What all men ought to do

[iambiguous]

Of course God just adds another layer of complexity here. If God is said to be omniscient then He knows everything. So that must include knowing what each of us as individuals think we know about Him. So how could we not know only what He already knows that we will know?

Is it really important that God know everything? How would your life change, your behavior change, if you could find out, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God was omniscient?

If God does not know everything that would seem to open up the possibility of committing a sin that escapes God's notice. And how is that different from breaking the law and no one ever finding out? And if I could find out that God was omniscient, an omniscient God would already be privy to this. Just as He would be privy to any and all behaviors that I have deluded myself into thinking that I am making autonomously.

As my ex-wife once pointed out, to the extent that you spend your life pondering seemingly unanswerable questions like this, is the extent that you are not out in the world actually living your life.

Is THIS the way that you see it also? One can seek answers to the hard problems while at the same time striving to find balance between the two.

That was basically my argument to her. Back then though she was in the process of becoming a "radical feminist". And a lesbian. Nothing was more important to her than her political commitment. And that was around the time my own political commitment as a fellow objectivist had already begun to crumble.

From my own frame of mind here and now, "a human being who has both a moral and ethical heart and mind who cares about others and who's focus is 'to do no harm'," is just another existential contraption. It is embodied in a particular "I" out in a particular world. The parts about dasein, conflicting goods and political economy are everywhere here.

Just imagine for example pinning down what it means to have "an ethical heart and mind" re the abortion wars. Or in putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

So, is this question about God being a puppeteer and we the puppets, that no matter what we chose, after much reflection and struggling, let us say after having chosen one intelligent and reasonable option out of five different ways we could have gone, our choice is not based on self-determination and freedom because we would have ultimately made that choice anyway?

There are those who propose arguments that they claim reconcile an omniscient God and the "free will" of mere mortals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_free_will

Arguments of this sort however become entangled in "worlds of words". Words going around and around in circles chasing each other. The assumption always being that there is a God.

What is more important to you? Resolving the above which I do not really see an answer for except by taking a leap into the darkness and choosing one or the other based on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us ~~ since we cannot ever really be certain ~~ it is just like the God thingy. We can also decide to take the way of the agnostic and realize that perhaps in the final analysis it does not matter.

Here "I" -- my "I" -- quickly becomes embedded in the thick fog that surrounds any attempts to really understand your own motivations and intentions.

Did you mean to say *my* (as in your) own motivation, etc.?
What is that *thick fog* - you standing in your own way?

Here I come back to connecting the dots between what I think I know about all of this here and now and all of Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns". The knowledge gaps that stand between what I believe is true and everything that one would need to know about the existence of existence itself. And then [somehow] fitting God into that.

So: How "intelligent, reflective and reasonable" are any of us "mere mortals" in the face of a connundrum that gigantic?

Then the part about calibrating just how "fixed in time" we are in the pursuit of this. Given either an omniscient God or laws of matter that are both immutable and applicable to the "dualism" embodied by human brain/mind.

Last night I dreamed I went to the mailbox in a house I once lived in many years ago. I pulled out the mail and there was a letter from my wife. I was reading the letter. It was about our daughter.

Then when I woke up the whole "incident" just blew my fucking mind! How could my brain manufacture this letter "in my head" such that "in the moment" the "I" in the dream was reading it?!!

Dreams are part of a process. Your consciousness, for whatever reason you needed, had already been in the process of creating that letter for some time. It was just the right time for the *mailman* lol to deliver it.

Yes, but these extraordinary dreams are a process such that neurologically and chemically the matter in my brain was able to create a world that I imagined was real. In the moment of "living" in it.

In other words [perhaps] just as in my waking hours I imagine that the world is real. That I am choosing my behaviors with some measure of freedom.

And, indeed, this being the case, "what would the next step for the philosopher be? What would his next question be?"

The one I asked was, "how is this even possible?"

