How is that relevant if that is not my source for information?
You’re making a decision based on what the various actors are saying.
Or Descartes is. He’s labeling at least one group as the “deceiving demon”. Or you are doing it for him.
Note to the truckers:
Please be patient. It’s still not out of the question that someday he might actually make his points about you and your protest…and not about me and his general description intellectual contraptions. His “experiment”.
Next up: the difference between something being noted and something being understood.
Sigh…
I’ve only been explaining this now for years here.
The truckers protest. What does it mean? Is it the right thing to do? Well, there are personal opinions about it rooted in political prejudices that are derived from the life that someone has lived existentially…given their indoctrination as a child and their own unique accumulation of experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge. But all of that is simply ignored by the moral and political objectivists. For them there is God or a political ideology or a deontological philosophical assessment or an analysis of nature. From this font they judge others as being either “one of us” [the good guys] or “one of them” [the bad guys].
What are you suggesting…we don’t have an obligation to demonstrate what we think the truck protest means to us, to others? That they should just accept the arguments that we make?
You’re just “making this up”? Let’s just say that your understanding of “what if?” is different from mine. Mine revolves around "what if my draft number had precluded my being drafted into the Army, going to Vietnam, meeting Mac and the others, rejecting Christianity and the “silent majority” political dogmas, going to college, meeting Mary, reading about existentialism, becoming a left-wing political activist…and profoundly changing my life forever.
What if, instead, I had stayed with my family and friends, continued working at Maryland Ship Building and Drydock, sustained my Christian beliefs and reactionary political prejudices, and went on being that until “here and now”.
My point has everything to do with how we come to acquire one set of political prejudices rather than another. Again, we simply do not “think it through” in the same way. And I’m certainly not arguing that my way is inherently/necessarily more rational. Only that in regard to the protesting truckers and our own reaction to the protest, it has considerable relevance.
Here [to me] you are basically saying "fuck your ‘what if?’ scenarios, my life unfolded as it did’, and that’s the only thing that counts for me.
Classic objectivist mentality.
Where did I argue that you didn’t think it through? I only noted the obvious: that in regard to “what if?” in our lives, you didn’t think it through as I did. And “obviously” because given the manner in which I thought it through I have come to believe that in regard to moral and political value judgments, “I” am now fractured and fragmented. Why? Because of the existential trajectory of my life explored on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
Again back to the trucker protest connected to the covid pandemic and the role of government. “I” see that both sides can make reasonable arguments merely by embracing a different set of assumptions about where to start: with the individual or the community? with capitalism or with socialism? with nature or with nurture? with God or mere mortal?, with rationalism or empiricism? with realism or idealism? with free will or determinism? And on and on and on. And, in regard to each, the objectivist among us will insist that only his or her on take on them count. Again, go ahead and ask them.
And, further, that these arguments are more in the way of political prejudices derived existentially from dasein.
Don’t think that way yourself? Okay, given a specific situation like the trucker protest, tell me how you have come to believe what you do.
Your assessment and mine. Maybe we will succeed in communicating them, maybe we won’t. For me though that often revolves around “the psychology of objectivism” as noted above.
Come on, Urwrong chooses as a user name “Urwrongx1000”. And what are others wrong times a thousand about if not thinking exactly like he does about the trucker protest, covid and the role of government. That’s pinhead territory to me…bordering on a “condition”.
And the fulminating fanatic pinheads will almost never abandon their authoritarian dogmas in my view because it’s not even about what they believe but that they believe what they do. It could be anything!
How about this…
You and Urwrong discuss and debate the trucker protest. Then over the course of it I might be able to more clearly grasp the distinction between what you deem your “subjectivism” and the manner in which I construe Urwrong as a hardcore political objectivist.
Okay, reconfigure the points you make here into how you react to the trucker protest politically.
And my moral nihilist doesn’t say there is no such thing as value…that it is illusory. He or she says that moral and political values are existential fabrications/concoctions rooted largely in the life that one lives. That there does not appear to way a way for philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., to take all of the conflicting subjective/intersubjective accounts of right and wrong, good and evil, rooted out in particular worlds historically, culturally and individually and, using the tools at their disposal, coming up with the most rational/virtuous conclusions.
Instead, from my frame of mind, you just go on and on and on discussing all of this in your general description intellectual contraptions:
Make this relevant to the trucker protest.
But: I’m nothing at all like most here are: trying to convince liberals to think like conservatives or conservatives to think like liberals.
Instead, my points are aimed at what I construe to be both the left-wing and right-wing objectivists.
It’s not that one side is right and the other side wrong [as both sides here will generally agree] but that the sides themselves are merely subjective, existential fabrications rooted problematically and [at times] precariously in dasein.
Their own precious moral and political I itself is deconstructed by the assumptions that “I” make. That’s what most perturbs them about me. I’m going after their “transcending fonts” that allow them to anchor their Self in the psychology of objectivism.
You either get the troubling implications of this for them or you don’t.
