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Epistemology and Skepticism · Acedra
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Epistemology and Skepticism
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0:01
today we're going to cover uh something called epistemology epistemology is the study of knowledge and we're also going to uh cover pirro who was a skeptic a skeptic is somebody who doubts knowledge we're going to start off with this quote from bertrand russell which is an interesting idea i think you'll find it true the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
0:20
so certain of themselves and wiser people are so full of doubts what that's saying is do we really know as much as we think we don't a lot of times people are very loud that they know the answer to something but maybe they're certain and maybe they in bertrand russell's opinion are foolish to be so certain this is going back to the socrates concept of i'm the smartest because i know i know nothing
0:46
how many of these do you know to be true there's going to be a series of statements there's going to be 10 i believe and just write down the numbers of the ones that you think are true
0:59
number one the chevy nova that's a car sold poorly in south america when it was first introduced because in spanish no ba means no go
1:10
nasa spent millions of dollars developing an astronaut pen which would work in outer space while the soviets solve the same problem by simply using pencils do you think this one is true there might be more than one that's true um right as many of them that you think are actually accurate that you believe to to be accurate slightly overpaying a traffic ticket will keep points off your driving record that's number three
1:33
do you think that's true number four hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die
1:42
number five you can pop popcorn by placing it between certain brands of activated cell phones is that true number six the number of people alive today is greater than the number of people who have ever died
2:01
number seven is this true hair grows back thicker or darker or more whiskery after it shaved
2:09
is that true
2:13
number eight red cars get more speeding tickets than non-red cars is that accurate two more number nine pittsburgh pirates pitcher doc ellis once threw a no hitter while under the influence of lsd lsd is a drug mind hallucinating drug of the sixties and number ten we only use 10 of our brains do you think that one's true so there's 10 total how many of them which ones did you think were true oh no there's 11. a natural sedative in turkey
2:46
tryptophan is what makes you so sleepy after thanksgiving dinner do you think that's true
2:54
would you believe that only one of those statements is actually true
2:59
and that is doc ellis the one about the pitcher throwing uh the no hitter the story goes he wasn't gonna play that day and he took so a drug the night before or that day and he showed up and he was all um under the influence the ironic thing if you know a baseball um box score they'll put the last name of the player and then the first initial of the player um in the box score and so on the day he pitched of course his last name is ellis
3:25
and his first initial is d and that's a true story that's him with his hair curlers so the problem is i bet a lot of you thought that you know the turkey tryptophan drug or a hair growing whiskery after we cut it there's a lot of things we believe and why do we believe them i mean historically here are a couple of ads everybody knows on the left that you know doctors smoke camel cigarettes back then you would have people doing cigarette advertising on tv
3:52
doctors would endorsing them and on the right everybody knows for a better start in life start your baby with coca-cola sugary water is exactly what we need different times of period different time periods in history people believe different things epistemology is really studying do we know what we think we know thinking is kind of hard now i'm not saying um everybody's a [ __ ] but most people are we don't think clearly we don't think logically and it's because
4:24
people just act out where we are reactive minds rather than reflective minds which means we react to things we don't ponder we don't think on it epistemology tries to force us to think on things
4:39
epistemology asks number of questions that we'll deal with this year what is knowledge how is knowledge acquired and how can you know anything at all and usually at this point i will say okay give me raise your hand and tell me something you know for certain and kids will give me math questions 2 plus 2 is 4 and they could say the sky is blue even though it's not that's the reflection ultimately there's not a lot of things that we know for certain somebody say well my name is tony
5:05
well that was the name you were given there are some syllables that we've assigned to you that's your name quote unquote the idea in epistemology is what do you really know for certain are there things we know for certain that are really just our opinions when you really examine the things you feel strongly about this is what socrates would do to see if they really make sense
5:26
so the distinction between fact and opinion objective and subjective objective is your math teacher they give you a problem it's right or wrong and you get the answer subjective is based more on opinions and judgments in other words you do an essay for english class the teacher gave you a c you thought it was an a she's right because she's the teacher but really it's just an opinion a different teacher maybe gave it gives it a different grade in general
5:54
most people base everything on subjective things objective things are things we can measure if you want to see who's taller we can measure that but if we want to say who's smarter we could give a test that measures that but the intangible things are usually just based on opinion
6:12
which is more accurate if you look you've got truth knowledge and belief objective claims those are the claims that are measurable are the ones that are accurate there's very few things that are measurable which means everything else that people know or think they know is just opinion
