ILP Wiki - The Certainty


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The sense of certainty seems to be closely related to our sense of reality, self, as well as beliefs, presumptions, etc.

Also, the sense of certainty may play the role in how open minded we can be.

When we are too sure, it often creates closed mindedness that has not much room to understand, to learn different perspectives.

The sense of certainty is related to most (if not almost all) concept in some way, and very strongly tied to some concepts/words such as truth, knowledge?, etc.

And we seem to be addicted to the sense of certainty. See Certainty Addiction

The illusion of Certainty seems to be the foundation, the basic mechanism of info-material world.

Info Material World

Desire/thirst for the certainty => Presumption of the certainty

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

"Inattention in general increases perceptual certainty"
PDF http://consciousnessonline.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/lau-paper.pdf
Video http://consciousnessonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/sensory-awareness-and-perceptual-certainty/



From http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176064&p=2236406

Re: Keys

Postby Nah » Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:47 am

I would say like this:

Our mind (which has the potential to be logical/reasonable but mixed with emotion and confused at first) has the desire to seek certainty and run away from uncertainty.

With the recognition of uncertainty, it tries to find a certainty upon the foot hold or foundation of other certainties (usually in the form of bullshit presumptions coming from biological, psychological, social origin).

By adding certainties (presumptions = bogus notions) upon certainties, we construct a fort AND jail of rigid but bogus notions, and become rigid stiff person.

However, IF the desire to attain the certainty is very acute and strong, person would not be satisfied with most of certainties and find them unreliable and would notice the bogus nature of most rigid notions and our mental foundation.

This may lead us into the state of uncertainty, in which the person may struggle with the loss of certainty, meaning, goal, gratification, and so on BECAUSE s/he is still looking for the absolute certainty but finding more and more that there is none.

In this state, seen as "nihilistic stage" or "existential angst" or "dark night" or whatever, may last long time, depending on the mental clarity and the degree of the desire of the person.

Most of us cannot endure this state and settle with one of fake certainties, and become advocate of ideology, religion, spirituality, moral, ethic, movement, and so on.
They have found the meaning of their life, in a way, adopting whatever foot hold, the (fake) solid ground they can believe that they are standing.

However, I do think almost all of us know, somewhere within ourselves, that there is no absolute certainty and thus we don't have the absolute ground, foot hold, to stand upon.
And this inner knowledge creates constant subconscious fear that pushes those who adopted artificial certainty for the mean of the survival of their fake identity.

The center of the uncertainty is the void, emptiness and it has the effect of destroying and clearing ANY fake certainty (and there is no real certainty at all in the absolute sense). So, it is usually feared by most of us.

The emptiness is NEGATIVE, from the view point of conserving (fake) certainties, which most of us try to do with or without knowingly.
But it (emptiness) does not have any nature of any sort, including the positive/negative distinction.

If one happens to drop into the total uncertainty, somehow, it's a continuous free fall, at first.
Then it's understood that free falling is floating and not having any foot hold, which is the resistance and friction (and suffering). Certainty is the awareness and existence and also suffering, in a way.

Because of its association/relation with the suffering, this kind of perspective is often (and too often) talked in the "positive" and mystyco-religious perspective of people who suffer (and seek to avoid suffering).
But they usually don't understand that they cannot just let go of "negativity" and keep "positives".
Also, they don't understand that dropping off would not happen as long as one seeks any positive, which is another name of certainty.

The desire for the certainty is only satisfied with the absolute certainty. Without it, we would always seek the certainty = positive,and it means we are living in the subconscious foot hold of negativity.
And the desire for the certainty is so deep rooted (starting from the very beginning of the awareness), mere superficial understanding of uncertainty would not be enough to bring the peace of mind.

This means that certainties of ALL sort at all level need to go and it means total destruction and annihilation from the point of view of survival freaks.
So, this is insane and very bad for the mind of most people or even for the universe.
But from the point of view of stillness, if we dare to say, tail chasing and ever swinging/spiraling universe and awareness is insane and crazy, although there is no absolute objection because stillness doesn't really care anything by nature. It doesn't have any potential/possibility for anything, other than sucking and annihilating everything without any hesitation.

So, it's pretty simple, but it defies our mind and emotion. Thus it's rare to see someone who is comfortable with the emptiness, and who is already gone, dropping, free falling, to certain degree.
As the understanding and the orientation of emptiness/absolute does not belong to the majority of universe/existence, people interested in this type of things remain minority and outsider. But it's not really uncommon, either, because it comes from the basic nature of awareness.

And finally and fundamentally, there is nothing to be said. :)

Certainty as the origin of positive and negative

In the information world, identifying is the base for everything, as nothing can be treated without proper identification.

If something isn't identified, it does not exist in the information world.

Naturally, positive identification is required and good, while the lack of identification is negative and bad.

Positive identification is pleasant to our sense (compared to something we cannot identify), liked by our emotion, and appear to be correct and certain to our mind.

I guess this creates the Certainty Bias.


Last modified : Sat Mar 14 02:44:47 2015