Then back again to where you/“you” fit into all of this in regard to the trucker protest.
No biggy has nada to say about Descartes take. Noted.
godot to Ichthus 1 through 77:
He doesn’t read your drivel anymore. But I take sole responsibility for that. 
You don’t say much about Descartes’ reasoning. :-"
I’m sure the truckers’ eyes are all glued to their screens.
Only if you can tie it into the trucker protest.
This doesn’t help in the least. In fact, your brain did one of it’s glitchy things again. You turned the question from “What does existentially mean?” to “What does the trucker protest mean?” ← You are aware that you did that, right?
You know what I think? I think you like to use big words without knowing what they mean.
Anyway, this is what I find when I google it:
Definition of existential
1: of, relating to, or affirming existence
existential propositions
2a: grounded in existence or the experience of existence : EMPIRICAL
2b: having being in time and space
3: EXISTENTIALIST
Seems similar to dasein (Heidegger’s word) so I surmise you mean to use it in a similar way (in which case “rooted existentially in dasein” is superfluous).
They can do whatever they want. We’re not obligated to explain our position and they’re not obligated to accept it.
I fail to see the difference (other than you’re speculating on your own life instead of mine). Is it that you’re just asking the “what if” question without speculating answers? What’s the point of that?
Right, and I tied it back to the truckers (Hallelujah!!!). I said I’d probably side with Trudeau. Remember?
What the hell does that have to do with objectivism?
And then comes the part where you completely skip over probably the most important part of my reply, the part that would tie all this together and make sense of what you’re doing:
Yes, and again, we’ve been over this a thousand times. I stopped gaining new insights into how you’ve thought it through a long time ago. I’m confident I understand.
Ok, that might be an interesting exercise. But I know it’s not gonna make sense to you. We’ll try anyway. So let’s see… I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker’s cause.
^ Can you work with that?
That’s because it isn’t based on rationality.
With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples’ minds, it may project in a different way. “I” do not fragment because what “I” am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.
^ There! Now don’t tell me I’m not tying it back to the trucker protest.
You don’t think you’re trying to change people’s minds?
If it perturbs them, you’re changing their minds.
And let’s not forget this:
Well, does it?
meh
Should i have reproduced the anthology?
Would it really require that much effort to state why you think Descartes would choose one position rather than another?
As for the “deceiving demon” explanation … all sides can be accused of being mistaken or even outright lying.
You don’t give your source of information.
So, whatever.
ok. whatevs.
Well it turns out that Biggus is right. Go figure. =D>
LOL
Again, for years now I’ve been making the distinction between existential meaning – what the trucker protest means to you subjectively as the embodiment of dasein – and essential meaning – what some insist it must mean to everyone. In other words, what it means to them.
The pinheads.
But even in regard to those I construe to be pinheads, I am more than willing to entertain any demonstrable proof that indeed how they think about it – and covid and the role of government in regard to healthcare policy – is in fact the objective truth.
Note to others:
Please, by all means, explain to me what his point here has to do with my point above it.
It’s practically the sort of querulous gibberish I’d expect from Urwrong. And, more and more, I’m convinced that, with him, it’s a “condition”. Not on ecmandu’s plane perhaps but surely clinical.
Then what’s the point of protesting then? You protest in order to make an argument about the government’s policy. To present your side.
Although, sure, for any number of pinheads, the fact that they believe what they do is demonstration enough that it is true. Yeah, I do get that part.
Well, indeed, in those communities where might makes right prevails the only obligation the objectivists have is to enforce the laws that they dictate.
Whereas in a community that revolves around democracy and the rule of law explaining the reasons why we believe what we do is kind of the whole point.
Then we will definitely have to agree to disagree about the “what if?” factor. My own understanding of it revolves more or less around this: youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI
The staggering complexity of all the variables that come together in our lives so as to end up as we think we are “here and now”? There’s the pinhead objectivist rendition of that and Benjamin Button’s and mine.
That’s not the point. The point is the manner in which in thinking that part through we come to different conclusions about how much it matters in our lives existentially.
Yes, and again, I suspect that if you really understood the existential implications of my own trajectory here, you’d be inclined to acknowledge it is no less true of you and the trucker protest.
Nope. In fact, I can’t even imagine an argument that is further removed from my own existential speculations. It’s an intellectual contraption on steroids.
No. The existiential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.
Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn’t derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing? My point is only that those on the other side have their reasons too. And that the acquisition of these reasons is predicated more on the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here than in any argument that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with to resolve it objectively.
Of course: straight back up into the intellectual clouds:
Note to others:
You tell me if he is.
He “thinks” his way into believing that he is not fractured and fragmented here. I “think” my way into believing that I am.
Meanwhile, the truckers reasons for doing what they do are no less the embodiment of dasein from my frame of mind.
So, right now, we’re stuck.
