Do I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that?

[znajd]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

[Jack D Ripper]

Yes, you do have to do this. It is instinctual and unavoidable. Even if it cannot be rationally justified.


If you have not read An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume, you might want to do so. He discusses this issue.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/bigge ... -of-morals

[Fellowmater]

David Hume has explained everything about this concern. Also, if you think about it more, in most situation, we always follow our past experience to make sure we won't be making the same mistakes, it's been always like that, even people that are so adventurous still follows their previous experience and instinct before deciding what to do.

[Steve3007]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

No, you don't have to. You could toss a coin or roll dice.

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

Yes, there is. You could say that you're using the method called Induction. That is, proposing that a pattern you've observed will continue in instances not yet observed.

You don't necessarily have to call it "trust". You could see it in more practical terms and just say that it's a method you use to get through life because it seems to work. If it stops working (i.e. if the world suddenly becomes entirely chaotic and unpredictable), I guess you'll stop using it.

[Terrapin Station]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

You don't have to trust past experience or induction in general, of course.

But what's your alternative and what justification are you using for the alternative? That needs to be considered.

[znajd]

I'll go ahead and leave some of my notes here:
I have to trust concious decisions that use arguments based on past experience (memories/knowledge).
I cannot deny it, because to do that I would have to trust a concious decision that uses arguments based on experience.
Even if I had only the current reality (what I'm currently experiencing), then why care about doing anything else than trusting my concious decisions?
At the current moment in time I am either:
a) meditating, just taking what's happening in, what I see and how I feel
b) trusting my concious decisions based on past experience
[trying to answer the question above takes me from a to b]

Feel free if you have anything interesting to add

[znajd]

No, you don't have to. You could toss a coin or roll dice.

But to make the concious decision to use a coin flip, I would have to use past experience to determine that I should do it, no?

[Jack D Ripper]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

No, you don't have to. You could toss a coin or roll dice.

If you were tossing a coin or rolling dice, you would be using past experience to do those things, so you are still not getting away from past experience.

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

Yes, there is. You could say that you're using the method called Induction. That is, proposing that a pattern you've observed will continue in instances not yet observed.

You don't necessarily have to call it "trust". You could see it in more practical terms and just say that it's a method you use to get through life because it seems to work. If it stops working (i.e. if the world suddenly becomes entirely chaotic and unpredictable), I guess you'll stop using it.

The thing is, your decision to stop using it (which, by the way, would never be carried out in practice) would itself be based on past experience. So you are never going to avoid using past experience to judge the future. It is instinctual, and is a part of not only human nature, but is something common to most animals. It is a very basic instinct, and there is no overcoming it.

[LuckyR]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

Well if your past experience tells you that past experiences are 80% helpful for addressing current issues, you shouldn't trust them 100%, but you shouldn't ignore them either.

[Marvin_Edwards]

Shuffling. You can shuffle past experience to imagine new experience and then try it out. If you have one way of looking at events of type A, and you try to apply that view to events of type B, you may discover something new about B. I used to call this a "forced matrix". The Wright brothers combined a bicycle with a bird to create the first flying machine. Many others tried similar things that didn't work. But I think Edison said that he learned something new from every experiment that failed.

So, to answer your question, No, you are not limited to repeating your past experiences.

[Wossname]

by Marvin_Edwards » Today, 4:57 am

Shuffling. You can shuffle past experience to imagine new experience and then try it out. If you have one way of looking at events of type A, and you try to apply that view to events of type B, you may discover something new about B. I used to call this a "forced matrix". The Wright brothers combined a bicycle with a bird to create the first flying machine. Many others tried similar things that didn't work. But I think Edison said that he learned something new from every experiment that failed.

So, to answer your question, No, you are not limited to repeating your past experiences.

Not sure if I have you here. I agree we can speculate from past experience. But to keep repeating the same mistakes (or bad experiences) just is a failure to learn from experience. If past experience tells you something does not work then you probably should not repeat it, and that just is trusting to past experience or using past experience as a guide. That is what it means to learn from an experiment that failed. And conversely, to say we should do a thing because it works also just does beg the question. It typically means we do a thing because it worked in the past. Whether it will work next time is the question. Can you give a reason to believe it will still work which does not rely on past experience as a guide (e.g. it always has worked)? All you can do is suck it and see (matron). But since the alternative to using experience as a guide seems likely no guide at all it does seem the best we can do (in my experience). The decision on whether to trust past experiences, is of course, up to each of us, but the alternative to using past experience seems to be to ignore past experience and good luck with that. But it may be the notion of speculation leading to new thinking that you were wanting to highlight. A caution to remain flexible in our thinking and be open to new ideas maybe?

[popeye1945]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

Past experience may be reinsuring if the circumstances are the same, and you are in pretty much in the same biological condition, under these conditions we must be able to trust our past experiences or be frozen in indecision. To move through the world our biology must inform us and guide our movements , for it is biology that bestows meaning onto a meaningless physical world.

[James Shadow]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

I think you can make the argument that the issue isn't so much the nature of "experience" but that your past experience gives you access to understanding the truth by ensuring your ideas reflect the objective world and can therefore infer predictions as to what results your actions may produce. If the ideas you have developed based on your past experience are truthful representations of reality, they are also a reliable basis on which you can make decisions.

I would also make the point that you are not uniquely relying on your own past experience, as our knowledge is the accumulated experience of generations of people who went before us. You own past experience is only one part of developing our knowledge of the world as we inherit it from other sources such as our parents, teachers, books, media, etc. your past experience is not entirely your own, particularly when you were an infant and were dependent on others to keep you safe from dangers that were as yet unknown to you. And as you occupy the same world as everyone else, you're past experience isn't going to be entirely unique either, even accounting for the differences of experiencing the same world and events from different positions within it.

[Papus79]

The best you can do is constantly challenge the heuristics with which you evaluate past experiences. If you're learning anything valuable about life those heuristics should be better, fewer bad hand-me-downs from idiots being held onto, and you should be able to mine more useful information from your experiences not less and even disabuse yourself of many previous misinterpretations or underinterpretations of past events.

Other than that - it's your database and you really can't borrow another. The closest you can do is just fill it up with more preferred content whether its books, music, art, long-form podcasts, things that actually make your life more worth living or give you better navigation tools than you had yesterday.

[h_k_s]

If the only reason to use past experience (memories/knowledge) for making decisions as to what to do, is because that experience shows me it worked most of the time and that it's the only thing I have for that, then does it really mean I have to use it for making decisions?

And if yes, is there any other way of saying this, other than "I have to trust past experience because past experience tells me that"?

Past experience is just one of several data points. There is nothing else particularly special about it. It is not a shortcut to thinking.