Maybe start over. Raze it to the ground like Descartes. Build from there.
Folks didn’t get Descartes but I’m thinking we know stuff now that will make him easier to hear.
Problem with Descartes is that the only thing he could be convinced of was his own existence. And Biggy doesn’t even believe in that.
Dude. Start over with Descartes, and read the actual text. Compare it to what you were taught about Descartes, and ask… did they see? If not, what was the block? Don’t just take people’s word for things.
I have read Descartes, but it was a long time ago. What I got out of it is that absolutely everything can be doubted (meditation I), then in meditation II he finds certainty in his own existence. I used to think meditations I and II contradicted each other until I watch a short video that explained the cogito in a way I hadn’t thought of before, so now I’m not so sure they are contradictory. But then meditations 3 through 6 become increasingly more sloppy the further into them you read. So beyond meditation II, I don’t think Descartes proved anything.
But the point is, it won’t help Biggy. To him, Descartes’ meditations are just another “intellectual contraption”.
lazy. js. 
Note to others:
Same thing. You tell me how that is relevant to the thread he started.
But I repeat myself… 
…there’s the language used to describe actual objective facts that revolve around conflicting goods like the trucker protest, abortion, feminism, gun ownership etc., and language used in either defending or rejecting particular behaviors derived from our conflicting value judgments.
Political prejudices rooted subjectively, existentially in dasein from my own frame of mind “here and now”.
Which always comes down [eventually] to our ability to demonstrate that what we believe about the world around us expressed in language is in fact true for all rational and virtuous men and women.
I don’t stray very far from this assumption.
Sure. But which brain expressing its thoughts, feelings and experiences in statements pertaining to what set of circumstances?
Yeah. But, again, a “pinhead” here is only my own subjective assessment of someone. It’s not like I can prove that someone is a pinhead.
Although, admittedly, Urwrong and his numskull ilk here sometimes make me want to.
Yes, dogmatic authoritarian objectivists are everywhere. I go to the Philosophy Now forum expecting it to be different but they are there in droves too.
Though again on this thread all I ask of you is that, in regard to the trucker protest, you note what you believe is true about it morally and politically and how you would then go about demonstrating to me and others that all rational and virtuous men and women ought to think like you do.
Or even be obligated to?
Instead, yet again, the truckers aren’t in the picture at all…
Okay, but what does that have to do with the point I make? That we never really know how meeting or not meeting someone might change or not change our life? In other words, just how profoundly problematic “I” can be in a world bursting at the seams with variables – experiences – we may or may not fully understand or control? That may or may not be able to be fully understood or controlled.
Yes, but you haven’t thought it through as I do. The objectivists among us are as much intent on objectifying themselves as they are other people. They may as well be a leaf or a brick or a cinder block when it comes to their own arrogant, self-righteous “you’re wrong times a thousand if you don’t think exactly like me about the trucker protest” frame of mind. I’m trying to liberate them from themselves…but I do admit that this entails the loss of all the “comfort and consolation” that objectivism does provide them.
No doubt about that. Here I am suggesting that human existence re “I” in the is/ought world is essentially meaningless and purposeless, culminating one day in oblivion. Of course I’m going to be hated by them.
After all, their own precious “one of us” God or No God Self is on the line.
Of course. Emotions are no less rooted in dasein.
Okay, in some detail, apprise us of what you imagine Descartes would make of the trucker protest. You know, the subject of this thread.
Okay, connect the dots between Descartes’ meditations and the trucker protest. You and her/she can be a tag team here.
You love dots so much, iAmbiguous.
Note to Gib:
Ask her what the fuck she is doing in a philosophy forum.
She won’t tell me.
Hey, I did something here that def connected some dots: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p … 5#p2861935
Well at least of late I can click onto the Philosophy Now forum, where drivel like hers is basically nowhere to be found. Yes, she and her ilk have largely succeeded in configuring The New ILP into their very own bonehead bastion for Kids, social media yak yak yakkers, fulminating fanatics and pinheads.
So now I come here by and large only to entertain myself. For example, at their expense.
Though, sure, a part of me can’t help but hope against hope that ILP can return to the place it used to be when I first jointed. When those like Ichthus would have been mocked out of the discussions altogether.
I can’t even imagine what it would’ve been like to discourse with someone like I am now as who I was back then. It’s really hard to put myself in the old-me’s shoes anymore. not that I’m perfect or anything. I’m still me. And in some ways I am more me than I used to be. Funny.
I challenge dare her to connect the dots between this and the trucker protest. And then if that drivel wouldn’t already be enough connecting the dots further to her drivel about the Christian God.
You know, if drivel is what she posts.
Again, with those like Bob and felix and phyllo and Ierrellus, I can respect both their intelligence and their commitment to exploring God and religion and the trucker protest…seriously?
I can well imagine them back in the good old days here.
But her?
Nope, it just doesn’t compute.
Well, unless of course I’m wrong.
So, okay, one more chance:
In some detail, let her apprise us of what she imagines Descartes would make of the trucker protest.
You are a real piece of work, you know that Biggy? You ask for someone to explain what I think you’re failing to comprehend, I point out how you can figure it out yourself, and you ding me on not being relevant to the thread. If pointing out how you can figure out the answer to your own question is irrelevant, then so is your question. (It’s like you called my attempt to tie it back to something relevant irrelevant.)
No you certainly don’t.
I’ll answer all your questions once we complete this experiment. Now what about this:
^^Does this make sense to you?^^
Nevertheless, it shows where you stand. You don’t need to tell us it’s a subjective assessment–we all know that–but it’s an assessment that, were you to express it straight up, would come out as an objective statement: “You’re a pinhead, gib.”
And what does this have to do with the trucker protest? (I’ve been wanting to say that for a while now. 
)
What, you mean this:
Well, I already told you it didn’t. And neither I nor she (as far as I know) had any kind of life philosophy or political narrative to impact or be impacted. So acknowledging that, you’re asking “what if”, right? Whenever you introduce “what if” you know you’re talking about a hypothetical/imaginary scenario, right? So just to be clear, we’re toying with a fantasy (talk about irrelevance to the trucker convoy). You’re asking, instead of what actually happened, what if your life trajectory deviated towards this alternate reality. If it did–if my life deviated into a reality in which she held a life/political philosophy that profoundly affected me–then I guess I would be profoundly affected. Now here’s where I need a context: what is her life/political philosophy? Since we’re just making this up, I’ll just go with anarchism. She was an anarchist, and we had a few profound discussions (before she stood me up) that inspired me to subscribe to the same philosophy. So she converted me to anarchism. Then she stands me up. I’m pissed at her. I want to have nothing to do with her and I don’t even want to be like her. So I renounce my adherence to anarchism and adopt a wholly opposite philosophy: authoritarianism. So this series of events first pulled me towards embracing anarchism and then, in a reactionary and rash manner, I did a 180 and embraced authoritarianism. ← That definitely would have set my life in a totally different direction.
Now what’s the point? Why are we talking about hypothetical, imaginary scenarios about the way my life could have been? This not only has nothing to do with the trucker convoy, but also nothing to do with my actual life. You wanted an account of my life that explained how I got to the point where I’m at today (supporting the truckers), and I gave you one. Unsatisfied with it, you chose to focus on a point that wasn’t even in my account, a date that never happened when I was 16. And then, of all things, you want to jump from there into a fantasy world in which my life takes a completely different course. What kind of game are you playing, Biggy?
Unless, this is just your next move. Is it? Once the person you’re engaged with gives his life account, you then focus on a point and ask, what if it turned out differently here? And all the better if that point seemed so irrelevant to the life account that it wasn’t even included? Is this the point at which you confront the person with how arbitrary his current position on whatever topic is? How he could have arrived at a totally different place on the intellectual/political spectrum from seemingly arbitrary events far in his past? Ok, then… I acknowledge that I could have been an authoritarian, in which case I probably would have sided with Trudeau and his authoritarian measures. Now what?
How do you know I haven’t thought it through? I don’t come to the same conclusions, or perhaps I’m not reacting to those conclusions the same way you are, but I think at this point I’ve definitely thought it through as you have. We’ve been over this time and time and time again, and I’m seeing nothing new in your argument at this point. I think the crux of our disagreement is in this conclusions we draw and our respective reactions to it. So let’s focus on that.
For you, it seems to fragment your “I” whereas for me it doesn’t. That’s the main difference I see. In passed arguments with you, I’ve gathered that this “I” fragmentation is essentially the fact that one’s “I” has always been defined in terms that have now come into question. For example, urwrongx1000 considers himself (probably) a “good conservatist”. That’s part of his identity. It’s what he thinks his “I” is. Now if you come along and tear apart any foundation for what it is to be “good” and what it is to be a “conservative”, then urwrongx1000 suddenly realizes that being a “good conservatist” is meaningless, and he succumbs to an identity crisis (his “I” fractures). So far so good?
My acceptance of your dasein argument has never put my sense of “I” into jeopardy. I would say that this is because I don’t identify my “I” with any kind of “ism”, but this isn’t entirely true. I do call myself a “subjectivist” as you know. So I suppose if you were to tear down my subjectivism, I may succumb to an identity crisis like urwrongx1000 in the hypothetical scenario above. But you never have, primarily because it’s way too far up in the clouds for you to even process (I’d say it’s beyond even the stratosphere, possibly somewhere around Jupiter). But that shouldn’t matter. If I truly understand your argument, I should be able to take it to its logical conclusion myself and tear apart my own subjectivism. So why don’t I?
This has to do with something far more fundamental than you and I have ever gotten into. I believe I mentioned it once but you dismissed it. I said that we have a fundamental disagreement (whether you realize it or not) about what an “intellectual contraption” is. We both agree that it’s something mental (a thought, a concept, a cognitive way of looking at the world) but I think of the mental in a completely different way (from you, from urwrong, from everybody)–the key difference is that I don’t think of intellectual contraptions as mere images or illusory objects or fabrications. For example, a concept like “value” is, in a nihilistic vein, a human fabrication. The nihilist says that there is no such thing as value, that it is a human construction, that we made it up and is therefore illusory. But I’m not a nihilist. I concur that we make up the concept of “value” and artificially assign value to things, but making up “value” in the mind is to make it real. More generally, I believe that the mind (i.e. intellectual contraptions) gives reality to the things it makes up. Add relativism to the mix and you’ve got my brand of subjectivism.
In other words, when you look at the world through my subjectivist lenses, you don’t take these intellectual contraptions as ephemeral mirages that have no concrete basis in reality, you take them as providing their own basis in reality. And with relativism, you can accommodate conflicting intellectual contraptions in different people’s heads. Therefore, I never end up in the spot where anything fragments, let alone my “I”. Everything stays intact because there is reality in intellectual contraptions, in the is/ought world, no less than in the concrete world of either/or. I just characterize it as subjective and relative rather than objective and absolute.
Well, I think people generally react unfavorably when you try to change their world view and values. It’s an adaptation of the brain. They come to settle on one world view or another as an adaptation to their life and the things going on therein. And when someone comes along trying to change it, it’s like a force trying to undo one’s adaptation, and that never bodes well for any animal that’s adapted to its environment. The instinct is to fight it off.
Oh my God! I wasn’t even talking to you, and you still issue demands that we (Ichthus77 and I) tie it back to the trucker protest. We’re talking about Descartes. Stay out of it!
Hey Itchy, what the fuck are you doing in a philosophy forum?
Tie this back into the trucker convoy.
Are you guys not on speaking terms or something.
Ah, yes, those were some good folks.
It’s ok, Itchy, just put together a simple response like "Descartes would question the reality of the trucker protest. When he sees it on TV, are his senses deceiving him? When he thinks about what’s going in Ottowa, is that really an evil demon convincing him it exists? Does anything exist? Does he exist? 
"
As requested: On the trucker protest against vaccine mandates, Descartes might say the CDC is playing the role of the evil, deceiving demon, withholding data, and we cannot err if we give our assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive…so the truckers are justified in withholding assent and living their lives in accordance with that rejection. God’s perfect being, goodness, and therefore trustworthiness anchors all movements of mind and body. If the truckers allowed themselves to be carried away by their passions (fear) and to just believe whatever the media told them (the narrative forced by Global Public Health), he would say that they have weak souls that are “unhappy and enslaved.”
Now I will be accused of arrogance at presuming and politicizing. Oh yay.
Curious. Last annual report was 2019.
loc.gov/services/federal-re … l-reports/
And how does Descartes know that the CDC is the “deceiving demon” and not the anti-vaxxers?
The label anti-vaxxers is an inaccurate tool of rhetoric (in some cases brainwashing).
Many who are against the Covid vaccine mandates are not against Covid or other vaccines. They just believe in vaccine choice. And many of them were fully vaccinated before Covid.
That’s where I’m at.
In any case… Those whom you label anti-vaxxers are not the ones withholding the data.
So you say.
But how do you know that the anti-vaxxers are telling you the truth? How do you know what the anti-vaxxers are not withholding data?