that information. Perhaps those differences are infinite, perhaps they are not.

they could only be infinite if life is. We have a lot more than five senses. The foundational purpose of the brain is the maintenance of homeostasis and it uses many senses to achieve that. When it detects hunger hormones it fires up it's owner to seek food, when it senses imbalance it provokes the body to adjust to regain balance, etc. The conscious part, which interests us here is an over-layer of some sort which integrates all the internal and external sensory inputs and directs attention between them. Internal and external speech are parts of that sensory world. Our knowledge is largely experienced as verbal but may also be tactile, sensory-motor, visual, emotional etc., and it is in acting consistently with our knowledge that we achieve freedom by owning our actions. My actions arise from me and nobody else. If they are constrained by an outside force they are not free.

A skeptic questions the validity of a claim of fact concerning an observation as to whether it is true. The skeptic creates uncertainty into present knowledge, as well as future knowledge. By creating uncertainty in the knowledge of future events, future events become indeterminate relative to the skeptic's frame of mind. By clouding his certainty in determinism, the skeptic has created the possibility of freedom to create his own future.

Indeterminacy is not freedom. Nor is randomness.

A skeptic certainly questions certainty of knowledge but that doesn't lead to freedom, it just leads to uncertainty. Freedom, if it means anything in a deterministic universe, means ownership of your choices.
A skeptic is a living organism, with desires, fears, emotions. When the skeptic is faced with the prevalence of an undesirable fact, the skeptic may assume his application of doubt to resist the fact and maintain a sense of freedom. The most ardent skeptic may resist morbid determinism only until the point of attaining total knowledge of existence. When the skeptic attains absolute knowledge, should he continue to resist he is in self denial, rather than virtuous skepticism.

Is near-absolute skepticism, the kind I have described, a proper epistemological argument for freedom?
No.
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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Ignoring my quibbles about your choice of certain words, your argument is more-or-less valid enough to me until the last 2 sentences of your 4th paragraph. At that point you seem to presuppose that a skeptic (or anyone) is capable of recognizing when/if they have obtained absolute knowledge. Since you offer no insights into how one is to recognize that their knowledge is "total," your distinction between self-denial and virtuousness is completely lost on me.

Personally, I believe that an epistemological defense of freedom can be only academic. Real freedom is experienced in being free FROM that which impedes one's freedom; therefore freedom is an utterly relative condition defined by one's circumstances, not by academic pronouncements, and is experienced exclusively in relative terms.
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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I cant see any way that skepticism is relevant at all, and I struggle to think what an epistemological argument for freedom could be. Freedom isn't about knowledge, it's about action. Even actions based in error can be free if they are free from external constraint.
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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Freedom, among other descriptions, can be described using epistemology. Once such description is relative freedom in reference to the mind of the individual. This argument is not setting forth a physical description of the fundamental nature of a person exercising free will, or controlling their actions.

This argument concerns a person who takes the position of uncertainty in relation to all the knowledge they have acquired. This person has created a mental picture of the universe whereby the future becomes unknown. They are unable to know what occurs in the future because they have doubted any knowledge that they may possess. The future is probabilistic based on the fact they only know things in degree of certainty, not full certainty.

My Definition of Freedom:
Freedom is the ability to become anything.

A skeptic has no idea whether he has this ability or not. Freedom in the future occurs when the person can become anything in the future. Knowledge of future facts may necessarily block this ability, somethings will happen in place of other things not happening.

The future, to the skeptic, is just like freedom. The future has the ability to become anything, because the skeptic has no idea what it will be.
A Poster He or I wrote:Ignoring my quibbles about your choice of certain words, your argument is more-or-less valid enough to me until the last 2 sentences of your 4th paragraph. At that point you seem to presuppose that a skeptic (or anyone) is capable of recognizing when/if they have obtained absolute knowledge. Since you offer no insights into how one is to recognize that their knowledge is "total," your distinction between self-denial and virtuousness is completely lost on me.
Hypothetically, a person could understand every possible fact of the universe. This person would understand whether or not he is free. This person would be omniscient, god-like, Laplace's demon. If someone insists they are free when overwhelming evidence provides otherwise, they are in self denial. A virtuous skeptic need not worry about this because they have yet to acquire this level of knowledge.

