Comment by lo_zamoyski
17 days ago
If everyone has their own truth, then how could you know that to be the case? You'd have to appeal to something outside of "your truth" to make that judgement. Meaning, if it were even possible (or coherent) for there to be such a thing as "your truth", then you couldn't know it to be the case. It simply would be "the truth" as far as you are concerned. You can't step outside yourself. There is no "objective POV".
These sorts of claims are as incoherent as the equally intellectually jejune skeptical positions ("there is no truth" or "we cannot know the truth" or variations thereof). It's rare to see anyone outside of first year philosophy students make them.
Why can't you just say we have disagreements about what the truth is?
That's another way to put it. The disagreement doesn't still elevate either party to a moral high ground. That was the only thing that upset me about this write up.
I'm not claiming moral high ground, or that my method is a better or happier way of living life, I'm only claiming it's better for finding out what's true, with the assumption some objective truth exists.
The sentence that covers this in the piece:
"If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one."
I think the problem is that everyone is claiming they don't remain in the bubble, including you. Why should I trust you when you say you don't remain in your bubble or that you are motivated in finding the truth, especially when you write an article that checks all the boxes of someone who is satisfied with comfortable conclusions?
It's the problem with this sentence:
> Because if a desire to seek truth isn't there
The behavior of other people makes way more sense if you just consider that people have different values and different interests. If you take your list of values, people that are not aligned with you will, by definition of not being aligned, look to you as they are not desiring to seek the truth. For two reasons: 1) because some of the things you believe being truth are just BS. You are wrong (as we all are sometimes on some topics), and you are just seeing them dismissing something false and, in fact, they are the ones being interested in seeking the truth while you are not, 2) because some of the things you believe being an important truth is not important or relevant for them. I'm pretty sure you don't "display a desire to seek the truth" when it comes to the VIIth century Buddhist philosophy. Sure, if someone talks about it to you, you may say you are interested and follow what they say, but you still will look "not desiring to seek the truth": if they bring a conundrum in this topic to you, you will not drop everything and scream "oh my god, I need to find the answer, nothing else matter now". That's an extreme example, and there is a spectrum, but that illustrates that some of these people who you categorize as "not desiring to seek the truth" are in fact desiring to seek the truth, just not with the same path as you are, so they look like that to you. And, guess what, _you_ look like you don't desire to seek the truth to them.
That sentence is, to me, very very telling: it did not even one second occur to you that maybe they are interesting in seeking the truth but are doing it in a different way or on different subjects. And by doing so, by not carefully considering all the possibilities, you show that yourself you have equally no desire to seek the truth. (if you see what I mean: you see Mr A not exploring all the possibilities on the subject that you like, so you conclude that they have no desire to seek the truth, but then, Mr A sees you not exploring all the possibilities on some subjects that you are overlooking. How is that different?)
That is exactly the same problem with the "consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble": a majority of them are not in a bubble, but it looks like that you because you are not aligned with them. And you are explaining that moderate like you, some of them are in a bubble, but others are not. The only possibility to your eyes to not be in a bubble is to be aligned with you. The only possibility for them to not be in a bubble is to be aligned with them.
2 replies →
yep exactly