Are you aware of a concept called “Flux”? If a sensitive kid grows up, overcomes his sensitivity, and is no longer sensitive, and he goes to groups and enjoys them, well then, boy, we don’t draw the conclusion that groups attract sensitive kids, because it’s not anyone sensitive, nor it is a kid, drawn to the group, boy, its an entirely different flux of personality.
Trixie,
I can almost laugh at that Trixie. Flux is one of my favorite words in the English language - it’s practically my middle name. Aside from the fact that there is flux, there is also ebbing, which of course flows within the same wave. As i said, life is a process. You know this.
There are sometimes “residuals” Trixie. We are not finished entities. I flow and ebb. I myself sometimes like groups but not often- I like ilp but for the most part I would prefer to be one and one or sit in the present of those little creatures or critters or sit in the presence of a tree. Beautiful introjection going on there. lol
Aside from that, I can’t quite grasp the second half of what you said above. And there are groups which attract sensitive kids - they’re called terrorist groups, and some religious organizations too.
And look again ‘we must choose’…
and then you go on an express what you clearly think is a self evident good. You are an objectivist, except when you this is pointed out to you and then you add a disclaimer.
How could you possibly know, given your own epistemology/nihilism, that this is something we must do?
For all you know that might make the world worse.
I know you can say what you say about dasein and where you come from. I am saying that this ability you have on occasion to do this does not preclude your being an objectivist, and you are one. You can choose to accept that you are one and see why you do in fact think it is alright to draw objective and certain conclusions or you can pretend you are one thing while being another. Since it has seemed like part of the intent of publically discussing this issue to is resolve, if it were possible, something, to me one must start where one is and resolve it from there. Many people confuse what they think makes sense with what they believe and you seem to be one of them. (and this is not an odd fringe idea, that one can be like this. Much of modern cognitive science supports the idea that people can be confused about their own beliefs, epistemology, motivations and so on)
Hey Morono, I have a question, Morono, are you following me, Morono, I have a question for you, Morono, and this text here, Morono, quoting your own text, Morono, yes I am talking to you, Morono, I want some further clarification on it, Morono, can you please, Morono, explain it, Morono, to me, Morono, will you, Morono, this is the text, Morono:
What did he live through, Morono, can you explain to us little armchair ubermenschen, Morono, what did he live through, Morono, I would be glad to hear that, Morono, don’t make me beg, Morono.
If you are a woman with an unwanted pregnancy how are you not going to choose to either abort it or not abort it?
And if abortion is construed to be a capital crime in your own political jurisdiction and a woman you know has had an abortion how are you not going to choose to either inform the authorities or not?
As long as we choose to interact with others socially, politically and econonomically there are going to be moral and political conflicts. Right? Now, you can of course choose to go off on your own and live isolated from the rest of humanity. Then morality is moot, isn’t it? Unless, of course, you believe in God.
But most us [for whatever personal reasons] are basically obligated to interact with others such that [eventually] what we want to do will clash with what others want us to do instead. And often over value judgments derived from the actual life that we have lived.
I am simply noting here that when these inevitable conflicts occur, power can dictate the outcome or moderation, negotiation and compromise can be opted for.
Now, pertaining to abortion [or any other moral impasse], what is this “self-evident” good that I am noting? How are my options here not clearly rooted instead in my “dasein dilemma”?
Do you even grasp the point I am trying to make regarding this frame of mind:
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 whole point here is that making the world better or worse by forcing women to give birth or allowing the unborn to die in granting women the right to choose, is ever embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. There is no objective better or worse.
Or, rather, where is the philosophical argument that would suggest otherwise?
Again, if you wish to ascribe my point of view here as just another example of objectivism, fine. But [as I see it] that is just to say that anytime anyone believes a particular argument that they make is a reasonable one, that makes them an objectivist. Yet I clearly note [over and again] how often in the past I have embraced a particular moral/political agenda only to have a new set of experiences, relationships, ideas etc. come along and upend it. And I certainly don’t exclude moral nihilism here.
But where is the argument now that convinces me to move on? Yet no matter what I might move on to I will still have folks like you claiming that I am an objectivist. As though there is absolutely no distinction to be made between the inherent ambiguity embedded in my views on the morality of abortion and those on either side of the issue who insist that [re either God or Reason] their agenda reflects the one true objective good.
You arguments are interesting but you seem obsessed with channelling them all through “Dasein”. This obsessive reductionism does not work, as the term is incapable of accommodating all that traffic.
