I have nothing to ‘Fess up’, for…
I didn’t know of any ‘mentions’ until Maia’s post appeared… sorry to disappoint.
…you were not the only one responsible for making others decide to leave ILP, so not that reflective of you per se, but of a statistical trend of that era.
I played up a lot back then, because of all that… I can’t be bothered to, these last coupl’a years… cracking jokes and irony, a necessary infrequent-must.
The boards were quite intense back then, or so it would seem from this ^^^ recollection of your’s …and therein the problematic-circumstances, may have lay… one, not letting the other, move forward with their argument. Many were very good at doing that, I do recall.
Thing is… they either denied that they were doing so, or didn’t realise that they were doing so. My jury’s still out, on that one.
Mags, since your here, I’ll take this opportunity to ask you: how would you describe your views in your own words? What kinds of arguments have you put to Biggy in your attempts to make yourself clear?
Here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … Patriarchy - don’t forget those shifting goalposts to look out for, won’t ya!
Okay, well put. Some children are raised considerably closer to the way in which most of us think about being indoctrinated. But even the word indoctrinated itself is tricky. After all, a parent can self-consciously attempt to instill precisely the same moral, political and spiritual values that they adhere to in their children. But their motivation is love. They genuinely believe that how they see the world around them, given all the various historical, cultural and interpersonal/experiential contexts, to be as all should construe it. And certainly their children. Did the Obama’s indoctrinate their girls? Did the Trump’s indoctrinate their boys and Ivanka?
On the other hand, is it just a coincidence if their children largely share their parents own sense of moral and political reality?
And, of course, what can I really know about your own childhood? How, perhaps, you construe it as now part of your “intrinsic self”.
And then this part: What Victorian values? In regard to what set of circumstances? Lying in regard to what particular controversial issues of their day?
No, I think that nature and nurture are intertwined [in a free will world] in a profoundly problematic manner. Given any particular individual out in any particular world understood in any particular way. But: Show me someone who will argue that they can apprise us of where one ends and the other begins and I’ll show you an objectivist. It’s just that some here [and at KT] are so zealous in insisting that it can only be their own that to “me” they become pinheads. But you [and those like gib] are definitely not construed by me to be one of them.
Then your parents were the best in my view. On the other hand, to what extent are they the exception? With my own daughter admittedly [as I recall], it started out with me still being a hardcore objectivist. And I’m sure that, in some respects, like the father in E. L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel, I was like Julius Rosenberg hammering into her head the evils of capitalism. But, as I came to abandon objectivism, that all changed. I shifted gears to reminding her that she wasn’t me. That she would come to acquire her own existential point of view about many things.
Here though, from my frame of mind, we need a context. Ideology in regard to what issue? Given what set of circumstances? The part where your mother comes to an end and an independent you begins.
Yes, evolves out in a particular world that you have come to understand in a particular way…existentially, subjectively. A world ever and always awash in contingency, chance and change. A world such that no one really knows if a new experience, relationship or access to information and knowledge might take them in an entirely new direction.
Thus [for me] this crucial point:
Okay, but others might have qualms when confronted with something in the vicinity of “I just know intuitively, viscerally what I think and believe about the trucker protest, about government, about the covid pandemic.”
Again, they are not you. So how on earth would they – could they – effectively continue the exchange?
True, but my point is that “I” don’t go after the convictions of others as the objectivists do because I have come to conclude that my opinions here are no less moral and political prejudices [rooted existentially in dasein] than theirs. So, the thing I’m unclear about in regard to your own convictions is this: where does the “intrinsic self” end and “objectivism” begin?
Then this part:
First of all, when I am told things like this, the first thing that almost always pops into my head is that there are those convinced that philosophy – the search for wisdom – revolves not around what seems reasonable to me here…
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
…but what I “get” out of thinking as I do. It’s like they’re thinking to themselves, “if I thought like that it would be terrible.”
As though someone like Nietzsche should have asked himself, “wouldn’t the consequences of a No God world precipitate nihilism…and wouldn’t nihilism then precipitate a world where ‘in the absence of God all things are permitted’”?
So, philosophically, there must be a God? As though the whole point of philosophy was that wisdom should, in the end, revolve around something that comforts and consoles you…rather than what you honestly, introspectively have come to think about the “human condition” in a No God world?