[Karpel Tunnel]

Or, once again, I am failing to grasp your point here.

I think you are, maybe Phyllo will have some luck with you on that one. I'll stick to the waiting for the argument all rational people should accept that every non-objectivist must be in your hole OR they have some contraption that comforts them. Bring it into the other thread when and if it arises.

[phyllo]

I think you are, maybe Phyllo will have some luck with you on that one.

I don't think that I would have any luck with it.

Over the years, I have tried many approaches and many arguments. I never got anywhere.

I can't think of anything new which has any potential for success.

I see no reason to continue.

If a man, says Epictetus, objects to what is manifestly clear, it is not easy to find an argument against him, whereby one shall change his mind. And this is not because of his power, nor because of the weakness of him that is instructing him; but, when a man, worsted in argument, becomes hardened like a stone, how can one reason with him any more?

Now there are two ways in which a man may be thus hardened: one when his reasoning faculty is petrified, and the other when his moral sense is petrified, and he sets himself deliberately not to assent to manifest arguments, and not to abandon what conflicts with them. Now most of us fear the deadening of the body and would take all possible means to avoid such a calamity, yet we take no heed of the deadening of the mind and the spirit. When the mind itself is in such a state that a man can follow nothing and understand nothing, we do indeed think that he is in a bad condition; yet, if a man's sense of shame and self-respect is deadened, we even go so far as to call him 'a strong man'.

Do you comprehend that you are awake?

'No,' he says, 'no more than I comprehend it, when I seem to be awake in my dreams.'

Is there no difference then between the one sort of impression and the other?

'None.'

Can I argue with him any longer? What fire or sword, I say, am I to bring to bear on him, to prove that his mind is deadened? He has sensation and pretends that he has not; he is worse than the dead. One man does not see the battle; he is ill off. This other sees it but stirs not, nor advances; his state is still more wretched. His sense of shame and self-respect is cut out of him, and his reasoning faculty, though not cut away, is brutalized. Am I to call this 'strength'? Heaven forbid, unless I call it 'strength' in those who sin against nature, that makes them do and say in public whatever occurs to their fancy.
Epictetus - Discourses Book 1 Chapter 5

[Karpel Tunnel]

I think you are, maybe Phyllo will have some luck with you on that one.

I don't think that I would have any luck with it.

Over the years, I have tried many approaches and many arguments. I never got anywhere.

I can't think of anything new which has any potential for success.

I see no reason to continue.

I've reached that place a few times. I recently realized something, at least in a more general way, that he is very focused on shifting the onus away from himself. This will likely be something you alread realized, but I'll write it just to flesh it out. There are a variety of ways this happens, but I think it underlies a great deal of his behavior. He makes assertions and if you point out problems in these he tells you that he has said he is filled with exitential contraptions, and then asks you to show that you are not the same. If you point out he has made claims about you, he will ask for the argument that shows you are not the same as him or demonstrate that you do not have any contraptions. IOW he can say that objectivists have contraptions that comfort them, but never is there any onus on him to defend this (or any other position) since he can then say that he has always said he also has contraptions. And then he will present something he claims is present in your position and ask for an argument that will convince all rational people.

Any contact with him will lead the dicussion partner to where their ideas all need incredibly powerful (all rational people) justification, while his assertions do not need any. And all posts will be foggy, filled with repeats of his positions and a challenge to prove him wrong.

Lovely. Someone who can say whatever he likes about other people or the is/ought distinction or dasein and does not need to justify it because he also has existential contraptions, but other people are expected to come up with powerful arguments that he must also accept, and he never does.

Now I understand. He doesn't leave the apartment. So his influence face to face is extremely limited. But here he is making statements, accusing, labeling people, mind reading, assigning who has onus - and it is never him. Yet, it ends up, since his behavior can always be excused given he has said he has contraption, he has a get out of jail free card. He can never be wrong. Even though acts are still acts. He never seems to be concerned that his acts, here, might be problematic, though he does believe that other peoples immorderate, not compromising acts can be. I suppose he thinks he exibits compromise, negotiation and moderation here. I would love to see him justify that such that all rational people would have to agree, but I am sure in his post he would shift the onus to me.

