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It has always been important to be able to accurately discern which claims are true and which are false. We humans need knowledge of reality in order to know how to act, so we can lead successful lives. This means we need to have a means of validating the ideas we hold to be true. We need to be able to check the information we hear and verify that it is true before we act on it – otherwise we inevitably suffer. Epistemology is the science of ‘knowledge’ and how we know things. With a correct epistemology you can reach for the stars. With a faulty one, all that results is confusion, anxiety and suffering.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge. Epistemology asks the questions; What is knowledge? How does man validate his conclusions? What are the proper methods of thinking? The correct answers to these questions inform the method that the truth seeker must adopt if he is to achieve certainty as a result of his investigations.
The base of philosophy can be summed up by three questions; What exists? How do I know? and, So what? Metaphysics is the study of reality and asks, ‘What exists?’ Epistemology is the study of knowledge, and asks the question ‘How do I know?’. And Ethics is the study of how should man act, and address the question, So What?
Metaphysics is the first question in philosophy because it affects all the other areas including politics and aesthetics. You cannot ask how you know something until you have addressed the question of the nature of reality. The answer to this question determines the epistemology that logically follows. The conclusions formed after asking this most fundamental question determine even if knowledge can be acquired at all!
In Podcast 162, Dr Andrew Kaufman joins me to discuss epistemology. Specifically, the consequences of the basic metaphysical question – is reality an objective absolute, independent of any consciousness, or is it a projection or creation of consciousness? These two positions on the issue exhaust the logical possibilities. The first may be called the Primacy of Existence, the second, the Primacy of Consciousness.
This first question of metaphysics is of paramount importance, because one answer (the Primacy of Existence) leads to truth, knowledge, successful action, life. The other one (the Primacy of Consciousness) leads to confusion, conflict, destruction and suffering! Of course, a suitable time lag disguises the issue sufficiently for most men not to be able to see the problem.
Unfortunately Dr Kaufman fails to recognise this crucial distinction. In stead of engaging in a crucial intellectual issue, he remained defensive and concerned that I was trying to get him to be an atheist. And the whole point is that one cannot be a truth seeker and believe in a supernatural deity at the same time. It is a contradiction. How can you demand proof of the existence of a virus and not for the existence of God?
Dr Kaufman declined to post this interview on his own social media channels. I am left wondering why anyone would find it offensive to be concerned that truth seekers be consistent. But perhaps more importantly, the concept of rights is central to the goal of freedom, but must be argued for on a rational basis, and they can be. Anyone setting themselves up as a leader of a freedom movement, which Dr Kaufman very obviously is, will not succeed if they argue that rights are a gift from God. In other words, if they use the wrong epistemology, one of faith and feelings, they have no rational argument for freedom.
resources:
Dr Andrew Kaufman’s website is www.andrewkaufmanmd.com
Dr Kaufman’s True Medicine Library can be found here www.truemedicinelibrary.com
You seem reject the supernatural a priori. Here’s 2p worth of comments:
You’re using your finite fallible mind to say there’s no infinite infallible mind. But doesn’t a fallible mind presupposes an infallible one? Stolen fallacy??
To say there’s no God (as a universal claim) you must know everything, everywhere, in all ways, at all times i.e. omniscient. But if you are omniscient then you are God. Therefore, God exists and it’s you.
BEGINING
There are many arguments for a beginning of our reality. Here’s a couple:
(1) A beginningless series is impossible. Full explanation can be complex but it’s to do with impossibility of traversing infinity if we went back and back into the past. To get to today we’d have to traverse infinity which is impossible. Therefore, there was a beginning.
(2) Thermodynamics: All energy transactions result in a loss (of energy) & if they started beyond a certain point in the past there’d no energy left today. But we still have energy so there was a beginning.
SUPERNATURAL
If nature began to exist then something other than nature must have caused it to exist. The word for “other than nature” is Supernatural.
Thank you for your comment Lee.
Yes I reject the supernatural. I deal with what exists, what is real, what is natural. The supernatural is said to be beyond the laws of nature. in other words, impossible, and not real.
A fallible mind does not presuppose an infallible mind. If you think it can, explain yourself. Offer reasons.
All of the arguments for a “beginning of time” are logical fallacies. Cause and effect applies to all existent things, but not to the whole concept of existence. For something to be a cause (of anything) it has to exist. If it doesn’t exist it cannot be a cause. Nothing cannot be the cause of something. Existence has logically always existed. It cannot have been caused into existence by something that didn’t exist.
A series without beginning is not equivalent or in anyway comparable to the universe being without a beginning. The concept of a series is irrelevant to the concept of existence. A series is a concept that exists in human thinking within a tiny subset of the totality of existence.
Energy is transformed not destroyed or lost. The claim that there would be no energy left if existence had no beginning, is logically baseless.
Time exists in the Universe (all that exists), the universe doesn’t exist in time. Similarly, mathematics exists in the universe, the universe does not exist in mathematics. The totality of existence has always existed. How could it be otherwise? If God created it, who or what created God? And if it can be accepted that God has existed eternally, then why not the universe?
