Everyone has a philosophical filter

[Davin]

I don't feel I'm applying a philosophical filter by not considering the possibility that fairies messed up my room!

Regardless of how you feel, that's exactly what you are doing.  By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room, you're applying the philosophical filter that limits the set of acceptable explanations.  I'll keep saying it, hoping that somehow it will break through:

The object of this thread is not to convince you that intent-driven explanations are correct.  Rather, it's to convince you to include them on the introductory list of possible explanations at the start of your inductive reasoning process.  To do otherwise would be to arbitrarily restrict the solution space based on, well, faith!

I think you would need to reword the first part: "By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room[...]" doesn't imply a filter, but "choosing not to consider the possibility that fairies messed up your room..." would imply a filter. Just not considering something doesn't mean that one is restricting the possibilities, it might just mean that those possibilities haven't even occurred to the person.

[bandit4god]

I don't feel I'm applying a philosophical filter by not considering the possibility that fairies messed up my room!

Regardless of how you feel, that's exactly what you are doing.  By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room, you're applying the philosophical filter that limits the set of acceptable explanations.  I'll keep saying it, hoping that somehow it will break through:

The object of this thread is not to convince you that intent-driven explanations are correct.  Rather, it's to convince you to include them on the introductory list of possible explanations at the start of your inductive reasoning process.  To do otherwise would be to arbitrarily restrict the solution space based on, well, faith!

I think you would need to reword the first part: "By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room[...]" doesn't imply a filter, but "choosing not to consider the possibility that fairies messed up your room..." would imply a filter. Just not considering something doesn't mean that one is restricting the possibilities, it might just mean that those possibilities haven't even occurred to the person.

Sadly, for many the "choice" to restrict the set of possible explanations has been made so many times it comes second nature.  Said differently, the choice can move from conscious "software" to subconscious "hardware"--all the while serving its function as a philosophical filter.

All it takes is One quick scan back through the posts on this thread to see the antibody reaction that takes place when trying to remove the filter from hardware!

[Whitney]

So...you seriously consider invisible creatures, ghosts, gnomes, and faeries when your socks go missing from the dryer?

If we can logically eliminate certain categories of things from the realm of possibility then there is no reason to consider them again unless a situation occurs that brings into question their elimination from consideration.

edit: station was meant to be situation but I didn't check the spell check suggestion before posting.

[Too Few Lions]

So...you seriously consider invisible creatures, ghosts, gnomes, and faeries when your socks go missing from the dryer?
If we can logically eliminate certain categories of things from the realm of possibility then there is no reason to consider them again unless a station occurs that brings into question their elimination from consideration.

Spot on Whitney. It's stupid and pointless to suggest that I'm applying a philosophical filter by not considering fairies messed up my room. It might also have been dragons, orcs, pixies, gods, walking lemons, marsh mallows etc etc the list of possible non-existent things is endless. As is the list of possible non-existent things that might have created the universe. I'd be applying a million 'philosophical filters' before I even considered the logical possibility that maybe I'd been burgled! I'll stick to not considering illogical possibilities thanks, unless of course I start to find fairy fingerprints in my messed up room, then I might start to consider it may have been fairies.

b4g, if you think scientists/atheists are applying a philosophical  filter in their work, can you accept that they are at least applying a few less filters than you. It seems to me you're applying a supernatural filter to interpret data such as the creation of life. But within that filter are such things as dragons, demons, pixies, fairies, gods etc.You're then filtering 'gods' out of the above selection, and then selecting 'the Christian god' out of the many gods to choose from. This choice is several layers of filtration back.

Surely we get nearer the truth by applying the least filters, and by your own definitions it appears to me that you apply the most filters.

[Sandra Craft]

So...you seriously consider invisible creatures, ghosts, gnomes, and faeries when your socks go missing from the dryer?

If we can logically eliminate certain categories of things from the realm of possibility then there is no reason to consider them again unless a situation occurs that brings into question their elimination from consideration.

edit: station was meant to be situation but I didn't check the spell check suggestion before posting.

It's also quite a waste of time to consider such far-fetched possiblities when they've never once been known to hold water, when socks that go missing in the dryer invariably turn out to be clinging to the inside of a shirt or something else mundane.  I don't think not considering far-fetched possibilities is applying a filter so much as applying common sense.

[Asmodean]

when socks that go missing in the dryer invariably turn out to be clinging to the inside of a shirt or something else mundane.

Lies!  Lies and unbeliever propaganda!  After the washing machine, one sock of a pair goes missing. Forever. Never to be seen again. After the dryer, the second one has the tendency to disappear too. Asmodean, he is completely out of socks because of that. Not a single sock, Asmodean has.  Explain THAT!

[Tank]

I think the point b4g is making is a generally valid. Take for example a negotiation for the price of buying a product. Where does that negotiation start? It starts in your own head with your expectations. Now if one's expectations, due to the prevailing economic conditions, are that there will be a price rise, then one is subconsciously primed to accept a price rise, one can also be influenced by one's personal relationship with a suppliers representative.  So where I worked price lists had to be submitted by letter (later electronically) 1 month before they were intended to go live. The only way the supplier could avoid a negotiation was for the net cost of the goods they supplied us to go down. They could adjust the buy prices within the range of product but the net effect had to be a reduction in overall cost or they would face a negotiation, and we had some fierce negotiators!