6:36
so a little quiz a few questions here uh number one in the past 20 years violence in schools has a increased b remained the same c decreased past 20 years violence in schools increased remain the same decreased question number two very similar in the past 20 years violent crime in america a increased b remain the same c the answer to those questions
7:05
was actually they're both decreased now if you watch the news depending on what network you watch the individual stories really make us look at the world in a certain way you can watch fox and think the world is one way and watch cnn or almost any other network and think the world is different our opinions are shaped by the news the news is one of the most powerful if not the most powerful thing in affecting how people think next question what is the chance of
7:37
a coin coming up heads on a single flip you flip a coin one time heads or tails what's the chance number five what is the chance of a coin coming up if you got three heads in a row so you flipped it three times in a row you got heads the fourth time what's the chances and number six what is the chance of getting heads if you got heads 10 times in a row what would be the chance on that 11th time some people are taking off their shoes to get higher counting numbers
8:09
the answer to all of them is 50 percent we often use flawed logic we think of things it's you know what if you got 10 in a row the chances of getting 11th are probably pretty small if you did it in the beginning in other words if you said what are the chances 11 times in a row this is gonna happen but in any coin flip it's always 50 50. our logic our way of thinking is flawed often
8:35
the gamblers fallacy and you could also use this as a basketball player the gambler's been winning at blackjack blackjack keep playing he's hot in other words if you made five straight shots you should give the ball to me because i'm gonna make another or you could look at it differently i've been losing at blackjack blackjack keep playing i'm due in other words if i miss 10 straight shots
8:58
and i'm the best shooter give me the ball the chances of it going in are high on the 11th time these are ways that we just think in incorrect in an incorrect manner describe what you see
9:14
number eight write down what you see what does it say
9:20
number nine what do you see on this one
9:27
so the answers number seven there are three partial circles there is no triangle
9:33
number eight paris in the the spring the appears there twice you can rewind the video if you like our minds just disconnect and don't see the second the and some people see faces some people see vases it's both
9:52
we often misperceive the world the world is existing outside of our minds we take in the world with our senses but we often misperceive them our senses might lie to us
10:07
so hero of ellis he is our philosopher of the day he's the father of skepticism somebody is who is a skeptic a lot of times doesn't believe something
10:17
by suspending judgment by confining oneself to objects as they appear and by asserting nothing definite as to how they really are one can escape the perplexities of life and attain an imperturbal peace of mind now there's a lot of high heavy words in here but to break it down to suspend judgment that means to not jump to conclusions by confining oneself to objects as they appear in other words just looking at the situation not adding to it
10:44
with a big story in our mind by asserting nothing definite meaning not jumping to conclusions then we can escape the perplexities of life we can make life a lot easier and we can attain an imperturbable peace of mind we can get a very calm mindset if we just wouldn't jump to assumptions and jump to conclusions about everything if we just sort of were a little more chill on what we think we knew we wouldn't be as stressed that's the best way i could break down this heavy quote
11:19
so piro a greek philosopher he was a skeptic now he actually went to india he was with alexander the great who had traveled the world and in india he interacted or he must have interacted with some philosophical schools because his views definitely take um some things from buddhism and hinduism and he himself as a philosopher was so highly valued they passed a law that said he never had to pay taxes again i'm waiting for that for philosophy teachers
11:49
so what is skepticism it taught that every object of knowledge involves uncertainty there is nothing you can know for certain it's impossible ever to have a complete certainty of the truth well you know the sun's going to rise tomorrow do you really i mean it has risen a lot of times in a row i would agree with that but do we know for certain anything the impossibility of knowledge the impossibility of truth should cause the wise person to avoid stress about life
12:26
if we don't know if the thing that just happened was good or bad why are we flipping out about it
12:34
when you think about it aren't most of your daily choices just based on a belief in your head of what is the right thing to do all day long we're like little calculators is it worth going to subway am i going to have time to do that should i send her a text should i blow off homework again all day long we're making a little choices of whether or not something is worth it for us but can we ever know for certain what's the right thing to do i mean you could do the homework or
13:00
not do the homework you could apply for the job or not apply for the job you could ask the girl out or not at night not ask the girl out how do we ever know when we're making the right choice aren't our beliefs about what we want life to do aren't they really just opinions that a lot of times are wrong maybe you really really want to get into this college and you don't do you know for certain that's bad news is it possible that the not getting what you want turns into a
13:28