[iambiguous]

You can't even figure out what is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences. Right?

The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. When he is discussing how we should interact, then compromise, negotiation and moderation are what he concludes are good. Why? because since we cannot know what is good, we should have these attitudes. When he is focused on the mind or we point out something in his behavior, then he will say - but I always say my ideas are also contraptions.

Either of you...

1] Note a particular example of conflicting goods embedded in human interactions
2] Note that which you have determined "is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences"
3] Note how this is predicated on that which can be demonstrated to be true for all rational men and women more so than embodied existentially in "I" as an existential contraption derived from dasein.

Phyllo, you might also want to explain to KT how God and religion are factored into your conclusions here. He might be able to understand it better than I ever have.

And "moderation, negotiation and compromise" don't make the hole go away. They are simply the embodiment of a particular set of political prejudices that here and now one takes an existential leap toward.

It's not a question of them being good or bad. Instead, it recognizes them as tools that can be used once "might makes right" and "right makes might" are construed to be less palatable.

What is unfolding here [in my view] is you stuffing me into your own "intellectual contraption" nihilist and then judging me based on your own understanding of the word.

Similarly, with the word "preferences". I understand the meaning of that word as the existential embodiment of dasein, whereas your own pragmatic rendition allows for your preferences to be seen as solid enough to support a substantially less fractured and fragmented "I" out in the is/ought world.

And thus sustaining this psychological cushion such that you feel considerably less uncertain about the choices that you make than someone like me.

Or, again, so that seems to me "here and now" based on how I have come to understand these enormously complex and ever fluid relationships.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Either of you...

1] Note a particular example of conflicting goods embedded in human interactions
2] Note that which you have determined "is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences"
3] Note how this is predicated on that which can be demonstrated to be true for all rational men and women more so than embodied existentially in "I" as an existential contraption derived from dasein.

Explain why I should or even could do this, given that I have said
I base my actions and choices on my preferences and that I do not think there are objective values, nor do I think there are arguments that will convince all rational people?
How would it be possible for me to do this? How could you not realize how confused it is to ask me to do this?

[Pneumatic-Coma]

sein and dasein aren't a contraption neither is existing. Existence is just that, being there for people looking out and helping out a bunch. Healing practices help sooth aches, just as medicine is there to help heal pains and aches.

[Guide]

boring as hell, like yourselves

[iambiguous]

Either of you...

1] Note a particular example of conflicting goods embedded in human interactions
2] Note that which you have determined "is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences"
3] Note how this is predicated on that which can be demonstrated to be true for all rational men and women more so than embodied existentially in "I" as an existential contraption derived from dasein.

Explain why I should or even could do this, given that I have said.

You claim to have "preferences" in regard to moral conflicts. So do I. But I have come to think myself into believing that these preferences are, by and large, just particular political prejudices rooted in the particular life that I have lived -- experiences, relationships and access to ideas that predispose me to think and to feel this rather than that.

Thus, had my life been very different...

There do not appear to be arguments able to be garnered through the tools used by philosophers to bring so-called "reasonable and virtuous" men and women closer to that which some argue is the obligation of all "reasonable and virtuous" men and women to embody.

In other words, only given the extent to which you note a value judgment of your own in a particular context am I able to fathom how your own "I" here somehow becomes less fractured and fragmented than mine.

Then the quandary rooted in conflicted goods. Re the current controversy swirling around the Brett Kavenaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court, both the liberals and the conservatives have a set of assumptions about human interactions that confirm that he would either be a good Supreme Court Justice or a bad one.

How then can this be resolved using the tools of philosophy? That's our argument to the objectivists.