From my vantage point, there’s a big difference between thinking that you are right objectively and trying to change the minds of those who think you are wrong objectively, and trying to convince people that right and wrong itself is predicated on the subjective parameters of dasein. That there is no objective morality in a No God world. That moral nihilism is a reasonable manner in which to construe conflicting goods.
On the other hand, what are the realistic odds that someone like Urwrong [with or without a “condition”] will ever change his mind…about anything? The entirety of his psychological comfort and consolation revolves precisely around being a dogmatic, authoritarian pinhead.
What, in regard to the trucker protest?
What “objective facts”?
THANK YOU, BIGGY!!!
Why is Urwrong your pinhead poster boy?
Sure, but no one has an obligation to do this. Any one of the truckers could have gone home, or even kept on protesting without demonstrating the truth of their position such that all rational men and women are obliged to accept.
But not an obligation.
I get it, Biggy, really I do. If things had been different at some point in my past, even way in my past, even slightly different, my life could have turned out wholly different, even steering me to adopt a totally different ideology. And I would have built for myself equally rational sounding objective arguments to justify that ideology. So what does this mean? It means the justifications we bring to bear on our ideologies aren’t what really drive us to do what we do (protest, support, go to war, etc.); the millions and millions of tiny variables that affect and shape us throughout are lives are. And our justifications are more like things we patch together after the fact so that we have an answer to the question “Why are you doing this?” The millions of variables that lead us to where we are today are more or less arbitrary–they can be anything and can come at any time, and they can happen to anyone–and therefore our justifications and our ideologies are just as arbitrary. As you put, “I might as well have gone in the other direction.”
(The only thing I left out was the “I” fracturing and fragmenting, but I believe I gave an account earlier of how I understand that.)
It’s not that hard to grasp. If you’re still dumbfounded by why I don’t drop my subjectivism (or whatever I believe in) and jump in the hole with you in response to this, maybe you aren’t grasping my point of view.
Existentially, eh? Well, this is entirely possible. Maybe the implications of all this matters far more to you than it does to me.
And did I not acknowledge it a thousand times? I think the problem is your approach is built for confrontation, so when you come across a person who agrees with you, it fails to compute in your mind, and you fall back on the assumption that you’re dealing with an objectivist pinhead.
That’s the crux of our disagreement then. But you do acknowledge that I tied it into the trucker protest, right?
And if you can’t work with this despite that I tied it into the trucker protest, would you say that we’re out of options? I mean, you keep saying that you need your discussion partner to tie his/her point to the subject matter of the discussion. So when that fails, what do you fall back on?
Yes, derived… but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.
You’ve got the order backwards. It starts with dasein, yes, but then comes the behavior (protesting), and only last do the reasons and justifications show up (mandated vaccines are immoral). We far more often invent our justifications for the things we do as an after thought, as something we need to prepare in our heads in case we’re challenged by someone. Justifications are far more useful as tools for debate than as a motivating factors that push us to action.
What drove the truckers (Ha! Ha! “drove”) to protest was their trucksemotion. They were angry. Or they felt threatened. And this compelled them to drive to Ottawa to protest. On the way there, they came up with the moral justifications for why it’s right for them to do what they were going to do (and convinced themselves that those were the reasons they drove to Ottawa in the first place). And these emotions are not based on a rational argument. No one said, “They’re violating my right to refuse vaccines. Therefore, I will be angry. Here I go. GRRRRRR!!!” Rather, the violation of their right to refuse vaccines itself triggered the anger (directly) and made them want to protest in Ottawa; and then they rehearsed their justifications for doing so. Why should they be angry about being forced to vaccinate? Well, that’s where dasein comes in. From dasein, and the millions of tiny variables that, throughout their lives, determined their values and attitudes towards vaccines, came the predisposition to be angry when someone wants to violate their right to refuse vaccination. And you know as well as I, dasein is not rational; it is not an argument; it is an unconscious force that develops and shapes us all through our lives, more or less arbitrarily. This is why I say the reason philosophers have yet to come up with a definitive rational argument determining what is finally the objectively right moral position (on anything) is because there is no one absolute rational argument that applies to everyone and settles the matter.
You mean to tell me that by bringing my “cloudy” philosophy back down to Earth, tying it into the trucker protest–like you asked me to–I’m actually going back up into the clouds? This is worse than the first instance when tying it to the trucker protest didn’t work for you. At least there, we can acknowledge that it just didn’t work for you (can’t win 'em all). But here, you’re going into denial that I brought my philosophy down to Earth and did exactly what you said.
Seriously, what’s wrong with you, man?!
Don’t you mean, we’re truck? Bada bang! 
Don’t you think we’ve picked on urwrong enough? I’m starting to feel bad for the guy. You must have another pinhead in your deck of cards.
Anyway, my point was (if you can be bothered to go back and read it) that if the effect you’re having on other people’s minds is to change them (regardless of whether that’s what you’re trying to do), they will instinctively fight you. And it’s not because what you’re saying takes away their comfort (although it will make them feel uncomfortable) but because it’s just a survival instinct. Whatever it is you think you’re doing, it’s triggering that instinct in people.
