How do I come to terms with the fact that while knowledge begins with experience, it doesn't necessarily arise from experience? It's ruining my life.
Would you like to elaborate on that a little more?
>>16780319
This. Do you feel like you're just not getting anywhere personal growth wise? Or do you mean something else?
>>16780319
>>16780325
I mean that I always considered myself an empiricist until I realized that there's actually something to a priori rationalistic metaphysics. How do I reconcile these two sides of myself?
>>16780340
and how did you realize that?
>>16780340
I wish I could help more, but I am not a philosophyfag. I will say, if this thread 404s without a satisfactory answer, try /his/.
will lurk for a bit anyway and look up wiki articles on empiricism and metaphysics. maybe I will get some knowledge too.
>>16780351
mostly by reading Kant's "Metaphysical foundations of Natural Science". Godel's work helped me along too. But now that I've been redpilled I don't know where to go from here. It's like everything I thought I knew was just hiding the real truth and now I'm adrift
>>16780360
The only thing left to do after being redpilled is convert to homosexuality.
Clarify the distinction between begin and arise in the OP.
>>16780305
Define knowledge. Not all knowledge is empirical. Why is that a problem?
You are panicking over labels.
>>16780305
Just read an intro text on epistemology. Then read anything it recommends to you.
Zagzebski is a good starting point
start with the greeks.
>>16781566
More poignantly, start with pyrhonian skepticism, then Descartes, then Leibniz, then goedel, then Kant, then Hume, then March, then carnap. Then give up on assuming you can really come to a concise answer.
>>16780305
By understanding that experience is relative to the individual, and since knowledge begins with experience, that all life is relative to the individual.
Of course we're talking flawed individuals that have all kinds of stigma and delusion and texture - all the coping mechanisms that safely (or unsafely in some cases!) warp our perception of reality and allows us to exist without having to address existential truth all day, every day.
Reality then is simply that which remains constant despite all delusion. That delusion can even be empirical science. In that way, Reality is defined as an abstract truth - a truth that is true even if we can't prove it is or isn't.
How your reality is set up (based on your experiences) is as genuine as anyone else's. The trick is maintaining a healthy level of delusion - not too much, not too little. Of course, some people have a proclivity towards one way or the other, and both directions have consequences. Too much delusion and you're living in a fantasy land. Too little delusion and you will be crushed under the weight of the absurdity of life without any inherent meaning.
So knowing this and being aware of this, you do your best to manage. Lol, doesn't mean it won't take effort, OP.
>>16780305
>>16780305
You have to understand that the a priori knowledge comes from the way your mind is structured. You can only acquire empirical data and therefore empirical knowledge through the processing your mind does of the sensorial material coming through your sense, but that processing is always done according to the preexisting structures of the mind, and those structures are the basis of our a priori knowledge (spacetime knowledge, causality, logic, etc) so there's nothing you can do about it.
If you're after a solid learning experience, you need to get into a field where not everything can be read in a book. Take up carpentry, to learn deeper truths about how the body and mind can develop together, as you gain mastery of the finer points of working with wood.
>>16782704
Is it just one guy or is everyone here a carpenter?
>>16782853
no that's /diy/
not that anon either, but yeah there's a lot to be said for just physically doing something. carpentry, painting, whatever. even outdoorsy shit like biking. but making things has its own satisfactions as well.
>>16780340
>>16780340
take yourself out of yourself and realise that you are something other than the labels which you put on yourself. You are the chooser, the maestro of your life. So why consider yourself anything? if something agrees with you, accept that, if you disagree with something accept that as well. My humble opinion
>>16780411
>>16780360
this. although not really.
but everything is up for grabs. What do you want?
>>16780305
>>16780340
You're experiencing cognitive dissonance because you hold onto two ideas. Neither of those ideas are true, because you cannot be your ideas. They are just thoughts you attach yourself to when they arise in your awareness.
When the body or mind is under stress, this attachment happens. My advice is to medidate, so that you can create some distance between your thought and your awareness. There's a reason you evolved with conscious control over your breath, and it is to calm you down. It is not something that can be done on auto-pilot though, it requires conscious attention. So try to breathe consciously, because it will influence your physiology in such a way that you calm down and don't identify with the thought process.