So we accepted our own potential biases and at the same time created an expectation in our suppliers that prices went down or the shit hit the fan.

We all carry the baggage of experience, I think calling it a philosophy is an example of 'over egging the pudding' for effect.

I think one should enter any investigation with as little of this baggage as possible. Take as a recent example the Faster Than Light (FTL) neutrinos. It has become an axiom in physics and cosmology that nothing can travel FTL. Thus when some professional scientist with a huge budget and state of the art equipment dare to suggest that they have found evidence of an FTL phenomenon the first majority reaction is derision not skeptical curiosity.

Unless one is aware of ones own biases and attempts as much as humanly possible to remove/reduce them one is looking at the world through one's own preconceptions.

The vast, vast majority of theists that I have interacted with have absolutely no idea of, or desire to minimise, their biases and prejudices when it comes to assimilating evidence into their world view. They, almost without exception, attempt the fit new evidence into their existing philosophical/biased/baggage-ridden world view. The term 'confirmation bias' was coined as a warning to scientists, it's a warning that the theists I have come across would do well to note.

I think humans are the arch categoriser and pattern matcher. Whenever we encounter something novel we attempt to understand it by fitting it in with our existing understanding of the world. If that understanding is fundamentally theistic we'll do it one way, if that understanding is naturalistic we will see novel things in that light. So the nack is to not interpret prior to full understanding, that is what keeping an open mind really is.

Now personally I do have some key 'philosophical' filters. The first of which is to immediately dis-trust people who lead an argument with 'I believe...' I don't give a flying fuck what somebody/anybody believes because all they are showing me are their biases/prejudices/baggage issues. Show me the evidence and I'll decide for myself thank you very much. The more a person tries to convince me by force of will the more their position is devalued in my eyes. If their position is strong it should need nothing but the evidence to make it stand, just like the Theory of Evolution and unlike Creationism.

So when faced with novel evidence evaluate it with curiosity, critically and sceptically and try to keep one's own baggage out-of-the-way as much as possible.

[Xjeepguy]

when socks that go missing in the dryer invariably turn out to be clinging to the inside of a shirt or something else mundane.

Lies!  Lies and unbeliever propaganda!  After the washing machine, one sock of a pair goes missing. Forever. Never to be seen again. After the dryer, the second one has the tendency to disappear too. Asmodean, he is completely out of socks because of that. Not a single sock, Asmodean has.  Explain THAT!

[Asmodean]

He kinda' looks like the guy married to our dear princess, he does...  ???

[Xjeepguy]

He kinda' looks like the guy married to our dear princess, he does...  ???

He's the guy from the show "ancient aliens" on history channel. He blames everything that happens, everywhere, on aliens.  Sorry to derail the thread, was just amusing myself lol.

[Davin]

He kinda' looks like the guy married to our dear princess, he does...  ???

He's the guy from the show "ancient aliens" on history channel. He blames everything that happens, everywhere, on aliens.  Sorry to derail the thread, was just amusing myself lol.

Of course he blames aliens, he's a Centauri:

[Davin]

I don't feel I'm applying a philosophical filter by not considering the possibility that fairies messed up my room!

Regardless of how you feel, that's exactly what you are doing.  By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room, you're applying the philosophical filter that limits the set of acceptable explanations.  I'll keep saying it, hoping that somehow it will break through:

The object of this thread is not to convince you that intent-driven explanations are correct.  Rather, it's to convince you to include them on the introductory list of possible explanations at the start of your inductive reasoning process.  To do otherwise would be to arbitrarily restrict the solution space based on, well, faith!

I think you would need to reword the first part: "By not considering the possibility that fairies messed up your room[...]" doesn't imply a filter, but "choosing not to consider the possibility that fairies messed up your room..." would imply a filter. Just not considering something doesn't mean that one is restricting the possibilities, it might just mean that those possibilities haven't even occurred to the person.

Sadly, for many the "choice" to restrict the set of possible explanations has been made so many times it comes second nature.  Said differently, the choice can move from conscious "software" to subconscious "hardware"--all the while serving its function as a philosophical filter.

So your contention is that everyone has a filter because if it's not concious, then it's subconcious?

All it takes is One quick scan back through the posts on this thread to see the antibody reaction that takes place when trying to remove the filter from hardware!

You're going to have to support this.

[bandit4god]

Unless one is aware of ones own biases and attempts as much as humanly possible to remove/reduce them one is looking at the world through one's own preconceptions.

Quite right!  Thanks, Tank.

[Asmodean]

Quite right!  Thanks, Tank.

If that there has been your point all along, why did you start with this philosophical filter thing?

[Too Few Lions]

Quite right!  Thanks, Tank.

If that there has been your point all along, why did you start with this philosophical filter thing?

I totally agree with you Asmo.
We definitely do all look at the world in our own ideosyncratic ways, it's just a case of trying to interpret the evidence of what we experience as objectively as we possibly can.