Interesting response, Biggy. There is no indication in this response that you comprehend what I said. Maybe you do, but the fact that you have to stop me here and ask these questions indicates to me that I’m losing you. So this is a breakthrough, Biggy! A breakthrough!!! Does that excite you as much as it excite me (if for no other reason than that we don’t have to drag on this experiment anymore)?
So let’s recap:
It started with me trying to explain to you why, as a subjectivist, I still use language in the usual way (to make objective sounding statements):
…to which you responded:
And from past conversations, I’ve learned from you that this is Biggy speak for “I don’t understand”. And that sparked an idea: I was going to try repeating my quote above one sentence at a time and see exactly where I lose you.
So I started with this:
And you said:
…which told me you understand what it means for the problem to be one of language (though you highlighted a different language problem than the one I had in mind). So I went on:
…to which you said:
That seemed like an affirmative to me. So I went on:
…to which you said:
…and this is where I think I start losing you (the edge of the clouds). Usually, when one starts asking questions like this, one is starting to not understand. Granted you asked questions before this: “Sure. But which brain expressing which thoughts…?” but it was prefaced with an affirmative.
So it seems the longer the quote goes on describing generalities without tying it to specifics as examples, the less you are able to follow along. This continues up to the point where you can’t follow at all, and this seems to be around 3 sentences or 3 thoughts.
There also seems to be a disconnect between what the quote is addressing and what you think the quote is addressing. Like I said, the quote was a response to your comment about how you’re trying to figure out where I fit between the fanatic fulminating objectivist pinheads and those whose “I” is fractured and fragmented:
So it was you that started this tangent which had nothing to do with the trucker protest, talking about how you sort ILP members into your categories instead. You ended off explaining that, with me, you’re probing where I fit. So I thought I’d help by giving my explanation of how the problem you are having in categorizing me comes down to language. In other words, my quote was quite relevant to where you took the discussion, but for some reason you expected it to be about the trucker protest (as though I was just ignoring your comment). I wonder if had you not made that mistake, it would have been easier to follow along.
I also wonder whether you have a deficit for processing generalized statements. You asked, “What, in regard to the trucker protest?” to which I said, “In regard to everything”. This indicated to me that you couldn’t grasp that it was a generalization, that you can’t help but to think it has to be about something specific (such that it wouldn’t be true of other specific things). But I couldn’t answer your question in regard to anything specific (the trucker protest or the difference between subjectivists and objectivists) because my statement was a generalization about how we make statements period. Maybe if I interleaved my quote with examples, it might have helped, but I don’t know if that would have helped or hindered your understanding that it wouldn’t have been just about the examples I’d give. Generalizations are about all examples one could possibly give. So I wonder if it would have helped had I noted that it was a generalized statement to begin with. Would you have been able to react with “Ok, gib, thanks for letting me know. Now I know to read it as a generalization,” or would you still not be able to process that?
Now, even though this experiment wasn’t the point of this thread, the thread sorta, kinda (not really) fulfilled its purpose. The purpose was to see how a discussion with Biggy goes down when there’s an actual context–an IRL context–and when his partner is actually IRL involved. And while we never got around to discussing my motives and rationale for getting involved in the trucker protest, we did get to see what happens when I bring in a totally unrelated philosophy that I, as a subjectivist, believe in.
We have this:
…and this:
So it seems that, at least with me and my subjectivism, it doesn’t work. You said you couldn’t work with the first one, which is fine. The second one caused you to go into denial that I, in fact, tied my subjectivism to the trucker protest. So it not only didn’t work, but had a counter-effect. Go figure.
I never did get a chance to run this experiment with my motives and reasons for involving myself in the trucker protest. My subjectivism is a poor subject matter for the trucker protest because it has absolutely nothing to do with it, but my distrust in government does. ← Wanna try it again with that?
Or… we can return to some of your questions you asked which I said I would answer after we were done the experiment:
^ Wanna do that?
Who is arguing that the truckers in Canada were obligated to protest? My point is still that the “truth of their position” is embodied subjectively/existentially in dasein. Same for those on the other side. Again, it’s less about what one believes when moral and political “goods” come into conflict and more how one comes to acquire one set of political prejudices rather than another. It’s the objectivists among us [left and right] who insist their frame of mind is not a prejudice but a reflection the most rational and virtuous conclusion that mere mortals in a No God world can come to.
Always the main point in regard to my own distinction between being a subjectivist and an objectivist.
No, not an obligation. But most folks who are politically active like the truckers clearly had decided they are obligated to let the world know what they were thinking. Why else would they be protesting?
Yep, that’s basically what “I” get too.
Yes, and you either let that sink in all the way or you don’t. Once you come to recognize that 1] your commitment to the trucker protest is profoundly rooted existentially in dasein and that 2] had your life been different you might be here arguing against the protest, you ask yourself, “okay, so what then is the most rational manner in which to react to it”?