“Now, let me explain to Biggy why I don’t think like he does”.
“Qualia: In philosophy of mind, qualia are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.”
Exactly! Individual. Instances. Of. Subjective. Conscious. Experience.
Dasein in a nutshell. As I explore on this thread over at PN:
forum.philosophynow.org/viewtop … 23&t=35489
Qualia pertaining to this:
1] the extent to which a philosopher can actually demonstrate that what he or she thinks or believes is true “in their head”, all rational – virtuous? – men and women are categorically and imperatively obligated to think and to believe is true in turn
2] the extent to which what a philosopher thinks or believes is true “in their head” is derived more from the manner in which I construe the meaning of human identity – dasein – in the is/ought world, or thoughts and beliefs that can in fact be established and confirmed to be true objectively for all of us in the either/or world
Again: It’s not gib’s stance or my stance or your stance on the trucker protest that most intrigues me. It’s in how each of us comes existentially to acquire one stance rather than another.
Now, gib seems to more or less agree with me that his cognitive stance on the protest is largely rooted in dasein. And, thus, had his life been different he might have come to think about the protest differently as well. How about you? Same thing?
On the other hand, I construe his own rendition of an “intrinsic self”…his emotional reaction to the protest…as basically, for all practical purposes, the same thing. He wants the protest to succeed because he feels that it ought to.
Then back to how I am more inclined to intertwine thinking and feeling and wanting subjectively, existentially in dasein. Out in a particular world historically, culturally and in terms of our uniquely personal experiences.
Just a bit.
I’ve noticed the same with Biggy. If he doesn’t want to address your point, he’ll segue to the next closest thing (usually a slightly different context). This is especially true if you make a good point that would otherwise stump him–he’ll never concede but segue into a tangent closely resembling the one you’re on… and then blame you for not staying on topic.
Oh, you know, the usual topics that Biggy likes to get into. Specifically, with respect to the quote above, we were talking about Biggy’s “I” and why it is “fractured and fragmented” while mine is not. Then he brings up you and Maia, comparing my take on the subject with yours, recounting your views as saying that you have this “intrinsic self” and that you “just know” moral right from wrong–which, according to him–is the only thing keeping your “intrinsic self” from fracturing and fragmenting.
Do you recall ever having a conversation with Biggy in which you described your “I” as an “intrinsic self”? Do you, Mags, “just know” moral right from wrong?
What about you, Maia, if you still reading this?
Much appreciated, Mags, but I really can’t read all that. I’m getting older and my death is fast approaching–roughly 40 more years to go–so I need to make as much of my time as I can. Getting a Coles Notes version of your arguments with Biggy would mean getting more done in my life before I die–or as Biggy would say, tumbling over into the abyss.
[b]New challenge…
We choose a new context in which conflicting goods abound…one that has been in the news of late. We exchange our own moral and political reactions to it given what we construe to be the reasons why we react to it as we do and not another way.
Then, as the exchange unfolds, you can both note actual specific instances of me doing this.
So, you two pick the moral/political conflagration. How about we take it to a new thread.[/b]
+++Do you recall ever having a conversation with Biggy in which you described your “I” as an “intrinsic self”? Do you, Mags, “just know” moral right from wrong?
What about you, Maia, if you still reading this?+++
I have never described my “I” as an “intrinsic self” either with those exact words or any other form of words. Indeed, I could never have done so, as I don’t actually know what they mean. I draw no distinction between myself, and any putative “intrinsic self”.
As for “just knowing” moral right from wrong this is complete rubbish, and possibly, I suspect, deliberately obtuse, so as to provoke a response.
So, when Iambiguous wrote:
+++But, in my view, there are lots of ways to be blind. And “I” try to examine as many of them as I can.+++
I have no choice but to retort that there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
The Golden Rule is found in every major culture in history, but unlike empathy, which we “just know” (but which can be stunted), we arrive at it. It’s like how we “just know” math at certain levels of brain development if we are not kept in a deprivation chamber, but we can arrive at higher/deeper knowledge through willful exploration. Some folks arrive at the same solution using different paths, but it’s the same solution—describing the same thing. That’s why you don’t have to “feel” to practice the Golden Rule. Sometimes feeling even gets in the way.
It was Mags who used “intrinsic self” to connect the dots between “I” and her own moral and political value judgments. In the links she provided gib above.
