I believe all consciousness stems from one entity that is only deviating among us by matter of circumstances. We are all the same being facing separate circumstances. Each of us will experience the life of every conscious being that has ever or will ever exist with no recollection of the previous as long as we occupy the physical realm, until we learn to separate our consciousness from the temptations of material existence

How often do you ask yourself,”how did I get here?” Let me make clear that when I say “here” I do not mean the dimly lit room of a pale puke green hue decorated with sloppily drilled and now barren holes scattered across its four walls that I find myself surrounded by now as I write this.When I say “here”I mean to describe the indescribable and inescapable settings we have perceived since our birth. Not only the observable and physical settings, but the setting in which our consciousness finds itself imprisoned within the medium of the physical realm. It begs the question, in my opinion, of whether or not we “got” here so to speak, or if we’ve been here in some sense all along.

The most simple, beautiful, terrifying, yet reasonable answer to give when asked what is it like after we die is certainly that it is much like it was before we were born. This rationalization is based on the belief that there was no experience or observations before our birth. But how far back can you really remember? There is most likely much of your early life that you have no recollection of. This means although you certainly did exist, you have no current access to the experiences and observations you made during those early years of your life. In that same sense is it not possible that you have existed in some form before the event of birth and have no current access to the experiences you made beyond what limited span of memory you can reflect on? The only thing we can know for certain is that we exist, and the only thing we have come to learn is that we know little to nothing at all about the nature of our existence. People often search for meaning to go along with our disposition of self awareness, although nothing suggests in my opinion that any meaning is necessary to explain how our existence came to be. If you believe in god in a religious sense and that some all knowing supreme entity existed before us and created our reality with human kind as its ultimate objective. Where did god come from and how long and aimlessly did they exist before proposing this occupation? Of what framework did they conceive the image of humanity without a physical form themselves? And if our creation was in their own image, who created the image in which they meant to replicate? By this frame of thought you can understand my confusion that anyone amongst us could believe that any answers offered by religious belief are sufficient in explaining anything at all beyond what we all already know… That all we know is that we are to ask, so do not stop asking why we are at all 🙏☀️🌙🌏

How you know?

Agreed!

So Elon Musk.

The issue is related to argumentum ad verecundiam: an argument based on appeal to false or fraudulent authority. Famous example: it has been argued that megadoses of Vitamin C must be beneficial because they were recommended by Linus Pauling, a Nobel Laureate. But he was an inorganic chemist, not a nutritionist; and his prize had nothing to do with Vitamin C.

1000% this. It's important to acknowledge how much other people don't know things or wing it or are faking it and whatnot, to help mitigate the impostor syndrome and low self-esteem, though those are not always sufficient, admittedly (I'm exhibit A lmao). It really does seem to be about doing your best to accept that everything is tentative and best guesses, based on convention and rarely are things hard and fast, etc.

The abuse of being willing to admit faults is a whole other ball game. But at least for the personal individual matters, even being willing to admit fault and apologize shows that one generally knows when an error was made, and that knowing can then potentially be used to alleviate impostor syndrome and low self-esteem, because it can be used to make one's self better. That's way easier said than done, and someone might just as easily feel worse when admitting an error (hi, it's me again), but it doesn't have to be that way.

This is a really cloudy area to talk about as it's super abstract, but I do wanna try to outline a certain path that helped me a little. Political stuff I've read has always involved a lot of self-criticism, but the last couple years I've read a lot that has involved taking in way more perspectives and academic research than usual. It's helped me see that how things are framed matters immensely and that usually most perspectives have something to contribute. This has helped me become totally fine seeing when something a political opponent says is correct, or when someone points out something bad about me or something. I'll freely admit that, but just incorporate it into the frame and/or reshape the frame of the conversation or interaction based on whether or not it's relevant, how it is, how it does or does not change anything, etc. And I'll freely admit when I don't know something and don't know how it affects the framework of something. Because everything's tentative. I realize this may all sound meaningless because I'm not giving a lot of detail, it's just super hard to talk about without going insanely in-depth if someone hasn't gone through a similar intellectual path (I realize how unbelievably pretentious that phrasing is, I just can't think of any other way to put it lmao). But basically, reading and learning lots of self-criticism of my own and similar political tendencies, learning a bit about the vast amount of research on subjects involved in political stuff that's emphasized in those tendencies, seeing how nuanced and controversial and surprising and ingenious and whatnot that that research can be, seeing how various perspectives color one's interpretation of the world and the ways they do and don't contribute things that are true, all helped me be more okay with the tentativeness of my own understanding of things and how it can change, especially when encountering new or different understandings.

Again, that's not all necessarily sufficient for alleviating low self-esteem, but it could possibly help.

