Alethempeiria (truth-experience) is the last game in town

[Zeroeth_Nature (Self-Lightening, ΑΘΕΛΗΜΑ,)]

@ProfessorX

[…] philosophy, valuing truth as such and for its own sake simply because it is the truth.

[…] “just so you know, I value what is true simply because it is true, for its own sake without by own personal benefit or biases”

Valuing it without one’s own personal values, though?.. I think not. I think your (coherent) position is (or would be) that you’re this contingent self-valuing which just happens to value the truth (supposedly), and whatever any self-valuing values is what’s compatible and beneficial to its structure (circuit). So when you say:

@ProfessorX

Fixed pointed out how rare philosophers are in the world, in a way I think he was making a defense for the failings of philosophy but to me it is only a further accusation against not only philosophy but humanity as a whole.

—your accusation is just a negative valuation of a species of contingent self-valuings by another contingent self-valuing. Unless you’d still argue, as in your “Good is good”-OP, that:

@HumAnIze

this same morality that applies to ourselves so easily ALSO applies to others and for the EXACT SAME REASON for them as it does for us. From the perspective of morality itself (goods and bads) we have no primacy, all goods and bads are equal as equally applicable to whomever they actually apply to as good or bad. Therefore the golden rule is easily understood. And this clearly goes beyond social contractual stuff. We UNDERSTAND this.

Well, some humans do not understand it, not even intuitively. They may be called idiots, damaged, sociopaths, criminally minded, whatever it may be. But they are the exception and not the rule, because they represent a lack and damage of something that is otherwise naturally and easily there in a normal healthy person with a normally functioning mind, reason and basic standard of self-honesty.

Indeed, the fact that you wrote this only about a year ago is still dumb-founding to me. I mean, sure, such an intuition is the rule, no exception, but that’s only because others are more or less similar to us and survival (of the species) has long required such a morality… Moreover, as we were just saying, philosophers too are exceptions. So are you saying truth is good for people as a rule? But why then aren’t they truthful as a rule?

@ProfessorX

You might say religion is the basis, but I would say psychology is. Religion falls down to an intersection between human psychology and sociological/evolutionary value.

Well, there’s psychology and psychology. Every soul (psyche) has a psychology, but only a few do psychology. Like having and doing philosophy, actually… And yeah, by ‘psychology’ I also meant evolutionary psychology, sociology and social psychology, etc.

@ProfessorX

Religion is, again, a product of sociological-evolutionary necessity combined with basic human psychology.

Necessity, or contingency… Neither the social and environmental, nor basic human psychology has ever been static. In my view, all irrational values (worthships!) are religious; only philosophy comes (somewhat) close to rationality, and really only once it becomes political philosophy (which is really religious philosophy in that same, peculiar sense): once it begins to discover all the hidden ways in which natural philosophy is still irrational, moral-political-religious…

@ProfessorX

People need to believe something, stories that make sense about their world. Religion is at least useful in those ways even if it habituates people into not thinking critically, obeying authority blindly, and committing to constant double-think (they claim to believe things, even to themselves they claim to believe them, yet at the same time they also know that they don’t REALLY believe them). All of that is pretty bad.

Well, that’s just a value, though one I just so happen to share.

@ProfessorX

In any case, religion is not a serious alternative to philosophy because religion is not interested in finding the truth. You would have a better argument claiming that science is the only alternative to philosophy, at least science PRETENDS to be interested in finding the truth.

I didn’t mean an alternative way of seeking the truth, just the alternative, period. As for science, in its root that’s natural philosophy, though it may lack political-philosophic enlightenment and have been influenced by “ethical and religious considerations”, to speak with Whitehead.

@ProfessorX

It means that I understand that truth is valuable for its own sake, and therefore I pursue it accordingly, because of that value.

This is not complicated.

“Valuable for its own sake”… What does that even mean? It seems to me you haven’t even started asking yourself some very basic questions—uncovering the complexities underlying some basic apparent simplicities.

Or wait, do you mean truth value? Like, truth has a positive truth value (the binary value 1, true, as opposed to 0, false)? Surely not, right? I mean, surely it does not make you dance for joy when you see a led light turn on or something?

@ProfessorX

“Truth is true” is a true statement, but doesn’t add much in the context of a discussion like this, certainly not from your perspective.

Again, I pursue truth because I understand that truth is valuable and that pursuing truth is therefore also a valuable thing to do.

It’s nice that you’d acknowledge my perspective, but this doesn’t add anything for me. You “understand that truth is valuable”—but valuable to whom or what? If not to yourself, isn’t it some abstract kind of understanding? Maybe that truth is valuable to itself, because truth is self-valuing and self-valuing transposes values… So is it a kind of compersion then, valuing the fact that other self-valuings are valuable to themselves just as you are valuable to yourself?

@ProfessorX

In fact, and in a way truth is the ONLY valuable thing or, not only but rather, highest value because it already by definition and of necessity includes EVERYTHING.

Does this mean the value you speak of doesn’t have to be positive? It can be a ‘disvalue’ as I’ve called it, something that’s valued negatively or neglibibly positively (i.e., as “worthless”)?

@ProfessorX

You might pursue religion because it is valuable to you. Great, you go for it. I am not going to pretend like I don’t understand why you would (or wouldn’t) pursue it. So why are you acting like you don’t understand why someone would pursue truth?

Because people pursue religion because they believe doing so is predominantly positive for them. So you believe pursuing truth is predominantly positive for you?

@ProfessorX

What kind of philosopher would claim not to understand why someone pursues the truth?

That question contains hidden assumptions, don’t you see that? Like, you know what a philosopher is, supposedly because you yourself are one; and, you understand why you (supposedly) pursue the truth…

@ProfessorX

You are asking why someone would pursue something that is valuable? Are you seriously asking that?

No, I’m asking why you think it’s valuable (for you)…

@ProfessorX

The answer is already in the question. The very concept of value includes why someone would respond to value in a way of pursuing it.

But is what you believe is valuable (for you) necessarily valuable (for you), and vice versa? Isn’t it true that self-valuing, as conceived by Jakob himself, absolutely doesn’t have to be conscious?

@ProfessorX

[D]on’t pretend like you are not deliberately choosing ignorance over truth whenever truth and your own personal good might appear to come into some conflict.

So you’re indeed saying that truth can be good for you (a value you—therefore—pursue) while not being good to you or something? I mean, it’s fine if that’s what you’re saying, I’m just trying to understand (or to make you see if it turns out it doesn’t make sense).

@ProfessorX

Truth would not be valued directly within ideology or religion because that would undermine the very structure by which ideologies and religions hold themselves in existence (self-value). Said more simply or in modern parlance, a person who subscribes to an ideology or a religion is not going to allow themselves the free reign of truth-exploration when that results in cognitive dissonance (when it will or could be expected to produce a result that runs counter to their already accepted ideological or religious beliefs and feelings).

And this is inferior to direct truth-valuation or the free reign of truth-exploration how? Those structures and people are equally self-valuings, after all…

@ProfessorX

Yeah, that stuff Nietzsche wrote about is actually nothing like what I am talking about here.

Having corresponded with Jakob/Fixed a lot about self-valuing, and having thought a lot about it, I think it’s very much like it. The will to power was the root of self-valuing, after all.