But how else would Maia describe her own? Just as gib agreed with me that had his life been different, he might be here arguing against the trucker protest, she agreed with me that had her life been different, she might be here arguing against Paganism and the Goddess. Not believing in them at all.
Okay, if she believes that, what then explains how she can still believe in them today anyway? From my frame of mind, there must be something construed by her to be deep down inside herself – a core self, a real me, a soul – that transcends dasein.
But [from my own subjective perspective]: the more we pursued this the more she seemed to back away from the exchange. The part that to “me”, she would describe as “soul-crushing”.
Again, however, since I had great respect for her intelligence, her curiosity, and her capacity to articulate her point of view, of course I was interested in exploring the extent to which her own frame of mind might perhaps nudge me away from mine. And, yes, I speculated that she was backing away because a part of her – subconsciously? – was concerned that I might end up nudging her down into the hole with me instead. And thus taking away from her the comfort and the consolation that believing in Paganism and the Goddess provide her.
To the best of my recollection, Maia described her own value judgments as revolving around an “intuitive” or “spiritual” self. Which, to me, is no less the existential embodment of dasein than gib’s emotions.
Look, if she agrees that her thinking – commitment? – in regard to Paganism and the Goddess is rooted subjectively, existentially, experientially in dasein, then what part of her is able to make a commitment to, for example, abstaining from sex for years and years. Wouldn’t she admit that had her life been different she would never make such a commitment with respect to a bodily function that couldn’t possibly be more natural. It’s sex after all as Satyr would remind us that reproduces the species itself.
Back to this:
Gib sees the trucker protest. Not in terms of his literal vision but in terms of his moral and political reaction to it. But then he pulls back and acknowledges that had his life been different, his moral and political vision might be more in sync with Peter Kropotkin’s and Sculptor’s and the other liberals here.
Maia sees Paganism and the Goddess. Not in terms of her literal vision because, unlike gib, she has none. Instead, in terms of her moral and political reaction to them. But then she too pulls back and acknowledges that had her life been different, her moral and political vision might be more in sync with mine and Sculptor’s and the other atheists at ILP.
What am I missing here?
+++What am I missing here?+++
You’re not missing anything. You are absolutely correct to say that I fully accept that had my life been different, my views and belief systems would have been different.
Where we differ, therefore, is that what you regard as a profound insight into reality, I regard as a trivially banal truism.
And that’s the last thing I intend to say about this.
Now this is typical. I respond to her in whole paragraphs. She “snips” a single line from my post instead.
Again, though, flat out admitting that her belief regarding Paganism and the Goddess is an existential contraption given the particular trajectory of experiences and relationships and access to information, knowledge and ideas that unfolded in her lived life.
But…
How on earth is this…
“Where we differ, therefore, is that what you regard as a profound insight into reality, I regard as a trivially banal truism.”
…to be understood for all practical purposes? She gives up sex for years and years as a sacrifice to the Goddess and admits that her life could have been different such that she would be here instead ridiculing such a choice. Instead, she might have been an enthusiastic adherent of sexual abandon as the Pagans are portrayed in The Wicker Man.
Her lived life might have predisposed her existentially to believe in nihilism or Communism or fascism or Christianity or Satanism or the philosophy of a sociopath…but she regards that as a “trivially banal truism”.
Note to others:
You tell me what you think I am missing here?
And this doesn’t surprise me either.
Back again to this:
“I” speculate that there is a part of her that is intent on sustaining the comfort and the consolation that her commitment to Paganism and the Goddess provide her. And another part of her that suspects all of that is put at risk when the exchange does revolve around philosophy as a potential “soul-crusher”.
Tedium is the only thing that I described as soul crushing, the tedium of having to repeat myself over and over again in answer to exactly the same questions.
Let me state it for you once more. Nothing you have said has in any way changed my opinions on anything, and frankly, the suggestion that it might is rather insulting, to be honest. What it tells me is that you simply haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying.
Okay, but my recollection was that you stopped posting at ILP and KT because you discovered that you were not a philosopher and that the exchanges here and there were “soul-crushing”.
But: If I am misremembering this then, sure, I’m wrong.
In any event, let’s just agree to disagree that you are actually attempting at length/in depth to respond to my points above.
Note to others:
Decide for yourselves if her reaction to this…
…comes even close to an Indepth and substantive answer.