Philosophically for example. Since this is a philosophy forum. Is there in fact the “wisest” reaction of all? Something along the lines of a Plato or a Descartes or a Kant?
The fracturing and fragmenting revolves as well around the realization that those on both sides of the trucker protest are able to make reasonable arguments for and against it. They merely start with different sets of assumptions about, among other things, the role of government in our lives. That too however being largely the embodiment of dasein.
Obviously. But the existential implications of how we both understand “contingency, chance and change” in our lives here is clearly different.
Thus…
Yes, as opposed to those who approach their own moral narratives/political agendas given the assumption that with just the right font – God, ideology, deontology, nature – one can transcend contingency, chance and change altogether. And aren’t they truly lucky to have found it out of all the hundreds of moral, political and spiritual paths there are to choose from.
Thus…
You acknowledge it…but you don’t. Yes, you may well be here arguing against the truckers had things been different in your life. But they weren’t so you’re not. So, what exactly is it that you are agreeing with me about given that you are still not “fractured and fragmented” yourself? All I can do then is attempt to understand that better.
Sure, if you call tying that to the trucker’s protest relevant to the points I am trying to make here.
And then just more of the same…
The next time there’s a trucker protest take these arguments to them. See how they react to it.
Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.
I would truly love to be around when you explain that to them.
Again, all I can do here is imagine their own reaction to something like this. I suspect the reasons they have for acting as they do is more in line with the reasons we give for acting as we do. My main aim is merely to suggest the reasons are derived more from the manner in which I construe dasein here than in anything that philosophers can provide as a foundations for coming up with the optimal reaction to the government and the covid pandemic. Or for some the only rational reaction there can be. Their own.
Sure, there are those who get angry because the government does something that they don’t like. But how many stop there? I’m angry and that’s enough? No, I suspect that they will discuss this anger with others. And others will be tuning into their favorite news channels or internet blogs. All the “reasons” for why the government does this instead of that will be included in the protest. Along with all the political prejudices that picture two very different worlds that we live in. Red and blue worlds among others. As though reasons and emotions don’t become deeply entangled in the minds of those on both sides.
If you call this…
…an example of coming down out of the clouds, we are far removed regarding what that means.
And you don’t grasp the distinction here?
How many times over the years here have I noted that my own conclusions regarding “I” in the is/ought world are no less subjective “personal opinions” rooted in dasein. Yet no doubt you will still bring up this point again.
Oh, it’s all in the genes then? Though, sure, a comfortable and consoling survival for some does revolve around being convinced that how they construe the trucker protest is the way everyone ought to construe it.
Yes, I’m I’m sticking with it.
No, that’s Biggy speak for “I might understand your point better if you intertwined it in your ‘subjectivist’ assessment of the trucker protest.” Clearly the distinction you make between “subjective” and “objective” in regard to “I” in the is/ought world is not the same one I make. What difference does it make if each new sentence is not connected to the trucker protest?
Thus…
Then from my frame of mind straight back up into the clouds you go…
Words defending yet more words still. No truckers, no covid pandemic, no government policy in sight. And, again, there are many here eager to sustain this sort of exchange with you. I’m just not one of them.
Though, sure, if the problem is that I don’t get why I should be one of them perhaps it is best that you just give up on me and move on to those that value all that can be grasped about the truckers’ protest from up in the clouds.
Then here we go again…
Take this speculation down out of the clouds and relate it to the trucker protest…or abortion or feminism or gun control.
Instead – to me – just more of the same…
You’ve got this overarching frame of mind – mm-theory.com – you use to understand the world around you. But I’m only interested in the parts that pertain to this:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
And that includes your “experiment”.
Pertaining to the trucker protest. Or to any other moral and political conflagration.
You did, right here:
Ok, ok, fine… you didn’t exactly say the truckers have an obligation to protest, but I didn’t say you did.
Anger?
Well, maybe you ask yourself that question, but trust me, one can allow the above to sink in and not bother to ask that question. One would have to presuppose that 1) there is a most rational manner in which to react, and 2) that it matters. I don’t believe in 1) and I’m not even sure 2) is true. So why would I ask myself that question?
And yet, you seem to agree that I get everything leading up to that point. But if this is the question you’re asking yourself once all the above has sunk in, I question how much of a nihilist or subjectivist you really are, expecting there to still be a “most rational manner” in which to react.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I’m not really sure what “contingency, chance, and change” has to do with this. Why don’t you tell me what “contingency, chance, and change” means to you and what it has to do with the manner in which we draw our own conclusions after letting all the above sink in?
But you don’t even do that. I’ve given you numerous opportunities to understand it better, but you dismiss them all as in one way or another irrelevant. To wit, we have different understandings of what an “intellectual contraption” is. If you understood that, you’d understand how it is I can agree with you that had things been different I wouldn’t necessarily be arguing in favor of the truckers, and that given the arbitrary manner by which we come to acquire our political prejudices one would have to be a fool to believe he or she just so happens to inherit the “right” political prejudice, and yet I’m ok with the stance that I do take. I acknowledge everything leading up to your conclusion, but I reject your conclusion. And this hinges on our understanding of what an “intellectual contraption” is. Too bad you can’t be bothered to follow up on that.
