More epistemology

Many people find it uncomfortable to live with deep mystery. They want their questions answered. Many people also need to be handed meaning and purpose on a platter -- it ' s too difficult to make their own, especially in the face of hardship and injustice. Making up stories that seem to satisfy the need for explanation and meaning is a temptation that many just can ' t resist. But for other people, testing stories against empirical reality is more important. Whatever dissatisfaction or psychological distress we suffer from choosing to live in reality is worth it to us, because we want the truth more than anything. One kind of logical fallacy that often tempts people in the first category doesn ' t exactly have a conventional name, at least not that I can find. I ' ll call it the semantic fallacy. It ' s essentially arguing over the meaning of a word. I believe I ' ve previously invoked the example of a guy who claimed that the entire concept of " organic food " is meaningless because " organic " means " consisting of carbon compounds " and all food consists of carbon compounds. That is extremely stupid. Most words have various meanings and people happen to be using " organic " in a different way than chemists use it.There ' s an inverse of this trick, which we commonly encounter with the word " god " or " God " if you prefer to treat it as a name rather than an abstract concept. People make up God to fill those uncomfortable gaps in explanation and meaning, and they giv...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs