Okay but for each and every individual in that past, this…
…is no less applicable in my view. The video clip from Benjamin Button is no less applicable. Things could have been different for the world and for each of us personally had the world or we gone in different directions given our alternative reactions [as individuals] to all of our accumulating experiences, relationships and access to ideas.
Again, all of the variables intertwined existentially in our lives that we never really have either a full understanding of or control over. I think about it one way, you another.
So, is there an optimal – most rational – manner in which to think about it. Maybe. All I can do is come into places like this and explore the narratives of others.
Of course, that assumes that we do have “agency”. But we don’t even have the capacity to pin that part down. Or, if that has been resolved definitively, by all means link me to the argument and the experiential evidence demonstrating it.
But as long as, like me, you are able to accept that “I” in the world of conflicting moral, political and spiritual value judgments is subject to rejecting what is now believed given the reality of contingency, chance and change in ours lives, then you are construed by me “here and now” to not be an objectivist. Unless, of course, with respect to an issue like abortion, you are still more inclined to accept that there is “a real me, core self, soul” that does transcend dasein.
Thus…
What could possibly be more interesting given what is at stake on both sides of the grave. On the other hand, the objectivists among us are no less certain that there is this Real Me in sync with the Right Thing To Do. And for some this paves the way to immortality and salvation.
Conclusions said to be natural are no less open to interpretation of course. But let’s just leave it at that. I do suspect though that you might be closer to the truth here than I am able to acknowledge myself. My preoccupation with coming up out of my “hole”, or bringing others down into it with me. The win/win pursuit. Yes, that’s always right below the surface with me.
If you hold some belief B, you also necessarily believe that the opposite belief, not-B, is false. If you believe that Gib is a closed-minded person, you also believe that those who disagree, who think that Gib is an open-minded guy, are wrong. There’s no middle-ground here. It’s simply how English language works. At best, you can contradict yourself, by holding two mutually-exclusive beliefs at the same time (“Gib is a closed-minded person” and “Those who believe Gib is an open-minded person are not wrong”.) Thus, Biguous is either contradicting himself or he’s speaking a language unfamiliar to most. Given that he has repeatedly stated that his mind is “fractured and fragmanted”, chances are he’s contradicting himself without realizing it. But, rather than making up my mind on this issue, I’d rather see him clarify his position. But he doesn’t want to do that.
If he’s not contradicting himself, then he’s probably saying, using a language of his own, that you’re an authoritarian i.e. someone who thinks that people should be coerced into holding what you deem to be true beliefs. In fact, “objectivist”, as he uses the term, seems to be no more than “closed-minded authoritarian”. A very different meaning from the standard one but that’s how he’s using the term. It describes someone who is 1) not open to the possibility that they are wrong (= closed-minded), and 2) of the opinion that people who disagree with them should be coerced into agreeing with them (= authoritarian.)
The number one problem with Biguous, and the reason he should be banned, but not permanently banned, from this forum, is the fact that he frequently throws accusations at other people without being provoked. It typically starts with him asking for someone to explain to him how a real life conflict (such as the one between Mary and John) can be resolved using the tools of philosophy (basically, by rationally convincing one of the two sides that they are wrong and that the other side is right.) Then, when someone comes along and says “Okay, here’s how we can do it”, he does not respond respectfully but by accusing the person of being a closed-minded authoritarian who is afraid of testing their theories in practice. There’s a lot of evidence of it on this forum. He doesn’t just say “Thanks for the response but I don’t find it helpful” let alone something like “Alright but I am not sure this is the direction that we should go. And I believe that because of this, this and this. What do you think?” Instead, he says “Yet another closed-minded authoritarian”. See, it’s not his lack of interest in listening to the other side that is the problem. Rather, it’s his inclination, a very strong one, to accuse others of being fearful closed-minded authoritarians that is the problem. His personal attacks are the problem. That shouldn’t be allowed on a forum such as this one – but it is.
I’m not following this particular thread. I presume of course that fizzarolli is another Lyssa. Lys here. Just another “user” that Mr. Chickenshit invented in order “discuss” the things that most piss him off about those like me…those he has banned from KT.
The bottom line remains the same…
At Know Thyself, Mr. Chickenshit can “thump” me – iamretarded now – over and over again. Snug and secure in the knowledge that I will never be given the opportunity to, once again, make a complete fool out of him there.
Ever and always this instead:
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Anyway, to fizzarolli [if he is the real deal], lorikeet [Mr. Chickenshit], Kvasir [the real one], and anyone else posting at at KT:
Grow a pair and come here to “thump” me.
Update:
As though that is nearly as pertinent as the fact that Kvasir [the real one] refuses to come here [to a much “bigger” audience] and “thump” me.
Unless, of course, Kvasir himself is just another Lyssa!!
+++…is no less applicable in my view. The video clip from Benjamin Button is no less applicable. Things could have been different for the world and for each of us personally had the world or we gone in different directions given our alternative reactions [as individuals] to all of our accumulating experiences, relationships and access to ideas.+++
They could have been, but they weren’t. Idle speculation aside, we can only work with what we have.
+++So, is there an optimal – most rational – manner in which to think about it. Maybe. All I can do is come into places like this and explore the narratives of others.+++
Whichever best describes reality. If something works, use it. By all means talk about it, if you enjoy that sort of thing.
+++Of course, that assumes that we do have “agency”. But we don’t even have the capacity to pin that part down. Or, if that has been resolved definitively, by all means link me to the argument and the experiential evidence demonstrating it.+++
Either we have agency, or we think we do. As far as we are concerned, there’s no difference.
+++What could possibly be more interesting given what is at stake on both sides of the grave. On the other hand, the objectivists among us are no less certain that there is this Real Me in sync with the Right Thing To Do. And for some this paves the way to immortality and salvation.+++
I can think of lots more interesting things to discuss than that.
+++Conclusions said to be natural are no less open to interpretation of course. But let’s just leave it at that. I do suspect though that you might be closer to the truth here than I am able to acknowledge myself. My preoccupation with coming up out of my “hole”, or bringing others down into it with me. The win/win pursuit. Yes, that’s always right below the surface with me.+++
As an eternal optimist, I simply cannot fathom that sort of frame of mind. Life is fun and exciting, full of wonder, and it’s like that because I choose to make it like that.
Victorian values of ‘small children being seen and not heard’ ‘respecting your elders’ ‘no answering back’ ‘no lieing’ etc., but the worst one was ‘no laughing allowed whatsoever, when being chastised’.
No lieing, in that to just always tell the truth about all things… no context necessary.
Why is that problematic?
This is a debate forum, so it’s not about seeing eye-to-eye or agreement, is it.
You were like that? well that makes everything much clearer. Regrets? What age was your daughter when you shifted gear and backed down with the authoritarianism?
My mother could be a tad like that, but only a tad mind… on matters she thought important, or needed discussing or known… my dad, leaving her to it.
The ideologies of that of the British education system, in preparing me for work/a career/my future, when your parents become known as your Legal Guardian and you have to start making adult decisions… no other context necessary.
Quite…
I don’t see the dilemma in that though? unless One is averse to change…
Have brain, will think? Not every exchange needs a context to be understood or replied to.
Highbrow?
I couldn’t say… but it seems to be an internal process taking place in the mind, to formulate a decision/s.
Gods were ancestors -before a ‘central’ god/s came along- and those ancestral gods are still prayed to… well, in the older religions at least.
I am not in turmoil over what a god means or implies… not since I was 14 when I resolved the issue, only to have to (briefly) revisit it, 10 years later.
With subjective matters… yes, with objective matters, no.
Anyway, I have not been following the thread. My participation at the Philosophy Now forum takes up more and more of my “philosophy” time…a few hours a day. Still, if Mr. Chickenshit does note anything you feel might be worthwhile bringing to my attention, by all means…
And, of course, I’m curious what your own fate might be there. In one respect, your right-wing anti “libtard” politics and his seem more or less in sync. How you come down on matters of race and gender and Jews and homosexuality…that either will or will not be more or less aligned with him.
And, by all means, inform me if you get banned.
Oh, and as for Maia…Mr. Chickenshit was flagrantly courting her back then. No way that she would get banned.
_ Satyr wrote: “One long, last thing…if you choose - freely - to participate in the “challenge” they’ve set-up to receive more undeserved attention, wasting weeks on their nonsense:”
With “they”, you obviously deliberately imply intention for attention on my part… as if there was a discussion on it, beforehand.
Please. In discussing the “intrinsic self” with Mags and Maia, it was in reference to “I” in the is/ought world…morality, politics and spirituality.
Is there a heated debate regarding the actual existence of the trucker protest itself? Is one “intrinsic self” going to insist it happened while another “intrinsic self” will insist it did not?
Note to others:
What can I say? When you think about the trucker protest [if it was important to you either pro or con] do your thoughts and your feelings come around to your own in sync “sense of self”?
He then even notes, “I was explaining what drives me to take the side of the truckers.”
You tell me what crucial point I keep missing about his “I” and his emotions here.
Yes, we are all hardwired biologically/genetically to experience emotions. But what are you suggesting here…that in regard to the feelings you had/have about the truckers that too was/is innate?