Why wonder “if nature began to exist?” It is literally a nonsensical question. Existence cant start or end. You cant get under it, or behind it, or outside of it! Existence exists, and only existence exists. You can’t step outside of existence in order to try and explain existence.
Lee, the whole point of all these arguments that you try and make for something mystical, is that all you achieve is the goal of emptying the concept of truth of meaning! If you want to argue for God, or any other mystical unproven idea that has to be taken on faith, then you are implicitly arguing against reality being an objective absolute. And thus you are arguing to undermine and destroy truth. Truth can have no meaning if reality is not an objective absolute!
Either you want truth, or you want the ability to believe in ‘make believe’ whenever you want to. You cant have both. Truth and mysticism are not compatible because mysticism is believing in ideas without reasons. Mysticism is the con!
Very nice interview. You are both very well-spoken, very clear. And also respectful towards another. I’m impressed really.
I believe the questions you asked Andrew were very logical. His answers were not as logical.
For example, around minute 33 you ask the question:
> If we are prepared to accept an idea without any evidence, or any conceivable proof, on one hand. And over here (on the other hand) we’re demanding proof and evidence, isn’t that a contradiction? I don’t understand what things we can accept on that basis?
Andrew then responds: “What would you constitute as evidence? For example, if you have a vision, where you observe something. Would that be considered evidence? Because in the materialist view, that would just be produced by an error in the material functioninig (of the brain?) that caused a disturbance.”
From this response I get the impression that he is a Christian, and believes that people can receive visions from God. (Or the ‘holy spirit’.) Perhaps he also believes that these visions can be induced by EMF waves (or at least that information can be exchanged in this way), because he continues more about -supposed- biological contradictions, and relates them to electromagnetic waves. I summarize:
1. Supposedly there is a higher number of proteins in the human body than there is code for them in our DNA. His example hypothesis is that EM waves (he mentions the Schumann resonance, the ‘base’ frequency of our planet), can somehow transport information into our bodies in order for them to create more types of proteins.
2. Experiments from Luc Montagnier: an unknown mechanism causes genetic sequences close to another beaker, that just has has the building blocks of a genetic sequence, to somehow form the same sequence in that beaker. His hypothesis is again that somehow there’s a spontaneous transfer of information through an ‘unknown medium’ (he mentions the ether, so he probably means EM waves). Summary of the summary: DNA teleportation.
By the way: Luc Montagnier received a nobel prize for the supposed discovery of the HIV virus. If you don’t believe viruses exist (referring to Andrew here), wouldn’t you be very careful in what to believe coming from the same scientist that supposedly ‘discovered’ that HIV causes AIDS? Or did Luc Montagnier make a complete U-turn in his life and turned his back on the idea of viruses causing diseases altogether? Maybe I’m missing some information here, but it does not make sense to me.
Andrew then continues talking about remote viewing. I have not seen compelling proof of this being real. (Please let me know if you do.)
From this mentioning of exotic examples of scientific experiments, I get the impression that Andrew was trying to protect his belief in the ‘supernatural’. Although maybe the word ‘supernatural’ is not entirely correct here, as he explains that for example EM waves might be regarded as ‘supernatural’, just because we don’t understand their effects or role in a certain event.
I believe this is playing with definitions a bit here, as supernatural can be clearly defined as ‘above natural’, through ‘divine intervention’, etc.
You then continue explaining the danger to allow ‘belief’ or ‘supernatural explanations’ into our worldview, and how it can corrupt our thinking. And that you would rather just make a separate ‘folder’ in your mind, with all the experiences in your life with and ‘unknown’ explanation. In other words: be neutral towards the unexplainable.
I think this was very well put, very clearly said, and very neutrally said. Andrew then responds:
> I think you’re trying to get me to concede an atheist point of view as being the only rational one. But when it comes to asking the question ‘how did this reality come to be in existence?’, I don’t think you can have an answer that you can defend. In any way, because what materialist or atheist explanation would it be?
You then continue to explain that it’s a logical fallacy that existence needs a beginning and a creator. You also explain that nothing cannot be the cause for something. And some other logical fallacies.
From Andrew’s response I again get the impression that he is defending his firm belief in God. It seems that he is unwilling to yield in any way in this regard, even temporarily. It also seems like he is somehow mentally in a defensive position, perhaps hinting at some form of cognitive dissonance.
What I would have liked to be discussed in the interview though, are the actual effects of allowing ‘belief’ or ‘supernatural explanations’ into our consciousness. What are possible results or effects of letting this happen?
Hi LT, Thanks for your comment. yes I was very disappointed with Dr Kaufman. He was the man demanding evidence for the existence of viruses. For this, he really got my respect. But it turns out that he is happy to use one set of epistemological rules for viruses, and the opposite set for discussion about the nature of how the universe ‘came into being’. I was extremely disappointed to find that his rationality was preserved for specific fields of enquiry only.
As for the consequences of using ‘the other epistemology’, I have detailed them in Episode 165. The most serious of which is the inability to argue rationally for rights and freedom! Rather a big deal for a de facto leader in the health freedom movement, don’t you think?
I’ll definitely have to watch that episode!