Oh, and does anyone else here imagine that had you lived your life differently and been predisposed existentially to embrace nihilism or Communism or fascism or Christianity or Satanism or the philosophy of a sociopath instead, that would be construed by you to be just a “trivially banal truism”.
I have to be missing something really, really important to believe that someone who worships and adores Donald Trump could admit to himself or herself that had their life been different they might be here reacting to him as, say, Peter does. That’s a “trivially banal truism”?!
+++In any event, let’s just agree to disagree that you are actually attempting at length/in depth to respond to my points above.+++
Having tried it before, to no avail, I’m not, in fact, attempting an in depth response to your points. So we appear to be in agreement, yet again.
If you care to go back over that long conversation we had last year, when I was under the impression that you were interested in my thoughts and feelings for their own sake, rather than simply to use as ammunition to try and undermine them, then you’ll find all the answers you need as to what I think and believe, and why. I’m not going to repeat myself.
Please, just one more time.
In regard to this…
And this…
…how is dasein understood by you to be a “trivially banal truism”.
Again, I cannot even begin to imagine someone like Urwrong admitting that had his own life been different, he might be here congratulating Peter Kropotkin on his insightful posts regarding IQ45. Let alone that this would be construed by him as a “trivially banal truism”.
This is your assumption of course. My intention was in pursuit of a “virtual friendship” with you…exchanging thoughts and feelings about being blind, exchanging music, exchanging our own personal experiences regarding nature, etc.
But this is a philosophy forum and I was most familiar with you in regard to the Paganism thread, and then the dream thread. And there is no way I can sustain an exchange with anyone without delving into philosophy. Philosophy has always been of fundamental importance to me. But I also know from vast experience how others – the objectivists in particular – react to my own philosophical prejudices.
Not unlike the way that you did.
+++…how is dasein understood by you to be a “trivially banal truism”.+++
Because my life is the life I’ve lead, not some other, different life, in which I formed different opinions. That other life is not me, and never can be.
Virtual friendships are fine, but you’ll remember, I hope, a number of angry accusations you made against me, in public. And not just once, either. Those are the source of my reaction.
Anyway, you asked for one more reply, and now I’ve given it.
I wouldn’t put it past him. He is a contrarian after all. But how do you know right from wrong? Is it just a guess? Do you listen to your conscience? Do you try to arrive it them with rationality and reason? Are you an amoralist? And how certain do you think one can be about morality? Do you, like Biggy, hold off drawing moral conclusions until you can be absolutely certain, or is a “gut feel” sometimes good enough?
It really begs the question, doesn’t it? For Biggy to examine different ways of being blind, he presupposes that one can still see what one is supposed to be blind to–as in, “I imagine I’m blind to that tree I see over there.” I think to truly experience being blind, one must, in a way, forget that there are things to see.
Again, trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
Believing that one is on the right path doesn’t entail that one believes in the “self”.
I can assure you, the strongest driver pushing people away from you is by far the frustration in arguing with you.
My opinion? I think most people’s first reaction to things like this is to say, “Okay, everything I’ve ever believed and valued stems from dasein. So then what is the truth? I must find out. I must find out without the influences and the tricks of dasein. I must, to the best of my ability, think clear and as rationally as I can, considering all the evidence with as little bias as I can.” In other words, one still believes there is a truth to be known and that one has the potential, if one tries hard enough, to get at that truth with clear objective thinking. It’s like when you learn that the news has been lying to you. Your gut reaction is to look to other sources to find the truth, trusting that there are such sources.
Of course, my cynicism says that this endeavor–to put aside one’s biases and one’s past experiences, upbringing, and indoctrinations–is for fools, that even in your best attempts to rise above the corrupting powers of dasein, you will (unconsciously) only work your way back to believing in the prejudices and biases you’ve felt most comfortable believing, but this time with “real” unbiased, rational, and objective thinking.
We all have an unstoppable drive to seek the truth. Even when admitting that our lives could have been different, even when taking serious the implications of this for our current beliefs and values, this drive doesn’t stop. We simply try our best to rise above these implication (however futile that might in fact be). We simply feel that, now that we are armed with this knowledge (that what we think we know hasn’t escaped the corrupting influence of dasein), we can do better. Maybe not perfectly, maybe even just mildly better, but better than we ever have before. In other words, armed with this knowledge, we are now at our best; so the insatiable drive to know the truth, if it dispenses with all prior prejudices and biased belief systems and values in response to what we know about dasein, will bank on what we know now. It will say, “this is the best I’ve ever been at thinking clearly, rationally, objectively–now that I know how dasein has affected me–and so I have no choice but to rely on this–that is, given that I can’t stop trying to seek the truth.”