But then these parts:

Even if it had been established beyond all doubt that the charges of sexual assault against him were true, there are those who argue that, in regard to gender, nature preconfigured men into the sort of creatures who behave this way "naturally". Some in the KT crowd for example.

And then further there are those who argue that right and wrong here revolve entirely around a moral narrative that revolves entirely around sating their own perceived self-interests.

If they want something that in and of itself ratiuonalizes any means they choose to obtain it. For them the main issue is not getting caught for doing things they know that others would punish them for.

Instead, you argue that...

I base my actions and choices on my preferences and that I do not think there are objective values, nor do I think there are arguments that will convince all rational people?
How would it be possible for me to do this? How could you not realize how confused it is to ask me to do this?

Again: How entirely abstract that is.

You come to junctures in your life whereby in being in conflict with others you satisfy yourself that your own "preferences" here and now are just enough in sync with who you really are in sync with the right thing to do that you are more readily able to toss aside the points I make about dasein and conflicting goods.

They simply don't matter as much to you as they do to me. And this I suspect is in turn but another manifestation of dasein rooted in just how extraordinarily complex "I" becomes here given the thousands upon thousands of existential variables that come to encompass any particular "I" out in any particular context.

[iambiguous]

sein and dasein aren't a contraption neither is existing. Existence is just that, being there for people looking out and helping out a bunch. Healing practices help sooth aches, just as medicine is there to help heal pains and aches.

On the other hand:

1] WHAT is a contraption?
2] What IS a contraption?
3] What is a CONTRAPTION?

Philosophically, say?

Or just go to the dictionary:

Contraption: a machine or device that appears strange or unnecessarily complicated, and often badly made or unsafe.

Starting here, is it then reasonable to think of the self -- "I" -- as a kind of contraption when probing the question, "what ought all men and women do?"

I think so. In the sense that "I" here is composed of any number of vast and varied existential variables that comprise any particular individual's life. And to others these assessments can certainly seem strange and complicated. After all, what do we [can we] really know about the sense of "reality" construed by others?

And we often look at the behaviors of others as badly chosen or unsafe to the extent that they are not the behaviors that we would choose.

So, how you think about yourself in any specific context [related to any specific set of behaviors] will depend in large part on which particular variables you choose to emphasize. Those you include, those you leave out.

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?

When particular folks in particular contexts viewed in particular ways think about looking out for and helping others, why do some choose one set of variables [behaviors] to emphasize rather than another?

There is either a "whole truth" here that philosophers can argue is in sync with our moral obligation, or each of us one by one choosing different factors from the actual lives that we live, arrive at our own unique individual conclusions.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Either of you...

1] Note a particular example of conflicting goods embedded in human interactions
2] Note that which you have determined "is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences"
3] Note how this is predicated on that which can be demonstrated to be true for all rational men and women more so than embodied existentially in "I" as an existential contraption derived from dasein.

Explain why I should or even could do this, given that I have said.

You claim to have "preferences" in regard to moral conflicts. So do I. But I have come to think myself into believing that these preferences are, by and large, just particular political prejudices rooted in the particular life that I have lived -- experiences, relationships and access to ideas that predispose me to think and to feel this rather than that.

I mean seriously. I am a non-objectivist. I have made this clear. Point number two above does not apply to me. You should know this, since I have said it many time. That's it.

They simply don't matter as much to you as they do to me. And this I suspect is in turn but another manifestation of dasein rooted in just how extraordinarily complex "I" becomes here given the thousands upon thousands of existential variables that come to encompass any particular "I" out in any particular context.

Yes, I do not get wrapped up in the issue like you do.

Is there a reason I should? Is your preference for mulling over the issue the way you do, a more rational preference? Is it wrong of me to make the choices I do since I do not know objective morals or preferences? Am I bad?

Again: How entirely abstract that is.

Well, duh. It was a response to an abstract request that I cannot fulfil and which you should realize. There is no particular instance to point to; THAT'S THE PROBLEM with your abstract request in relation to me, but not Phyllo.