This is just way too contextual to be descibable summarily and as generally as said here.

Eric Berne. Transactional Analysis.

Yeah, narcissism lol. But that first part's only really as simple as that if you don't really philosophize any further than that.

As a bartending expert, my opinion on fresh juice vs super juice would be an expert opinion, but my opinion on the proper method of preparing demiglace would not be.

You make this sound like a big deal, but it's as simple as "you're not always going to be right and you're not always going to be wrong".

> The never-admit-your-wrong-or-say-sorry personalitiny

Ie, egomaniacal. There's probably some fancier term for it in the latest DSM.

Abrupt irreversible global warming will.not be halted by AI.

Agree, with him it’s not merely straying out of lane, it’s plowing the entire school bus of academic authority through crowds of bystanders before plunging it off the bridge.

qualia is an underqualified term, just to add

Not enough throat clearing in the world for Dr. JBP. I think charlatan is more apt than simply “non-expert”

I think the point is about ensuring that there isn’t a mismatch between the claims of authority you employ (or, if you have any degree of fame/recognition, the degree to which you temper any public perception of authority you may have) and the actual degree of expertise you have on the topic being discussed.

Here on Reddit, unless you claim expertise you are just another rando commenter, and even if you do claim expertise people are likely to be skeptical due to the anonymous nature of discourse here.

But using your academic credentials or public recognition as an expert to bolster your standing — particularly in non-anonymous settings — despite lacking direct expertise in the topic is another matter altogether.

Ahem Jordan Peterson

I liked the blog post. I would argue that there is some gray area of expertise here. A general statistician may not necessarily know the specifics of SIDS as well as a pediatrician. Often times people who are experts in their field must offer some fringe knowledge on a subject and so should probably consult with experts who overlap in knowledge, especially when the opinion they are providing could impact the livelihoods, safety and health of others. I think the pandemic was full of a bunch of nonsense, it was weird to watch people on both sides of the perceived fence argue that their specific expertise (in statistics or in public health or in politics or in economics or in medical specialties of infectious diseases or emergency medicine) talk about the pandemic as if their one area of expertise entitled them to making broad sweeping statements to all around that the pandemic should be treated in their preferred way. Yet, at least on a local level, no one I knew was willing to talk to people in other specialties Bout the same issues or figure out how they could come to an agreement or even just an understanding about the different needs based on their expertise. I think this phenomenon you refer to happens at every level interpersonally.

Like I said, good read, thanks!

I find that kind of idea fascinating. It’s one motivation for people like Minski, Dennett and Frankish to reject the hard problem of consciousness, right? They don’t believe that we can trust this feeling that we have immediate access to phenomenal properties like ‘qualia’ which are difficult to reconcile with cold hard physicalism.

TLDR the article, beyond the headline, and the comments for context… so forgive the ignorance I might be about to display about the extent of the concept.

I think we can separate logic from epistemic trespassing, though.

As philosophers, we can identify good and bad arguments, regardless of whether they come from experts or not.

Yeah. Experts are better-trained to navigate evidence and context, but if they are put on a pedestal then they can easily mislead us with their own flawed reasoning too.

There has to be universal standards with reasoning, and experts still need to be able to explain themselves. I guess this gets a bit tricky though, because if a statistician is explaining to someone why their probability calculation is wrong, I'd still want them to defer to the statistician rather than their own instinct.

I'm doing the 12 Steps which are, amidst other things, about accountability for your part in actions that have damaged you and/or others. For someone who has experienced a lot of debilitating guilt in the past this is quite a tall order. However, through sobriety and meditation, I'm finding that I'm able to view my incidents, actions or behaviours through a relatively dispassionate perspective, allowing for a quite objective process. It doesn't aim to lay blame or apply guilt, but instead looks to understand the machinations involved to result in the fallout you're investigating. I think this is a real space for growth.

Yeah, you can be an expert in more than one field, for sure!

And there's the crux, no? Epistemological Trespass isn't about credentials, it is about epistemology. Your rebuttals seem more like blaming medical stitches for causing the wound those same stitches seek to address.

What is Epistemological Trespass if not a caution against overly trusting credentials or status?

>In such discourse the phrase is used in regards to accusing laymen of ignorance and lacking education in the face of people crafting policy that often adversely affect said laymen.

Were they misinformed?

>"Who will watch the Watchers" yida yada. But the truth of the matter is the Experts are people like the rest of us and are prone to error and using their position as a vector to implement their personal politics (which is unavoidable, but manifests in egregious ways in particular instances)...

Who do you propose, those out of the field with next to little training or the tools to understand? Where is epistemological consensus in this?