I don't like the word freethought

[fromderinside]

Freethought is not possible. Emotion and history are tied up in every human thought. Such is evident even at the interface signal sources with what humans process. All processes are determined by filters through which they flow. All filters in humans are shaped by history of successful processing.

When one speaks of fidelity one is speaking about how near filters achieve output like what has been input.

This brings me to emotion which also an integral driver in what we perceive which is a combination of our states with those of the signals being processed.

So by the time reason can be applied emotion and transduction are already conflated in what is processed to the point where decisions are made about of what one is aware. What is available to machines of reason are of very low fidelity.

OK, one wants to differentiate bound thought with unbound thought in some sense for some purpose. No longer free thought is it?

 

[Underseer]

Eh, freethought is an ideal. It's OK to fail as long as we keep trying, and failure doesn't necessarily deny use of the term to describe people.

 

[WAB]

I think freethought means thinking whatever the hell you damn well please without being shot in the head, or having your head sawed off, for voicing whatever it is you think. Of course, if the universe does happen to be ruled and governed by a jealous deity Who might damn you to eternal torment simply for your thoughts, then that means everyone will suffer eternally, and that presents a really bleak, as well as nonsensical, view of things.

I realize the thread is old, but I think it's important, particularly at this BB. I argued a long while back, at FRDB, that freethought was slightly misapplied to that BB since it seemed the majority of users there seemed to hate the word 'free' and all of its possible definitions. I wondered why users at FRDB would want their community to be saddled with a term with such potentially misleading connotations: misleading in the sense that it could possibly misrepresent the actual thinking of said users.

Edited in a second after: Not that users here or there have any real problem with 'freethought' as it pertains to having the political 'freedom' to think and say whatever one pleases; only that if the universe is strictly determined— which appears to be the prevalent view here and there, at least among our most vocal posters— then there is no such thing as free thought or free anything, according to the strictest and most literal definition of 'free'.

 

[George S]

The word freethought has a Wiki ariticle [ freethought].

Freethought or free thought is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth [claims] should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, or other dogmas. [insertion mine]

Each proposition is a stand alone truth claim.

Ice is Hot
Fire is Red
Blood is red
If some thing exists then we can be sure that something exists.
I think therefore I am.
I remember therefore I am.
I plan using that memory therefore I am.
I plan therefore I am responsible to the degree that I am able for the future I who I will be.
If A then A.
If there is no God there are no godlets (like sons of the aforementioned nonexistent God), djinn, angels (nope, not even the cute little Cupids (gods of love) with the arrows) and god-magic.​

You may have an opinion as to the truth of the above claims.

From one truth we may derive another. [Wait, wait there is already a mathematical truth here. Right at the heart of things. Start with nothing -- name it {} -- the empty set. Now we have something, namely the empty set itself. And from here there may be derived all the theorems of number theory.

We evaluate a truth claim by comparing what we suppose that truth claim means with our understanding of the state of reality. There are some truth claims that may be black and white. "So when I let go he fell." Others not so clear. The witnesses contradict each other. The physical evidence tends to convict but is not conclusive. In law we have two standards to judicial truth claims. The prosecutor's truth claim is "you are guilty of this particular crime" and the defense's is "prove it!" using the standard of "preponderance of evidence leading to a high probability of guilt" or "beyond a reasonable doubt" (with "reasonable" meaning conforming to nearly certain.)

freethought : "Prove it!"

(At least it is my truth claim that this last identity is "true" in some sense.)

 

[WAB]

Yes, George, you're right. I am stuck in the past and my old beef against the freewill deniers. Though I've also admitted to coming around quite dramatically to a Spinozan, wholly-determined system. Now I'm reading Penrose and am once again looking at more stochastic (I learnt a new word! Whoo-eeeh Miss Magee!) Bigger Picture.



Oh, and I always thought fire was more orangy.

 

[Togo]

Freethought or free thought is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth [claims] should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, or other dogmas. [insertion mine]

Which is presumably why whenever someone with unfortunate views starts posting on the science forums, they are gently refuted with a carefully worded exercise in logic and reason, citing empirical evidence, rather than just being crushed out of hand by posters wielding the authority of the scientific tradition?

 

[steve_bnk]

I don't like the word epistemolog , but I learned to live with it.

 

[MxM111]

Theism and atheism are answers to the question "is there a god(s)?" whereas agnosticism is an answer to a very different question ("What is knowable?").

Not sure if it helps this particular discussion, but Theism and atheism are answers to the question "do you have faith in god(s)?" It is quite different question, because you still can have faith or not even if you answer the second question negatively, that is you can not know if there is god(s) in principle. In short, one CAN be agnostic theist and agnostic atheist.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I have both practical and philosophical objections to the word. Religious people have abused the word "truth," and atheists have abused the word "freethought." When an activist group uses the word, it isn't. Acharya S's cult uses that word, calling her website "Freethought Nation" and then peddling books with bizarre theories of history and religion that appeal to atheists, filling the bibliographies with secondary and tertiary modern sources. The word was also used by "FreethoughtBlogs.com," which became closely aligned with "Atheism Plus", meaning "atheism plus a lot of liberal ideologies," so they engaged in nasty rhetorical battles with perceived sexists and racists. Now this forum uses that word, and it kinda gives me an uneasy feeling.

I also have philosophical objections to that word. None of us are as freely thinking as we think. We are machines to the programming of our biology and our society, and none of us are any less of a machine than another.

Suppose there was such a thing as thinking freely. Would I want to? No! I want to believe in reality. The more confined my thinking is to reality and good reasoning, the better. I don't want to think freely. I want to think correctly.

 

[steve_bnk]

I could create a category 'post modern neo classical theistical quasi atheistical agnosticism' and assign observable characteristics of some individuals.

That is knowledge is it not?