You could have simply responded here 'Oh, yes, I see, you're right, that wording doesn't apply to you' but no you cannot revise, you never made a mistake. So, we get a new post with more confused things that do not apply. More sticky paper.

[iambiguous]

You claim to have "preferences" in regard to moral conflicts. So do I. But I have come to think myself into believing that these preferences are, by and large, just particular political prejudices rooted in the particular life that I have lived -- experiences, relationships and access to ideas that predispose me to think and to feel this rather than that.

I mean seriously. I am a non-objectivist. I have made this clear. Point number two above -- "Note that which you have determined 'is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences'" does not apply to me. You should know this, since I have said it many time. That's it.

That's it for you. What's it for me still revolves more around understanding how your own particular "I" in confronting conflicting goods is able to construe the manner in which the self here is the embodiment of a particular sequence of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas in a No God world, and yet does not appear to be nearly as fractured and fragmented as my own "I" here.

Again and again: this exchange will either succeed in narrowing that gap or it won't.

My take on it though veers in this direction:

They simply don't matter as much to you as they do to me. And this I suspect is in turn but another manifestation of dasein rooted in just how extraordinarily complex "I" becomes here given the thousands upon thousands of existential variables that come to encompass any particular "I" out in any particular context.

Yes, I do not get wrapped up in the issue like you do.

Is there a reason I should? Is your preference for mulling over the issue the way you do, a more rational preference? Is it wrong of me to make the choices I do since I do not know objective morals or preferences? Am I bad?

In no way, shape or form would I ever argue that you should think about these relationships as I do. Let alone that because you don't this makes you wrong or bad. Or less rational. That's your rendition of my rendition of your rendition.

And, in my view, it is a psychological manifestation of dasein. Yes, you agree that had your life been very different your moral narrative and political agenda might well have been very different. But that didn't happen and so you are simply satisfied with the "I" that you have come to embody here and now.

[Karpel Tunnel]

What's it for me still revolves more around understanding how your own particular "I" in confronting conflicting goods is able to construe the manner in which the self here is the embodiment of a particular sequence of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas in a No God world, and yet does not appear to be nearly as fractured and fragmented as my own "I" here.

It will be a step closer to narrowing the gap when you stop assuming I must have a contraption and that your reaction to dasein, conflicting goods, etc., is the normal default reaction. You have said you do not think it is. But you keep assuming that if I am not like you, suffering it like you, it must be a contraption I have that soothes me. Not genes, not life experiences, not our current situations. A contraption. When you let that do, the gap will have narrowed. But given the vast amount of possibilities for why we react differently, I don't think it is possible to narrow the gap any further.

If you have a contraption making it seem like you should obsess about this, finding that might give you information, and that is not dependent on me or anyone else. But it may not be a contraption in you. It could be....and I have given the list several times.

Think of it another way:

A person who is always worrying about mortality. That's his hole. He notices your threads. He comes on and says: Hey, ambiguous, how can you spend so much time focusing on dasein and conflicting goods when we are going to die and it seems like that is the end of life? What contraption makes you worry more about objective morals than death? I mean, I see that you occasionally mention death and afterlife ideas, but it's such a small part of your posting.

That makes no sense. If you are dead, you can't act as you ought to. You can't act at all.

You must have a contraption that soothes you about death, and now you are looking for one that soothes you about objective morals.

[barbarianhorde]

This is a stab at iambiguous, the only vaguely interesting thinker here.

First of all, fuck you. As that is what good morning is for you. So, hello.

Ok so check this shit out.


The ultimate ontological dasein moral everyday conundrum that fits with the inmutable laws of matter answer law is fate.

Fate is inmutable laws of matter. And it also is the everyday choices and banning books and abortions of people and other people's reaction to it.

So yee aks, what is the rule all the time that RATIONAL men and presumably we think women ought to apply every time?