tremendous stroke of luck is there more is there no way to ever know anything for sure why worry we tend to worry because we jump to conclusions rather than in remaining a little less uh in our own heads we just accept things as they are the warrior pose for those of you who know yoga am i doing this right is everyone looking at me i'm not going to get into the boobs one but in regards to our minds are always at work the indian philosophy
14:00
calls them vritti the ways of the mind they talk about we have a monkey mind never never calm just bouncing around like a monkey and that's the idea most people worry all of the time
14:13
mickey rivers was a baseball player for the yankees he was an odd guy and this quote i just found uh amazing quote ain't no sense of worrying about things you got control over because if you've got control over ain't no sense of worrying it ain't no sense and worrying about the things you don't got control of because if you don't got control over them ain't no sense in worrying when you really think about it there is a wisdom there because the things we worry most about usually
14:39
we can't control them and if we could control it well then control it fix it no reason to worry
14:46
so one of pirro's students said that he had reached a god-like state of calm having escaped servitude to mere opinion god like skate of state of calm i think people understand just being relaxed no worries no stress how did he do that he had escaped servitude servitude meaning slavery to opinion we always care about people's opinions we care about our own opinions we care about all of these things that
15:15
he says you can't know for certain epistemology once again you cannot know anything for certain
15:22
pero said life if you really think about it and this is depressing because a lot of you will connect with us life is made up of people struggling and fighting for what they want for what they desire foolishly thinking that some things are better than others but they're doing this it's a useless struggle against ourselves about nothing people want money they say but really we don't want money we want peace of mind peace of mind
15:48
can be achieved when we have lots of money peace of mind can be achieved when we're happy we're not worrying about the rent but money itself is just paper people suppose that the thing that just happened the thing that's in their mind that they expect to happen they think if it doesn't happen it's bad and if it does happen it's good that's a foolish way of thinking according to pirro
16:13
anoraxia nothing in itself is true or false it only appears so because of our opinions nothing in itself is good or evil it's only opinion social norms that make it so in other words murder most people would say killing somebody most people would say is bad it's wrong it's illegal and it is unless you've got a uniform on with our flag on it and then you get medals the idea of laws and customs and opinions is what
16:40
ultimately makes us believe things are good or bad but they're not good and bad in themselves we can't really predict the future i can't maybe you can we really don't know how things are going to work out when if you're a wise person like pirro was you realize this and you stop preferring one course of action over another in other words you stop having preferences you just accept life as it comes and the result you would be freedom from worry and you would achieve
17:09
apathy which is that what adaraxi is i say apathy and a lot of people don't like that word apathy is not caring and this is what it's saying but not caring in a negative sense just not having worries
17:24
preference and desire now this is something that he promised likely got from buddhism but all of our action that we do is based on our preferences we just we choose to do one thing over another i want to go to mcdonald's rather than burger king that's a preference pirro said we should kind of hold back on our preferences and we should realize no matter what we choose in reality we don't know if one way is better than the other maybe mcdonald's
17:50
is better than burger not the best example now that i'm into it maybe mcdonald's is better than burger king but you know what i don't know necessarily if today i made the right choice so why worry about it he said we need to reject desires desires are things we want desires are thinking we need life to go a certain way if we stop needing life to go a certain way if we stop having the desire to be the best or to get the girl or to get the
18:16
job i'm not saying not to get girls and jobs i'm saying to desire itself according to pirro is where we ruin our calmness where we ruin our tranquility where we ruin our peace of mind
18:31
the third zen patriarch the great way is easy for one with no preferences
18:38
we if i say i'm bringing ice cream or donuts tomorrow you're getting a picture in your head if you like donuts and then i show up with a bunch of jelly donuts that nobody likes you're going to be let down versus if i just randomly brought in some jelly donuts we get preferences we get expectations piro tried to point out having of thought in your minds a model of how things have to go is foolish because we'll never know anything for certain
19:05
so what's the proper way of life he said that we need to accept that we don't know how life is going to turn out and then we'll be calm when you think of anxiety that people have people are anxious because they don't know what's going to happen but we never know what's going to happen he said to embrace that if we remove the preference of what life has to do and we remove the desire of what we want to have happen next we can just relax with whatever life throws at us
19:35
it really is not possible for us to ever truly know if we're making the right or wrong decision on anything but if we remove all of this worry then we can actually enjoy life rather than the regretting every choice we make
19:54
we'll finish off with with uh why worry if you've done the very best you can worrying won't make it any better i worry about many things but not about water over the dam meaning things that are past and at usually at the end of the powerpoint kids start thinking about yeah but you don't understand i have real things to worry about
20:14
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