I have no idea when a person would attain total knowledge, if its even possible, as I only believe I know things in order of plausibility and cannot make eternally accurate predictions.
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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I would regard myself a skeptical but I don't think that makes me free; it just makes me puzzled.
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

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Socraticpupil wrote: My Definition of Freedom:
Freedom is the ability to become anything.
...to become anything at will, or to become anything at the caprice of fate? Big difference.

If by fate, then it's arguable. If by will, then some perplexities may present, such as a free person will want to become a slave, or a prisoner. This is perfectly admissible by the definition, yet at the point of fulfillment, the definition will no longer apply to the free person. So he goes from "free" to "not free" by his choice which is guaranteed by his freedom.

Is freedom good? Would someone want to be other than free? That's another question. Is freedom to become anything good in the sense that it potentially carries the state of being in utter despair, in horrible agony, in a state of unbearable pain? Just like I was in last month. What would "anything" entail? All possibilities, or a select few which the free person chooses at will?

Not becoming certain things still carries the possibility for the free person to become that, but he or she can fully avoid that, although the state of being is available to her or him.

"Free to become anything"... that inlcudes a being of something or other that can DO anything? Big question, albeit pointless.
Spraticus
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Re: Do you agree with my Epistemological Argument for Freedo

Post by Spraticus »

Socraticpupil wrote:Knowledge is applied using language and memory to distinguish the elements of the universe. The description of the elements can always become more precise, depending on the preference of the observer.

Knowledge can become more and more precise in proportion to the information witnessed by the observer through his five senses. Knowledge can be as precise as the sophisticated differences prevalent in that information. Perhaps those differences are infinite, perhaps they are not.

A skeptic questions the validity of a claim of fact concerning an observation as to whether it is true. The skeptic creates uncertainty into present knowledge, as well as future knowledge. By creating uncertainty in the knowledge of future events, future events become indeterminate relative to the skeptic's frame of mind. By clouding his certainty in determinism, the skeptic has created the possibility of freedom to create his own future.

A skeptic is a living organism, with desires, fears, emotions. When the skeptic is faced with the prevalence of an undesirable fact, the skeptic may assume his application of doubt to resist the fact and maintain a sense of freedom. The most ardent skeptic may resist morbid determinism only until the point of attaining total knowledge of existence. When the skeptic attains absolute knowledge, should he continue to resist he is in self denial, rather than virtuous skepticism.

Is near-absolute skepticism, the kind I have described, a proper epistemological argument for freedom?

I can agree with bits of this but much of it leaves me puzzled. Freedom is obviously about the future; we can't makes choices about what to do in the past, but I can't see what this has to do with skepticism.

"The skeptic creates uncertainty into present knowledge, as well as future knowledge."
What does that mean?
Or this, "When the skeptic is faced with the prevalence of an undesirable fact, the skeptic may assume his application of doubt to resist the fact and maintain a sense of freedom." ? I fail to make this mean anything at all and don't see what it has to do with freedom.

For me freedom lies in the unconstrained ownership of one's choices. I may act on incomplete or faulty information, but it is still my choice and nobody else's. As a retired person I am more free than I was. I could have chosen to walk out of my employment but I was constrained by the prospect of hunger and homelessness. Now I can get out of bed when I want and chose to sit and read or go for a run or whatever. I am limited by the laws of physics and the availability of money. I am potentially constrained by the laws of Scotland or wherever I happen to be at the time, but I can always chose to take the risk. I am limited by the incompleteness of my knowledge to the extent that I may not be aware of some possible choices, or by errors in my view. In this sort of way I am never totally free; I cannot chose to become anything, but within the laws of the possible I am free. There cannot be total freedom.
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