To accept fate. Everything was going to happen. What you do about it or in general about anything or about whatever was going to happen. This all falls within fate. And if you fully wholy accept that it is so, you can and ought to do whatever you feel is going to be most impactful and comprehensive of all that you know.

So, if you pose me a hipothetical about Joe's girlfriend who banned a book is getting an abortion, you ask, what do I think about it and what can I do? Whatever it is is irreversible and was always to be. All men ought to act according to fate because all men do act according to fate anyway, so it is rational to act in that frame.

A man ought to accept fate or he is free to make Destiny. Didn't Nietzsche go mad cause he wanted both?

The weak accept what they must but the strong do what they can as the man said.

So which is which and who is what?
Well a shortcut to know that is checking how your heart reacts to the word "ought". If you feel love, don't worry about anything, you won't matter anyway.

[iambiguous]

What's it for me still revolves more around understanding how your own particular "I" in confronting conflicting goods is able to construe the manner in which the self here is the embodiment of a particular sequence of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas in a No God world, and yet does not appear to be nearly as fractured and fragmented as my own "I" here.

It will be a step closer to narrowing the gap when you stop assuming I must have a contraption and that your reaction to dasein, conflicting goods, etc., is the normal default reaction. You have said you do not think it is. But you keep assuming that if I am not like you, suffering it like you, it must be a contraption I have that soothes me.

Over and again, we get all tangled up because I call a particular frame of mind a contraption and you don't.

I attempted to explain to Pneumatic-Coma above the manner in which I construe the meaning of a contraption [intellectually and/or existentially] with respect to "I" and conflicting goods.

What we need to do [over and again] is to bring these words out into the world and embed them in particular contexts in which human behaviors often come into conflict over value judgments.

That's the only way in my view that we are ever likely to narrow that gap between us. I need to grapple with your own rendition of my abortion trajectory. How existentially did a value of yours evolve over the years given a particular conflation of experiences and ideas.

Instead [in my view] you fall back on the "general description":

Not genes, not life experiences, not our current situations. A contraption. When you let that do, the gap will have narrowed. But given the vast amount of possibilities for why we react differently, I don't think it is possible to narrow the gap any further.

If you have a contraption making it seem like you should obsess about this, finding that might give you information, and that is not dependent on me or anyone else. But it may not be a contraption in you. It could be....and I have given the list several times.

And that just tugs me back to this: What on earth does that mean when the discussion shifts to a particular context?

Think of it another way:

A person who is always worrying about mortality. That's his hole. He notices your threads. He comes on and says: Hey, ambiguous, how can you spend so much time focusing on dasein and conflicting goods when we are going to die and it seems like that is the end of life? What contraption makes you worry more about objective morals than death? I mean, I see that you occasionally mention death and afterlife ideas, but it's such a small part of your posting.

That's why I created this thread with zinnat: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929

Thus the intellectual/existential contraption here intertwines "how ought one to live?" on this side of the grave in order that, on the other side of it, "I" am rewarded.

And, as I note time and again, this is the fundamental reason that philosophy is still important to me.

That makes no sense. If you are dead, you can't act as you ought to. You can't act at all.

The fact that you die doesn't change the fact that you are not dead yet. And, for the vast multitudes of men and women around the globe, these two intellectual/existential "contraptions" are profoundly linked. Regarding, for example, immortality and salvation.

Neither you nor I have any real capacity to either verify the existence of God and the afterlife or to falsify them. Or, rather, I don't.

From my way of thinking there is no realistic way around linking the two in regard to the behaviors that we choose "here and now". It's just that to the extent that I attempt this, the part construed as "I" starts to crumble. "I" think: human existence is essentially meaningless and then someday I will tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion.

All the while down in a hole that many seem convinced really doesn't need to be there at all. After all, they point out, they're not in one.

Okay, I say, let's take the discussion out into the world of human interactions and explore that.