How could it not be relevant? Tying it to the trucker protest is exactly what you asked me to do. If that isn’t relevant, why did you ask?
The problem, Biggy, is that you’re expecting a square peg to fit into a round hole. You read my “cloudy” explanation of how my understanding of “intellectual contraption” differs from yours, and you asked me to tie it to the trucker protest. When I did, you found it to be no less cloudy than it was before. What this tells me is that you were expecting it to come across as something much more mundane or “down to earth”–as if what I was really talking about was something like the right to refuse vaccination, or the right to question the government’s authority, or any number of the ideas your much more familiar with and well versed in–as if the only reason it sounds like I’m talking about way-up-in-the-clouds metaphysical concepts (like the nature of consciousness, the problem of mind and matter, the relation between perception and reality, etc.) is because I’m choosing to use way-up-in-the-clouds language (which you don’t speak) and if only I were to translate it to earth-language, it would be put into words and concepts completely unrelated to metaphysical ideas like consciousness, mind and matter, perception and reality, etc.–words and concepts related more to things like the trucker protest, abortion, women’s rights, black lives matter, or any of the hot political topics of the day which you feel way more comfortable talking about.
You have a choice when this happens: either 1) accuse me of failing to bring it down to earth, or 2) recognize the flaw in your expectations, that a square peg doesn’t fit into a round hole. What you read when I tied my cloudy explanations to the trucker protest is just what it ends up looking like when I tie it to the trucker protest. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t fail to bring it down to earth. Those are just the results you get when you ask me to tie my cloudy metaphysics about consciousness (specifically intellectual contraptions in this case) to the trucker protest. The reason it still seems cloudy to you is because cloud-language is the only language with which it can be expressed. IOW, it won’t change when I tie it to the trucker protest.
So make your choice. Either recognize the opportunity presented to you by these results, the opportunity to grow, to expand and deepen your understanding of other people’s views, to refine the shape of the hole you’re trying to fit pegs into–or don’t. Block it out. Continue to insist that I failed to come down out of the clouds. That way, you won’t ever have to step outside the comfort zone of your intellectual sanctuary. You can continue to throw people into the buckets of objectivist pinheads and nihilist who believe exactly what you believe. Either way, you won’t have to endure the pains of growth. You’ll never find what you claim to be seeking, mind you, but at least you’ll have your comfort zone until the day you die.
So, into the waste bin I go.
Don’t always assume I am connecting the dots. This is yet another example of… drum roll… a segue! I order to figure out what started it (in the hopes of seeing if it could be tied to the trucker protest), I did what you never bother to do: trace it back to the source. And let me tell you, it is a looong segue–which raises the question of why only now are you concerned with its relevance to the trucker protest. It stems from our discussion about how my life might have turned out differently had I not been stood up by that girl when I was 16 (which itself was a segue driven by you–I guess it’s ok when you do it). I figured I could stop there as not only did you initiate that segue but you seemed to be driving to a point that you thought was relevant despite having nothing to do with the trucker protest, so I didn’t think we needed to figure out where that segue came from (although it seems obvious it came from you challenging the foundations on which my pro-trucker stance rests) as you seemed to accept it as relevant up to that point.
So this is how the conversation went:
So, I don’t know if this helps, but you can see how I connect the dots between my last point and the scenario about the girl who stood me up from which it stemmed–and this is almost literally connecting the dots–so if you can form the connection between that scenario (which you were driving) and the trucker protest, you should be able (quite easily) to connect the dots between that and the last point I made above. And if not, why did you follow along with the segue so long before pointing out that there is no apparent connection between it and the trucker protest?
I have 0 faith that the truckers would believe me were I to argue with them that the reasons they give for being in Ottawa are not the real reason they are there, nor that they would even understand what I’m talking about. You’d probably see me laughed at or ignored. But what is that supposed to prove? Am I supposed to doubt my own points just because I can’t convince a group of truckers of their truth? Failing to convince people of the points I make or get them to understand happens all the time. You of all people should know this. You fail to convince people of your points on ILP all the time. Yet you continue to promulgate your nihilist dasein arguments as though that doesn’t matter one iota. Why should it matter for me?
I’m with you 100% here.
And all of this is to serve the emotions that started it, the emotions that are ultimately the core reason they do anything in this context. All the rest–what they discuss among their friends, what they see on the media, the dwelling, the contemplating, the rationalizing–all serve to make it ok to gratify their emotions, to preserve their sense of moral right while doing so.
We are not removed at all. I did exactly what you asked of me. Alas, this is but another example of you expecting a square peg to fit into a round hole. You expected that by tying my subjectivist metaphysics to the trucker protest, it would cease to be subjectivist metaphysics and become something mundane and practical, something you could sink your teeth into (arguments against vaccination, government overreach, the right to protest… hell, I think if I made it about abortion, you’d say I did it right). Like I said above, you have a choice to either recognize that not all pegs will fit into your round hole or scorn me for not being more round.
