the psychology of objectivism - one possible narrative

Hey, don’t you owe me about a billion rebuttals on the “discussing god and religion” thread? I’m sensing a pattern here… :-"

I have to be honest though: I really don’t have a fucking clue [this time] as to what in tarnation you are trying to convey here.

My point [re the OP] is not that individuals either are or are not fallible. Rather it is to suggest that in the absense of God [or your own pantheistic contraption] mere mortals [if they are being honest with themselves] are, like me, entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

But even here I fully acknowledge how this is necessarily embedded in the manner in which [b][u]I[/b][/u] have come to understand the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods.

And since interpreting them as I do precipitates a rather glum manner in which to construe conflicting human behaviors [and the nature of identity], I am always looking for an argument that might extricate me from that.

Just not yours. :wink:

Anyway, it is to escape the “agony of choice in the face of uncertainty” that the sacred and the secular objectivists invent their Gods and their “metaphysical” morality.

You got me. You are correct, you found it out, I’ve been lying to you all along, none of my posts are meant to make any sense whatsoever, I’ve been ironic all the time, it’s all lorem ispum bullshit, and don’t even ask what lorem ipsum is, cause noone knows. Now I’m gonna post another lorem ipsum, it would be lorem ipsum: the sequel, it won’t make any sense, cause there is no sense, so don’t freak out, be cool. With love.

Being objective, then, does not mean knowing “objective truth” or “absolute truth”, but making your best guess.

Your best guess is your best guess, not necessarily the best guess that exists in the universe, and certainly not the best possible guess that can be made.

People are different, they possess different information and they have different capacities.

Your best guess may be the same as someone else’s best guess, which means that the two of you have certain similarities. It can also be better than someone else’s guess, as well as worse.

The quality of guess has several dimensions.

The first, and the most important dimension, is the quality of guess in relation to one’s limits.

We are not free to see the world any way we like. We are limited creatures, and so we have a finite set of possible ways in which we can perceive reality.

You can make the best possible guess you can make, the best possible way you can perceive reality. This is mental health.

Or you can make a substandard guess, a guess which is below your capacities. This is mental illness.

The second dimension is temporal dimension. As we become stronger, our standards change, and so what we previously thought to be our best guess now becomes a substandard guess, revealing itself as a mistake.

The third, and final, dimension is the quality of guess in relation to what other people think.

Normally, we feel ashamed when we make, or realize that we have made, a substandard guess. But if we end up confusing what is substandard with what is up to standard, we can be made to feel ashamed for no reason whatsoever. This is what happens when people conflate their own limits with other people’s expectations.

A man can adopt unrealistic standard. Unrealistic standard is a standard which does not reflect one’s limits. One is expected to perform better than one can, to over-perform, or to perform worse than one can, to under-perform.

To be yourself, who you are, is to act to the best of your ability.
This is what it means to develop genetic identity.
This is what it means to be noble, to be a gentleman.

The other option, to not be who you are, is to under-perform or over-perform.
This is what it means to develop memetic identity.
This is what it means to be ignoble, to be a barbarian.

To under-perform is to act below your limits.
This is exaggerated humility/shame, or hyper-femininity.
Concealed, tamed barbarism.

To over-perform is to act above your limits.
This is exaggerated arrogance, or hyper-masculinity.
Open, untamed barbarism.

I was checking with my GP, asking them some questions about my supposed friend, if they could tell me what this might be about, and this is what I got:

ivyroses.com/Define/Logophobia

Have you ever went to school?

Ever studied math?

I can barely imagine your reaction to math . . .

Well, one thing no one would ever accuse you of is being afraid of words. But then that’s kinda my point, isn’t it? And the more abstract, the better.

As for math, that would seem to have little to do with the psychology of objectivism. After all, the laws of mathematics really are applicable to everyone, everywhere.

In other words, it’s not likely that someone [as dasein] will come to believe that 1 + 1 = 3, and then defend it by insisting that others who do not believe this are irrational or immoral.

Or imbeciles.

Are they? So why do people still argue over whether 0.999~ equals 1 or not?

Obviously you don’t read a lot of the posts in rant and science. :laughing:

I can still prove that 0.999… is not equal to 1.0. And Wiki still lists their proofs that it is.
No, math is not universally settled.

Yes, James, but what you can’t prove – what you absolutely refuse to prove – is what rational metaphysics has to do with conflicting moral and political value judgments. Which, by the way, is the focus of the OP.

Or are you actually ready to bring your “definitional logic” down to earth? :-k

No. The only thing that I refuse, is trying to teach mathematics to monkeys while I have better things to do.

Let’s not derail the thread, okay? Just say the word and I’ll start a new thread. We can pursue the relationship between mathematics and morality more…productively? Like old times!

There were no “productive old times” between us. I was merely keeping you distracted and occupied while other things were going on. You proved to be entirely disingenuous, so discussion beyond that wasn’t appropriate … much like now.

You really don’t have an ironic bone in your body, do you? It’s a wonder you don’t have 19,797 posts at the Know Thyself forum by now.

Anyway, I’ll start the new thread, okay? Look for it.

