All organisms (including humans) depend upon their accurate perception of reality in order to survive. Organisms that inaccurately perceive reality dies.
Societies that misjudge reality throughout history either died or are conquered. Armies that miscalculate the realities of the battle field are slaughtered. Individuals who perceived reality inaccurately paid the cost with their life. Civilizations that diverged from reality crumbled
In a chaotic post-truth, post-modern world and a relativistic society knowing reality [objectively] is the first casualty. The Truth is a commodity that is increasingly becoming rare.
Fake news is everywhere. There’s my facts vs your facts, where there should be just facts. Science when put in quotes, “science,” suddenly transforms into mere opinions. It’s claimed that there’s no such thing as reality. It’s also claimed that there’s no such thing as truth. It’s also said that we live in a simulation and therefore nothing matters… people actually believe that!
"We are loosing our ability to know what is true and what is false. We are loosing the capacity to recognize reality from unreality."
THIS IS INSANE!
The only reason why people can believe that there’s no such thing as reality, truth, or existence is because the modern world has made life safe, stable, and comfortable, so much so that an error in perception doesn’t lead to death.
Not knowing what is real, what is true, and what exists is a civilization-ending recipe and formula for personal destruction. We know this has been historically true and still plays out in nature. And how do you know what is true? What is real? Well, you think. More specifically you contrast what you think is true and real to what is exists–or what can be observed through the senses and through instruments. For the most part people think they can think. The truth is, most people are just mouthpieces for other people’s [bad] ideas. If you could think, you could regain the ability to recognize truth when you hear it and gain the capacity to discriminate reality from unreality. But how does one think? THE 3 LAWS OF THOUGHT
In order to think we must first look at the laws that govern it. The first axiom that you must accept is: existence exists. Without this your mind won’t be grounded on what is real. You risk getting lost in a sea of abstractions. When lost in such sea, anything and everything can be claimed to be true even if it doesn’t make sense.
Existence exist is the underlying assumption under The 3 Laws of Thought and the axiom upon which rational discourse is predicated upon. LAW #1: The Law of Identity (Essence)
The Law of Identity simply states that: “every-thing have a set of characteristics unique to itself.” Put succinctly, A is A.
Essence or identity is what makes thinking possible. The unique set of characteristics of each entity or object is what makes it possible for our minds to understand that an apple is an apple (A is A) and not arsenic or a dildo. In order to think of an apple, we must first recognize the unique characteristics of the apple. We can say, this object is round, red, it has a waxy surface, and if I put it in my mouth it tastes sweet and tarty. I will label this “apple” not “arsenic” because every instance of arsenic I’ve seen have a set of characteristics different from this object I call apple. One nourishes that other poisons. If an apple has the same characteristics as arsenic, we won’t call it an apple. We’ll call it arsenic.
Without essence, we’ll be unable to form thoughts. Confusion is created by being unclear about what are the characteristics of A that is unique to A.
You’d think that everybody knows this but this is not the case in a post-modern post-truth relativistic society; we’ve lost the capacity to adhere to the 1st law of thought and thus our ability to think coherently.
Feminists and leftists could say that “there’s no difference between men and women.” When clearly there are a number of differences that we could readily verify. For example, women have tits, men don’t, men produce more testosterone, women produce less testosterone, women have XX chromosomes while men have XY, women has a womb, men don’t, etc. clearly there are differences.
“It’s not correct that there’s biological sex. I’m a historian of medicine, I can unpack that for you... ‘Cisnormativity’ is basically the very popular idea and assumption that most people probably have that there is such a thing as male and female and that they connect to being a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman.”
— Dr. Nicholas Matte, Lecturer at The University of Toronto
We have a concept of “man” and “woman” only because we could make out differences (i.e. unique characteristics) between those entities. If there were no differences between men and women, we don’t need to refer to them differently and we don’t need to treat one differently from the other. Titanic’s personnel won’t have to tell men, “Women and children first.”
Saying there’s absolutely no differences between men and women is an inaccurate perception of reality, and we know what happens to organisms that don’t perceive reality accurately… LAW #2: The Law of Non-Contradiction (Consistency)
The Law of Non-Contradiction simply states: “no-thing can be and not be at the same time.” More elaborately stated, contradictory statements (or thoughts) cannot be both true at the same time and at the same sense. In short, A cannot be A and non-A at the same time.
Consistency is one of the hardest principle for people to apply, because it requires you to have thoughts, beliefs, convictions, etc. that doesn’t cancel out each other. It also forces people to look at a cold hard facts that might go against what they feel and believe to be true. The question is why must we be consistent? It’s because objects that contradicts itself doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a square circle anywhere in the universe. You can say and think it does but you can’t point to a square circle anywhere in reality. Out of necessity, our mental models or the idea of world that we maintain in our minds that we act upon must reflect what exists, i.e. what is real. Thus our thoughts must have consistency. This is basic! A common refrain I get from people. A cursory glance at the political discourse and society at large will show you that this is not the case. Unfortunately.
A peep at the news stands and you’ll see the inconsistent messages from the media as a whole. On one hand we worry about being fat by pronouncing “Obesity Epidemic…”, “FAT Nation”, and on the other we say that “weight doesn’t matter” and then proceed glorify fat women by dressing them up, painting their faces, and Photoshopping out their imperfections. When taken by the public as a whole, what message does it say?
An example of a common glaring inconsistency: Western Societies are so concerned with the rising obesity epidemic but at the same time Western Societies are trying to normalize, if not glorify, being fat through the fat positive movement.
The media taken as a whole shows the horror of diseases related to being fat in the same way that they will put a fat woman in the cover of a magazine proclaiming that body weight doesn’t matter or worst being fat is equal to being [more] evolved. The societal narrative goads such inconsistencies by encouraging relativism: all bodies are beautiful–putting a photo of a fat and/or obese woman together with photos of supermodels as if all of them are absolutely equally desirable.
There’s a big difference between healthy and unhealthy bodies. There’s also a big difference between a woman that is “curvy” and a woman that is fat.
“Curvy” describes the ‘shape’ of a woman. “Fat” refers to a woman that is carrying a significant amount of fat. “Obese” is a medical diagnosis of a person who is fat in a way that is dangerous to health. While a “fat” person doesn’t necessarily have to be obese, an obese person is a fat person. “Curvy” has nothing to do with body fat percentage, women can be curvy without holding a significant amount of fat (see Brazilian women). A is A and will never be non-A.
This is one of those memes that you see if you do a simple google search. They first show women that are arguably “beautiful” then they show women who are overweight (and probably obese) in the end. Are we to say that the woman on the 10th photo is just as attractive and just as healthy as the woman on the 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th photo?
“Being fat is bad and being fat is good at the same time and in the same sense.” A is A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense. This is a dangerous thought for anyone willing to hold such inconsistencies in their minds because there’s no square circles in reality.
Our actions are based on thoughts. Bad thoughts lead to bad actions. Inconsistent thoughts lead to inconsistent actions and therefore inconsistent outcomes. Acting upon incorrect premises can only lead to bad decisions in life. With this particular square circle of fat positivity, we’re putting the health of people on the line. You can only have inconsistencies in thought if you willfully ignore what is and The Law of Identity. LAW #3: The Law of Excluded Middle (True or False)
The Law of Excluded Middle simply states that: “every-thing must either be or not be.” Stated differently, propositions are true or it’s opposite is true. In other words, there can only be true of false, there’s nothing in the middle.
Since our thoughts are predicated upon an existence that is binary, our thoughts must reflect this binary nature in order to model what is accurately.
Let’s not confuse Law #3 and Law #2. The Law of Excluded Middle refers to possible values. While The Law of Non-Contradiction refers to those values not simultaneously existing at the same instance.
People always push against this idea saying, “things are not black and white!” OH! But it is! The nature of reality and existence is binary. Things either exist or not exist. Events either happen or not happen. There’s no such thing that only partially exists, it either is or is not. There’s no such event that maybe happened, it either happened or didn’t happen. Example: if your spouse cheats on you, you’ll never say that your spouse only ‘maybe cheated.’ Either it’s true that the person cheated, or did not cheat. Either the cheating happened or did not happen. Of course, you’d normally hear excuses such as “it’s complicated,” which is actually a statement that neither affirms nor denies and is a statement intended to mask the real action that took place–in other words, it’s a statement intended to manipulate. “Maybe” and similar statements are used when we’re unsure whether something is true or false. Which of course could easily be remedied by gathering more data in order to ascertain whether the something in question is either true or false. WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THESE?
It’s important to know these 3 Laws that govern rational thoughts because it’s through our minds that we perceive reality. Accurate perception of reality is predicated upon how coherent our thoughts are. To summarize:
This article could also be found on Pong Lizardo's Medium.
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