It ain’t about changing their minds.
Absolutely I will! Because I don’t grant you that excuse. Admitting that your own arguments apply to your own objective statements doesn’t get you a free pass any more than a murderer admitting that the law applies to him gets him a free pass–especially one that won’t grant the same license to other murderers. It’s as if you think by admitting that when you (accidentally?) make objective statements, your own philosophy applies to you no less than to me or urwrong or other ILP pinheads, you get to make objective statements (or that they aren’t really objective statements). I mean, that would be all fine and dandy, except that you don’t grant the same right to anyone else. Everyone except Biggy is an objectivist pinhead when they make objective sounding statements, but not Biggy; when he makes an objective sounding statement, he excuses it with his my-philosophy-applies-to-me magic wand and makes the problem go away, thus evading objectivist pinhead status.
The problem is that you’re human too, and we all, at the end of the day, are compelled to make objective sounding statements (this was my point about how the brain is evolved to structure language to sound objectivy). You try to avoid it for the most part–posing challenges and inquiries instead of making statements, committing to no specific position in the act, and always remembering to claim to be seeking the truth rather than stating your own truth–but you can’t help that once in a while, you’ll fall prey to the impulse to express yourself using your brain’s default language algorithms (i.e. just stating what you think, which comes out as objective sounding statements). When that happens, and when someone points it out, you redeem yourself with the my-philosophy-applies-to-me defense–as if the “you” who made those objective statements was a different “you”–a urwrong, a Uccisor, a gib–someone to whom you can apply the “objectivist pinhead” label–and that’s ok because it isn’t “you” anymore–you’ve resumed being your nihilist, dasein loving “I”.
It does for everyone, even you. Think of it this way. Imagine you’re having one of your typical debates with a right wing conservative who has deeply religious convictions. You get on the topic of the existence of God, and as you’re wont to do, you cast doubt on his arguments for the existence of God. You chip away at his faith until he feels the uneasiness of doubt. And you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive. This is the discomfort you often talk about, the discomfort that we may very well live in a No God world, no God to console us in our prayers, no God to be our moral guiding light, no God to take us in as we stand at the gates of heaven upon our death. It is the discomfort that, as you often put it, maybe the arguments you put forward about dasein also apply to him. Now imagine the next day you meet with an atheist, and being the impartial gadfly who strives to treat every objectivist the same regardless of their stance, you dig into him just as you did the theist of yesterday. You make him doubt his certainty that there is no God, that we are free to make our own moral choices, that maybe he will be judged at the end of his life for not believing and not following the one true path. Again, discomfort arises, the same uneasiness you made the theist feel the other day, and you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive.
Now you see that in the one case, you caused a man a great deal of discomfort by destroying his belief in God. And in the other, by destroying his doubt in God. You’ve essentially convinced each one that the other’s worldview is the correct one–a worldview that was the source of comfort and solace for one and the source of discomfort and anguish for the other. My point is, it’s not the content of the worldview that brings comfort and joy, it’s more the sense of feeling secure with one’s worldview regardless of the content. Strip that away from a man, no matter what it is, and he will feel discomfort, panic, and rage against you. This is true of you especially, Biggy, as I have not seen a more tightly controlled and narrow comfort zone than yours, and the way you defend it–sometimes flatly blocking out the slightest suggestion that there may be a world of thought beyond your comfort zone–and always channeling every ounce of your energies into keeping the discussion within the bounds of your comfort zone–tells me that you’re the poster boy for the point I’m making–namely, that we have a natural instinct to fend off ideas and arguments whose effect is to draw our minds away from the worldviews we’ve adapted to.
Difference to what?
Yet, the discussion goes on. In this particular case, I don’t really care if the experiment relates to the trucker protest. The truckers are irrelevant to the experiment. It can be done regardless of whether the content relates to the trucker protest or not, and I wanted to do it so I moved forward with it.
Yeah… or you can.
I think you quoted the wrong snippet… unless you were refering to the following:
I don’t think you want me to bring this out of the clouds and tie it to the trucker protest. It won’t make it any more clear, just as it didn’t in the examples above. Learn from this, Biggy, learn from this.
I’ll await your response to this. If this quote of mine is actually what your were referring to, and indeed you want me to relate it to the trucker protest, I’ll try my best. But I will admonish that you’re just gonna get the same confusing results as you get every time you ask this of me. Think this through, Biggy. Think through the assumptions you’re making when you ask this of me. Are any of them unwarranted? Are you asking a square peg to fit into a round hole? Give these questions some thought and get back to me.
And I have delivered. You’ve already gotten a taste of what it looks like when I tie my metaphysical philosophies about consciousness and mind to the trucker protest. It doesn’t compute for you. It won’t compute with any subsequent attempt.