^ Which is itself, of course, a prejudice.
This is where Biggy’s inner pinhead shines through in all its brilliant colors.
Indepth and substantive or not, it is an answer.
Yup.
I wouldn’t say you’re missing something really, really important. Just something simple. But it’s the powers of your defense mechanisms that keep you from seeing it.
On your knees and beg, Biggy!
I think you’re missing a question at the end of these statements: “So how can you be so sure you got it right given the path your life did take?” ← The answer to that may not be such a trivially banal truism to everyone.
+++Well, Biggy doesn’t believe in himself–so much so that has to always put his “I” in scare quotes–and he contests with anyone who does believe in their self. So I have to assume you and he debated this point at least a few times in the past. So my question is: how do you view the “self”? What is your “I”? Something ephemeral? Illusory? Concrete and persistent? Do you believe in the soul? Epiphenomenal mind? Is the self just the body? The brain?+++
I do think there’s a human spirit, just as I think everything else has a spirit, or essence, and I prefer the term spirit over soul because the latter has a whole load of religious baggage attached to it. As to what this means, I’m not so sure. I’m not even sure that I believe in any sort of afterlife, though I think it’s more likely than not, and that if it exists, some form of reincarnation is most likely. While these opinions are largely based in my own intuition, as a historian I know that they are also common throughout human civilisation in all cultures, whether connected or not, lending weight to their likelihood.
+++I wouldn’t put it past him. He is a contrarian after all. But how do you know right from wrong? Is it just a guess? Do you listen to your conscience? Do you try to arrive it them with rationality and reason? Are you an amoralist? And how certain do you think one can be about morality? Do you, like Biggy, hold off drawing moral conclusions until you can be absolutely certain, or is a “gut feel” sometimes good enough?+++
At the most basic level, I think we all have an innate sense of what’s right and wrong, with the exception of psychopaths. So we all know it’s wrong to hurt innocent people, even if we can convince ourselves otherwise. Life, though, is complicated, and quite often we have to think through the implications of a series of actions. When I do this, I try to always follow the principles of natural justice, not hurting the innocent, and so on. While I’m certainly not perfect, if I know I’ve done my best, then I know I’ve done as much as I can, and there is always hope for improvement.
+++It really begs the question, doesn’t it? For Biggy to examine different ways of being blind, he presupposes that one can still see what one is supposed to be blind to–as in, “I imagine I’m blind to that tree I see over there.” I think to truly experience being blind, one must, in a way, forget that there are things to see.+++
Or, if a may put a more positive spin on what being blind is actually like, it forces one to find other ways of experiencing things, which are just as valid and interesting. Either way, it often amuses me when people use blindness as a metaphor for wilful ignorance, because pretty much the opposite is actually the case.
+++I think you’re missing a question at the end of these statements: “So how can you be so sure you got it right given the path your life did take?” ← The answer to that may not be such a trivially banal truism to everyone.+++
That does, indeed, sound like a far more interesting issue to explore.
Okay, we understand dasein in regard to the past differently. Fair enough. I’m certainly not arguing that the way “I” understand it is more reasonable than the way you do.
I recall any number of crucial instances from my past where I could have imagined my life changing dramatically had I not had this or that particular experience, had I not met this or that particular person, had I not come upon this or that particular piece of information and knowledge. At least in a world where it is asssumed that human autonomy does in fact exist in some measure.
But how about the future? Could you not in turn [down the road] have new experiences, meet new people, come upon new information and knowledge – maybe here? – that cause you to reject Paganism and the Goddess as you understand them “here and now”? To argue instead that they are an irrational…even a ridiculous…way to understand the world around us?
Or is there this intuitive, visceral, spiritual Maia that “somehow” transcends all that “existential” stuff?
Back to how you remember our exchange unfolding and how I remember it. Back to what you think my intentions and motivations were and what I thought they were.
So, okay, scratch the virtual friendship. It’s just not to be. Fortunately, I still have a handful of others.