And, of course, if it is, how is that different from Mags and Maia emphasizing their own innate spiritual sense of self?
The crucial point [mine] being that if someone falls back either on a biological/genetic morality or a spiritual/soulful morality, what can those who are not them possibly grasp about that?! What can they possibly argue in contesting it? They pin their own moral and political prejudices on what they “just know” about what they feel and want in regard to the truckers or abortion or guns.
Please note where I have ever professed that nature is not a crucial component of human morality? But to shift from I am hardwired to feel things about the trucker protest to I am hardwired to want them to either win or lose?
Sure, maybe. Where’s the accumulated evidence to support that though.
And, again, the closer you get to genes and/or a soul, don’t you slip further and further away from being responsible for what you do choose? Assuming free will of course.
Come on, how can my arguments regarding dasein in my signature posts not disturb the hardcore objectivists among us? After all, I know how disturbing they were to me in my own objectivist years.
With you, though, there’s the part where you are able to convince yourself that no one ought to be “fractured and fragmented” with respect to their moral and political value judgments. Well, other than in how they “think” about them.
But, you seem to insist, if they dig down deep enough, they will find their Real Me emotions – or, spiritually, their soul – and can then anchor I to that in order to sustain the feeling of certainty that might well comfort and console them all the way to the grave.
Again [to me]: Unbelievable!!
What’s harsh and painful about convincing yourself that you and only you [and others who are “one of us”] grasp the objective moral and political truth about the trucker protest and abortion and guns? And who here are the slaves to conformity…the objectivists, each with their own rendition of “What Would Jesus Do?”, or the moral nihilists unable to nestle down in a comforting and consoling “my way or the highway” mentality? Those able to fall back on genes and Gods and Goddesses and Souls or those who are drawn and quartered over and again all the way to the grave?
Then whatever this means:
As though what it means to you “in your head” “here and now” need be as far as it goes. Oh, sure, you admit that had your life been different you might be here embracing my own “thinking” on this. But, no, you too, as with Mags and Maia, transcend all of that “existential” stuff. You have access to things deep, deep down inside you that enable you to just feel are the right way to react to conflicting goods.
As long as you don’t let the purity of that part become contaminated by dasein.
My entire philosophy makes that crucial distinction between I in the either/or world and “I” in the is/ought world. And in regard to the trucker protest how much of “I” is derived existentially from the life we live and how much from our capacity to essentially encompass it morally/ethically in a philosophical or scientific framework?
Now your own “escape clause” here is to fall back on your emotions. “Somehow” no matter what your own lived life experiences and relationships and access to information and knowledge were/are/will be, you feel that the truckers are right to protest and thus want them to win. It’s all rather Satyrean to me. He too “just knows” that if you truly understand nature, you will feel as he does about blacks and women and gays and Jews and Abrahamic Communists. Only I suspect if you broach even your own rendition of dasein with him, he will pounce. Why? Because his thinking and his feelings are no more an “anomaly” than most others are.
Go ahead, note that to him.
Let’s just say that my reaction to it is considerably more consequential than yours seems to be. Again, it’s the accumulation of all these complex existential variable interactions [many beyond our complete understanding of or control over] that leads you to thinking one thing rather than another.
My whole life once revolved entirely around the month and the day that I was born…to be drafted into the Army or not to be. Everything eventually changed into its opposite in regard to “I” in the is/ought world as a consequence of that.
Same for the day I met Supannika and Ed and Mike and John and Mary. Same for the day I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man. Irrational Man I found in a library carrel! And I was in the library that day only because Vaneeta Burkhard was ill and my abnormal psychology class had been canceled.
Again, this is all predicated on the assumptions of what you think – feel? – is unfolding between us here. Your ever so slightly shifting goalpost, your “strawman”, your understanding of what you think my understanding of “trivial” means.
Once again you provide us with your own subjective take on all of this as though my subjective take is, what, inherently, necessarily less reasonable than yours? And, of course, it’s not even the reasons we give that matter most, right? Again, you’ll admit that had those seemingly [at the time] trivial interactions you had in the past been different, you might be here admonishing Maia for failing to grasp what you and I both agree on.
Instead, you can fall back on what you feel that I am doing here. That is what nails it for you.
You know what I think you’re problem is? You can’t even conceptualize yourself being mistaken. Oh sure, you disavow all certainty, but when it comes down to it, you’d rather misconstrue others so badly that when your brain gets done processing what they said, it’s the exact opposite of what they said–just so you don’t have to recognize when you’ve made a mistake.
Please note where I have ever professed that you ever professed that?
Thanks for proving my point.
Wow, talk about a segue!
Then I think we mean different things by “trivial”. You seem to have interpreted it as “boring” or “uninteresting” as it seems obvious from what you wrote here that you are fascinated by the way life turns out this way–and fair enough, it can be rather fascinating to think about–but that’s not what I meant by “trivial” (and I think I speak for Maia too). What I meant–and what I think Maia meant–is “well known” or “old news”–as in, everybody knows that or has thought of that before–as in, it’s not a new, mind-blowing concept–but whether it’s fascinating to think about or not, well that might differ from person to person. Ideas need not be novel in order for people to be fascinated by them–indeed, life long passions often remain fascinating to people even after years and years of emersion in them. So fair enough, Biggy, but your not telling us anything we haven’t considered before, just FYI.
That wouldn’t be a strawman.
Oh please, get over it. Everyone gives their subjective take on the subject, on what you, or I, or anyone else says. We all know it’s subjective. We all know we could be wrong. You’re doing it too whenever you express your subjective take on what role my emotions play in my life. The difference between you and the rest of us is we don’t feel guilty about expressing it. We don’t feel we have no right to express it unless we can be absolutely certain that it’s true. We’ll express it anyway. So if you expect us to deny this, you’d better try something else.
Oh God, I hope not. Satyr seems way too much of an extremist for my tastes. I wouldn’t say I’m right-wing. I try to be centered/unaligned with a tendency to lean right.
More to the point [mine] how “for all practical purposes” in regard to the trucker protest, abortion, guns etc., do you distinguish your emotional Self from Maia’s spiritual Self from MagsJ’s intrinsic Self?
From my perspective, they are all subjective, existential manifestations of dasein. They are a way to ground your sense of identity in the is/ought world such that you are all able to sustain a comforting and consoling sense of certainty about your moral and political convictions.
Back to how we conceive ourselves only as a profoundly problematic existential contraption rooted in dasein. And thus not to be trusted. Maia, gib and I seem to be more or less on the same page here. With MagsJ, I’m not so sure. But the “self” here is certainly not to be confused with what or who we really are. For that, gib has his emotions…rooted in genes and biology?
And MagsJ and Maia have their spiritual/soulful Self rooted in…what exactly? What they have, over the years come, viscerally, to intuit about their identity in the is/ought world?
First of all, this [to me] is typical Magnus: ever and always up in the abstract, didactic clouds of the “serious philosopher”.
Forget B. Let’s make this about the trucker protest.
Here, in regard to what we think or believe about the protest, both gib and I are more or less on the same page. We recognize that had our lives been different, we might be in here thinking and believing the exact opposite of what we now do. Only gib has access to a set of emotions that obviate the possibility of him ever feeling “fractured and fragmented” as “I” am.
On the other hand, the objectivists are not “drawn and quartered” here becasue both their thinking and their feeling are basically on the same page. They think the truckers are either right or wrong. And they feel that the truckers are either right or wrong.
How about Magnus? What does he think and feel about the protest?
Now, back up into the “general description intellectual contraption” clouds:
Please.
You either think that what you believe about the trucker protest morally and politically is a manifestation of the Real Me in sync with the Right Thing To Do or you don’t. You either think that the truckers are right or wrong and feel the same way or you think they are right or wrong but feel something different.
You either recognize that your value judgments here are rooted existentially in the points I raise in my signature threads, or you’re convinced that they are rooted objectively instead in God or ideology or deontology or in Nature.
And now [drumroll please] with a reference to an actual context!!!
Note to others:
By all means, note the many, many examples of what he is accusing me of here.
Fair enough. So, using the tools of philosophy, please, by all means, give it a shot.
Note to others:
Again, in regard to any exchanges we have had relating to the distinction I make between abortion as a medical procedure and abortion as a moral issue, please confirm just how disrespectful I have been.
My argument instead is that given the manner into which I describe my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein assessment of objectivism, there are closed-minded authoritarian minds here who are very much disrespectful of any and all who refuse to think [and to feel] exactly as they do about things like the abortion wars. We have 6 of them now on the Supreme Court here in America.
Or, rather, subjectively, so it seems to me.
And for those here either objectively for or against abortion, by all means, note for us how you “test your theories in practice”.
This is complete bullshit, in my opinion, but what I have come to expect from him. Months can go by and nothing from him. Then – poof! – out of the blue a post that is less about what I argue and more about me myself.
As I said, you have a tendency to personally attack people merely because they said something that does not immediately satisfy you.
You also have a tendency to talk negatively about people, all over the forum, effectively exerting a negative influence over how other people see them, which is something that noone, not even you, appreciates.
I am not interested.
It’s interesting that you never ask. “Hey Magnus, do you want to talk about something else? Do you want to talk about the trucker protest?” You never do that. Instead, you just say “Let’s talk about this instead”. Why should I? Why do you even expect me to do it? You never asked.
Often, you can be seen using shaming tactics to try to pull other people into having a conversation with you. Something along the lines of “Hey, that’s a dumb, pointless, nothing-to-do-with-reality subject that you’re talking about. Stop doing that. It’s embarrassing. No sane person does that. Do this instead! Talk about John and Mary! Explain to me how we can reunite the two! Mary wants to abort, John, Mary’s husband, does not. Who is right, who is wrong? Show how we can convince one of them that they are wrong and the other is right.” You don’t put it that way, of course, because you’re sly, but that’s basically a rough translation of what you say and do.
If they refuse to switch to your topic, you accuse them of being afraid of realizing how out of touch with reality they are. It helps you reinforce your belief that they are afraid of reality, but also, it helps you to pull them back into conversation with you, for more self-reinforcement.
I think everyone recognizes that.
“Fractured and fragmented” sounds like a psychological issue.
I didn’t read Gib thoroughly, so there’s quite a bit of possibility I am wrong, but right now, it looks like Gib is placing too much emphasis on what’s inborn and fixed.
I may dig them up for you.
“Others” have been telling you for decades that you’re disrespectful.
Yes. And when people try to talk about what you argue (e.g. John and Mary), you make posts that are “less about what you argue and more about them”. One of your signature threads is “The Psychology of Objectivism” where you discuss other people, those you call “objectivists”, if only in abstract terms.
Again, fair enough. You think about these interactions – past, present and future – differently than I do. From my frame of mind, we work with what we think we have…given all the variables we do not either fully understand or fully control.
Once I myself came to recognize the extent to which my own value judgments were not able to be anchored objectively to a God or a Goddess or a political ideology or a school of philosophy or a deontological assessment or to nature, I came to the conclusion that in the absence of such fonts, it was reasonable to conclude that “I” in the is/ought world is just an “existential contraption” ever subject to change given new experiences, relationships and information/knowledge/ideas.
Whereas you have your spiritual Self and gib his emotional Self to anchor I to. Good for both of you. But those things are still understood by me to be just adjuncts of dasein. And thus profoundly problematic. Even precarious eventually.
It’s not a description of reality that most intrigues me. It’s the extent to which you or I or gib is able to demonstrate that our description of it [in a world of words] is able to be confirmed empirically, materially, phenomenologically.
You can speak of a Goddess, I can speak of dasein, gib can speak of emotions…but how do we go about connecting the dots existentially between them and the behaviors that we choose?
Sure, as long as we acknowledge the possibility that we don’t. And, as of now, the fact that we don’t have access to a demonstrable argument – scientific, philosophical, theological – establishing it either way.
Perhaps because by your own admission, you’re not a philosopher. And, given the “soul-crushing tedium” attached to philosophy by you, you never will be.
There are two-kinds of optimism. One revolves around a frame of mind, another around actual sets of circumstances. If your life itself is filled with lots and lots fulfilling and satisfying experiences, what does it really matter if your philosophy of life is rather glum. But you can have the most upbeat outlook possible about life and then fall into a circumstantial hellhole that really crushes your soul/spirit.
In other words, far from being eternal, optimism itself is just another existential component of your life. And to the extent you have doubts about an afterlife, it crumbles into nothingness along with everything else.
Ah, well I can answer that… you see, what you have to realize about my emotional self is you made it all up. So I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I have a self, I am a self. And sometimes things stir me emotionally. Why the latter fact should be sooo central to the former is beyond me.
That’s what you say about everybody. It’s your way of fitting us square pegs into your round holes. I tell you my sense of self is grounded in my either/or world characteristics, and you say “Off with those pesky corners, be round! I will have none of this talk about the either/or world! No, your sense of self is squarely rooted in the is/ought world, and it’s based on (er, uh, what’d you say again?) emotions! And it’s aaall so you can feel comfortable and consoled.” ← Well, if you say so, Jacko. I think you need to believe that in order to comfort and console yourself.
Well, I’m not even sure about that. I conceive of myself as a person. Not a “profoundly problematic existential contraption rooted in dasein”. Maybe my concept of self is a sort of (mental) contraption influenced by dasein (I don’t know if it’s “profoundly problematic” or “existential” ← I’m still not convinced you know what that term means), and therefore may not be 100% accurate. But given that I define myself, for the most part, in terms of my either/or world characteristics, I don’t think my self-concept is that off the mark.