But, in being a realist, I’ll start it up in the rant forum. :wink:

Someone gives you an apple. Are you going to argue that they cheated you – that they only gave you 0.999~ of an apple instead? Sure you can take mathematics out into the more speculative realms. But most of us are quite content in accepting that the laws of mathematics and science really do seem to transcend dasein.

But what of moral and political agendas? How are they not bursting at seams with the manner in which I construe dasein and conflicting goods?

Why don’t you focus instead on why my argument here is less reasonable than yours?

But only pertaining to an actual moral conflict that we are all familiar with. What is your argument “down here”?

You, I am actually curious about your answers to the questions in my previous post.

Here, the distinction I make is between language able to denote the objective truth and language rooted more or less in personal opinion.

If a doctor is performing an abortion there may be different words used to describe the operation as a medical procedure. But then it is only a matter of learning the sounds invented in different parts of the world to encompass the words used in order to communicate coherently with the pregnant woman or with other doctors.

But the medical procedure itself transcends gender or race or ethnicity or sexual preference or religious convictions or political values.

It is only when we shift gears and the language used focuses instead on the morality of abortion, that objectivity [eventually] gives why to the subjective/subjunctive parameters of value judgments.

And it is here that we bump into the manner in which I construe dasein and conflicting goods.

I would only suggest that, again, with respect to those relationships that language can in fact denote objectively [the laws of math and science, empirical fact, the logical rules of language etc], there is a right word and a wrong word. But with respect to identity and value judgments, right and wrong can always be rationalized by making certain assumptions about what is true or false.

Thus there are folks who insist that abortion is immoral because it results in the killing of innocent human life. Meanwhile there are other folks who insist that abortion is moral because otherwise women will be forced to give birth against their will. And that is immoral.

Thus conflicting goods. Both sides have arguments that the other side is unable to make go away. But we can’t live in a world where both sides prevail.

The same is true with all other moral conflicts that make the headlines day after day after day.

Even extreme behavior like rape can be rationalized. If one starts from the premise that, morally, personal gratification is the center of the universe [in a world sans God] anything can be justified if one is willing to accept the consequences of living with those who will punish such behavior. And then with God, all bets are off, right? What monstrosity has not been rationalized through religion? Or, for the secularists, through ideology [Reason].

What is crucial though is that behaviors must be fitted into one or another legal and political contraption. And here that can revolve around either God or ideology or democracy. What’s important to me is in recognizing that if there be no deontological agenda open to us, the only recourse is moderation, negotiation and compromise. But that will always be fluid and unstable and problematic.

But at least most folks are able to make their own existential leap to a frame of mind they deem the most rational/moral. Instead, I’m rather hopelessly entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

My point is that the scholastic/didactic “reasoning” that folks like Satyr and Lyssa employ revolves largely around the definitions that they give to words such that the meaning of the words used in their [largely] abstract arguments is necessarily true because it is predicated on the internal logic derived from the definition/meaning they give to the words.

And, in fact, it is when you take that circular logic down here and plug it into actual moral and political conflicts that you begin to ascertain the limitations of their serial assertions.

Almost all of the objectivists focus the beam on these clouds of abstraction over there.

And, with Satyr and Lyssa and Magnum, I have asked them repeatedly to give us examples of how they actually do walk the talk in their interactions with others. But that necessarily does involve bringing their theoretical jargon down to earth and [so far] they won’t go there.

Moral decisions have real life consequences and it is through these consequences that one determines their value.

Furthermore, one has to learn how to separate the genesis of a decision with its value.

I can decide using a dice throw, or using my “dasein”, and still be correct because the genesis of a decision is separate from its value.

In short, the quality of a decision should be measured against reality, against its real life consequences.

Because we all see from different perspectives. Brain matter does that to us. lol And we would prefer to be stubborn and/or right in our assumptions than to simply come to creating synthesis.

iambiguous

So, what is it that you are asking for here? That people reveal particular things within their own private lives that would point to their relationships with others - how objective they are capable of being or how subjectivity rules their lives. That would be an interesting thing to indulge in and as you say it would bring anything being discussed more down to earth - kind of getting into the nitty gritty.
But it’s safe not doing that. That requires a certain degree of self-trust and discernment.
But in the name of clarification and synthesis, gee how good it would be.

Just more of the same.

You make a series of didactic assertions. I respond to them, probing the extent to which they may or may not be applicable to actual conflicting behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.

You ignore the probe and just make new assertions.

Now, I’m not saying that what you assert to be true is not true. I am simply asking you to situate the assertions in a moral conflict we are all familiar with and/or or in personal experiences you have had in confronting the odious “liberals” who just don’t get it.

I have gone down this road so many times …

For example, abortion.

Up to a certain point in the gestation period, the fetus cannot live outside of the woman’s womb. Before week 22, there is no chance of survival outside the womb.
Up to a certain point in the gestation period, the fetus does not have a developed brain or body and cannot be considered as a conscious human being.
Scientifically documented.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viab … thresholds
Therefore, it is moral to abort a fetus before week 22. Objective reasoning.

“But how on Earth can you make an argument to convince someone who believes that the fetus is a human being at conception, that it is moral to abort before week 22?”

I just did. Off the skyhooks. No abstract words. No theoretical assertions.