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rmehta's picture

the counterexample

I was left with this dual feeling of awe and confusion after Thursday’s class.  I am still getting used to this philosophical way of thinking, so my unease added to my confusion. My awe stemmed from being able to try and distinguish between the human power of control and that which is left to the random motion of the unknown. We discussed how in order to create a work of fiction or fantasy, we as humans need to understand what is real in relation to our own beings.  There is an element of control that is necessary in order for us to draw a line between the real and unreal.  In order for there to exist a sense of reality, there has to exist the opposite as well: a sense of fantasy. So in this sense, does belief always need a sense of disbelief in order to exist?

 

When we talked about the skyhook:crane analogy in class, I was contemplating the relationship between Truth:truth. Absolute truth takes a willing power of belief.  In this belief that there exists an absolute, there exists a necessity to possess a willing disbelief in our ability to alter this absolute.  Does the analogy then depend upon our willingness to disbelieve? Within this whole process of deciding what we consider to be able to cross over from simple belief to absolute Truth, we observe an aching need for an answer; it is within human nature to search for something greater, to believe that what we have found and understand to be real contains an opposite, unending counterexample.  We live in the fear of disbelief, of the unreal, of the contradiction.  In my toil to try and figure out if everything real needs an unreal counterexample to make it real, I was contemplating the brief discussion we had regarding objectivity and subjectivity.  Taking into account this necessity for the counterexample, I guess objectivity is an unachievable ideal (along with absolute Truth) that is measured simply by its level of intersubjectivity and subjective opposition. (But then again, I’m still confused.)

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