And since Dasein is a significantly contested concept, it’s appearance in your posts act more like the appearance of a shibboleth.
If you want to have a self referring “dialogue”, you can only expect it always to descend into a monologue in which you learn nothing, and teach less.
On the contrary, over and again, I make it abundantly clear that with respect to dasein [small d] I am actually excluding the preponderence of components that constitute our interactions with others.
Also, dasein is irrelevant with respect to the laws of science, the logical rules of language, the actual empirical reality that encompasses the world that we live in.
Think about what transpires in the course of going about your day. These are experiences in which dasein is seamlessly intermeshed in the multitude of facts that have come to be your life. Most times, you don’t really think about what you are doing [at home, on the job, being around others etc.] in terms of your “identity” at all.
Instead, it is only when what you are doing comes into conflict with another that you may be forced to think about how you might be doing something else instead. Why do you believe particular behaviors are right that others believe are wrong? How do we actually come to these very personal conclusions? I merely suggest that in large part with respect to “conflicting goods” identity is rooted largely in this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
Of course, the reason dasein appears so frequently in my posts is that I also make it abundantly clear that philosophy is interesting to me only insofar as it is useful in answering the question, “how ought one to live?”
Which sooner or later brings me back to 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.
The irony then being that I come into places like this looking for arguments that might actually extricate me from this truly godawful “dilemma”.
Maybe, but the points that I raise regarding the relationship between dasein, conflicting goods and political economy either are or are not reasonable.
And folks either are or are not able to demonstrate to me that how they construe them instead is more reasonable still.
But I suspect [and this is purely conjectural] that many folks abandon exchanges with me because they sense that maybe I am on to something here. And if I am then maybe, just maybe, what I am on to is also applicable to them. But thinking like me is the last thing most folks want to be burdoned with. Instead, they find it more comforting and consoling living in one or another rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
Or so it seems to me.
Besides, as most well know from viewing my religion, determinism, film, song and mundane ironists threads, it’s not like the only thing I contribute here is reduced down to dasein.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mox_1rozE-A[/youtube]
Dude, you don’t even know what objectivism is lol.
You’re not being ironic, are you? 
She’s like a caricature of a cartoon character Randroid.
Oh, and [of course] she’s a Kid. 
So, have you nailed her yet?
But isn’t objectivist someone who thinks he’s better than everyone else?
Is that a silence I am hearing?
Note to myself: Move on to others. 
You are refusing to answer simple questions.
The video claims that objectivists are herd-like. How is that the same as alpha-man-like?
An objective notion is only so, because the majority accept it as true regardless of their own opinion. Thus objectivism is a complete denial of the individual, and personal views. To be an objectivist is to FOLLOW the received wisdom: the wisdom of the priest, the king or tyrant. Ae these what you refer to as “alpha-men”. The men that own you?
An objective statement is perfectly okay for matters of scientific interest, but when it comes to culturally and morally mediated assertions pur objectivity is absurd.
The girl in the video is just like any other religious acolyte.
She’s a follower, and that is all objectivists are: followers of someone else’s view of objectivity.
Hey Lev,
Wikipedia redirects me to Ayn Rand’s concept of objectivism where it is stated that objectivism’s main tenet is that “reality exists independently of consciousness”. Google, on the other hand, gives me as a number two in its list of definitions a sentence that says “the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them”. These two definitions sort of agree, don’t they? So we can say that objectivism is the idea that what is true is independent from what anyone thinks is true. Kind of hard to disagree with, isn’t it? Now where I disagree with you is the idea that moral statements have no truth value. Moral statements are simply ought statements such as “You ought to do X” which mean nothing other than “You ought to do X if you want to maximize the chances of attaining your goals”. Such statements are either true or false. You should either eat in order to remain alive or you should not. Hard to dispute. So the idea that moral objectivism is a complete denial of individual is not true. It’s not MORAL OBJECTIVISM that denies the individual, it is MORAL UNIVERSALISM that does so, the idea that there is a set of moral rules that apply literally to everyone on Earth. The more general the morals, the worse.
But . . . this has nothing to do with this thread because this thread has nothing to do with objectivism in the conventional sense of the word. Rather, it has to do with something not quite defined . . . perhaps dogmatism?
I am a cognitivist, and more specifically, a moral realist who also thinks that sone but not all moral statements are universally applicable.
So . . . no (:
remember when andy used to post like a raging teenager?
Pepperidge farm remembers