skepticism

Table of Contents

skepticism is (to me) a system of ideas stems from the axiom:

Nothing is true; Every idea is belief, and could be right and wrong, and is, in its ultimate form, wrong.

1. from dictionaries

  • The ancient school of Pyrrho of Elis that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.
  • The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general.
  • Doubt or disbelief of religious tenets.

2. Main tensions of skepticism

2.1. Abandonment of Common Values and Morality - What is right and just

As all idea are beliefs and not truth, so are those on values like “be kind to people”, “wife on family and husbands on career”, of what things should be like, and of what is good “the more money the better”, “the more friend/social influence the better”.1

2.2. Time and trend’s but a shift; climbing’s on the knowledge

As there’s no truth, there’s no ideaology moving towards it, so democracy, capitalism, monarchy, decentralized communism(in entrepreneurship and local community), centralized communism(in communist regime), anarchy, and all sorts of society system that toggles between what is right and wrong are all the same in the level of advancement of civilization.

True “advancement”, the change that is unique and differenciates from before, can only be climbing of knoweldge and inclusion(scholar acquiring more knowledge), as well as letting go of boundaries(monk/hermits letting go of values they are imposed from their original subculture)

2.3. Opposing Dogmas

No one true things; no dogma can be trusted.(as they promise stuff that are impposible)

2.4. Echoing with Natural Science(and scholar tradition)

To not believe blindly, but to think individually, to verify credibility/usefulness of idea through experiment and logical reasoning.

2.5. Belief in truth

Though no belief is possibly true, the truth is the way to go, and one scholar should not settel for some belief just because they were held by many. Scholar seek truth and knowledge though either is in principle possible to be achieved, but you can get something that is closer to them.

2.6. stylish choice, variety

as dogmas and values are merely beliefs, and no system of beliefs would be superior to others, skepticism mark stylish choice as only acceptable answer to an assembly of beliefs to be held as guidelines:

  • I choose to wake at 6 and sleep 10 because I like it that way, makes me feel good
  • I choose to treat people nicely and tell joke in all senarios, especially serious ones like funerals, because that looks very beautiful to me
  • Blue is better than all other colours. Why? Tardis is blue.

Degrading dogmas to styles that you could switch any time.

Backlinks

Ferriss, Timothy ::: The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman

(5 rules to use the book > 4. don’t use skepticism as excuse for inaction)

  • find hypothesis worth disproving, and disprove it with action
  • don’t wait and play mind experiment.

old index

(Ethics, Morales, Principles, What would be right and just, (Which is not very skeptic))

old index

(Ethics, Morales, Principles, What would be right and just, (Which is not very skeptic))

Linfeng He, as I live and breath…

My name is Linfeng He, and I live by my university in Liverpool, UK.

My alias online follows a common structure of herman[n][he[l[f]]], so HErman, herman, hermann, hermanhe, heramnnhelf... They stems out from my “English name” used in primary English classroom, which my dad had given me primarily for my last name’s He. (which makes no sense, as his last name is He too)

I’m now a Computer Science student in my final year of Bachelor, and apart from that mostly an enthusiast: I’m interested in many things, and believes in the distributed nature of discipline that all those many things I read, thought, and wrote about would constitute this one unique field of mine. Here’s a list of many things:

  • artificial general intelligence, or artificial child(people often refer to it as “it learns like how babies learn”).
  • robotics
  • programming
  • math, especially logic and symbolic representation(formal method, modal logic, language theory…)
  • process/system design (hack as in life hack, lifestyle)
  • illustration
  • music, composing, musical theatre
  • jazz piano
  • cooking and eating
  • meditation
  • philosophy, my likings are some parts of Nietzsche’s school(more or less), and some part of skepticism
  • fiction
  • essay and academic discussion
  • scholar tradition (I sort of invented it myself anyway, but I’d like to think that by joining uni, I’m following the scholar tradition that goes all the way back to ancient greek folks like Pyrrho of Elis)

life

(Be honest and truthful - facts and observations)

Heterodox [idea] referes to an opioion/idea that is not align with that which is generally adopted

generally adopted
dogma, trendy ideas, doctrines, “thou shall not do adultery”, “my choice of pronoun is the definite artical, I would always be, THE MEAP”, “drink water make you healthier”, “hot/cold bath is good.”, “From born, there’s geniuses and there’s dumb people.”
(no term)
skepticism enthusiastics, partly as they do not force alignment to any ideaology, partly as they are cunts and just hate dogmatism and anybody thinking themselves being right, hold heterodox a lot.

fashion is toggle more than advance

fashion, in most times, is present as a toggle of belief, rather than generalization/advance of them.

For one decade, people would fancy ancient values and relics; and the next they’d hate them as if they have poisoned their brain and culture; and the next decade they were loving it again. An advance in this sense would be a more indifferent, critical, skeptical view on the ancient values, treating them as ordinary object with perhaps an older origin, more complex impacts and richer literature(I’m standing on a scholar’s perspective, so I interpret the advance of hmuanity as easier access to more knowledge and wisdom, people getting wise and konw more, rather than believing in the “right thing” and knowing the “right facts”)

Footnotes:

1

this make living as a skepticist especially hard, as belief may not be truth, but exists very realistically as a social entity, which were imagnined and enforced by many. When skepticist objects all values, social common sense make them “social criminals”. If a skepticist being “facebook skepticist” and really align themselves to ideas of skepticism, normal world like now would be like 1974 to them.

Author: Linfeng He

Created: 2024-04-03 Wed 23:16