My point was only to suggest the obvious: that in regard to situations when citizens are angry at one or another government policy, any number of them will feel an obligation to protest that policy. Not that they must protest. After all, each of us is in a particular situation. For any number of reasons protesting may not be an actual option for us. We might lose our job, or a relationship or in some instances or very lives might be in danger. If, for example, the government policy is being pursued by someone like Vladimir Putin. Think the Nazis and the Jews.
Back to that age old relationship between outrage and fear. We are outraged at someone for doing this or that but if we protest too loudly we fear they have the power to cause us great harm. Each of us has to weigh our options given the situation as we perceive it.
Sure they can. But then most don’t construe moral and political value judgments as I do. As the existential embodiment of dasein. Clearly objectivists don’t think it through as I do.
To wit:
Because you are not an objectivist?
Although, from my frame of mind, you seem more than capable of playing one here.
Here I go back to “the gap”. There’s what “here and now” “I” think about “the most rational manner” in which to think about the trucker protest, and there’s all that can be known about it. After all, there may well be a God. And there may well be His secular equivalent…a Humanist argument that nails it. It’s like the moral equivalent of the black swan. I don’t think objectively it is possible here in a No God world, but all it takes is one argument here or elsewhere to bring that crashing down all around me.
Again, the truckers protesting, others reacting to the protest. All of the existential contingences in your life that would have to fall into places in order for you to be drawn into it deeply. There was always the chance that had your life been different for any number of reasons at any number of junctures, you would have had no interest in it at all. And then any subsequent changes in your life [experiences, relationships, info/knowledge] that cause you to drop your commitment. Or switch to the other side.
Thus, from my own frame of mind…
Or, perhaps, if I did, I would think of all this more like you do?
You’re okay with the stance that you take even though you readily admit that had things been different in your life you’d be be okay with taking the opposite stance. Now, this point by me is not construed by you to be me actually following up on your point. Okay, we are clearly stuck then. Maybe we can get beyond that, maybe not.
But my point is then this: If John recognizes that his support for the truckers is just the existential embodiment of dasein and Jane recognizes that her rejection of the truckers is also just the existential embodiment of dasein, can they come to a philosophy forum such as this and arrive at the most rational reaction to the protest? Or does it always more or less revolve around the manner in which I construe “conflicting goods”:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own value judgments regarding the trucker protest are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective value judgments “I” can reach here, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap here, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
And so fitting the cloudy square pegs into the cloudy round holes persist between us. Because I hear you claiming to understand me while claiming in turn to be comfortable with the stance you take now in support of the truckers.
From my frame of mind, you could hardly be misunderstanding my points more. Otherwise you would recognize your support as still just a particular political prejudice of yours rooted largely in dasein. Same with vaccinations and reacting to the authority of the government and regarding all the other moral and political conflagrations that beset us. There’s objectivism on one end of the commitment spectrum and a fractured and fragmented ambivalence on the other end. And how “I” understand it, and how you do.
From my frame of mind, your frame of mind is all about establishing that “comfort zone” where you can claim to grasp the points I make here but still feel assured that your support of the truckers is, what, the most rational argument? If so, you understand practically next to nothing about how “I” react to them.
Actually, my point is more along the lines of how you will react when these objectivists truckers and objectivists apologist here are the ones who toss you into the waste bin, not me. They’d expect me to argue as I do, they wouldn’t expect you to argue as I do. Or, rather, up to the point where you say you don’t. Confusing them all the more.
My point is still the same. The girl who stood you up might well have been that crucial “contingency, chance and change” component in your life that led you to being here insisting instead that you are comfortable with the stance you take rejecting the trucker protest. She might have been the one able to provide you with the thinking that others were and are not.
What I would broach here is that there are no essential, objective reasons for or against the protest. There are only the subjective reasons derived from political prejudices embodied in dasein. Imagine their reaction to that. And then you saying, what, “that’s true but you can still feel comfortable with your ‘stance’ as the most rational frame of mind.”
I do doubt my own value judgments here. And for all the reasons I’ve given.
And, please, come on, here I am calling into question not whether someone is right or wrong about the trucker protest but whether their convictions themselves are but subjective contraptions rooted not in the objective truth but in profoundly problematic existential narratives…ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and new ways in which to think about it.
Of course many here will react askance to that!
Right, 100%.
Emotions here are no less the embodiment of dasein to me. Some think and feel one way about the protest, others another way. Where exactly would the line be drawn? Depends on the individual of course.
And what does that depend on?
What objective statements? A statement I make about the trucker protest is either able to be demonstrated as in fact the objective truth or it isn’t. If I state this protest unfolded in Madagascar, is that true? If I state the protest was a just cause is that true? That’s always the distinction I make. Same with murder. What particular murder in what particular context construed from what particular point of view?
As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them.
Cite some examples of these “objective sounding statements” of mine…pertaining to the trucker protest.
And of course from the perspective of others here I am the subjectivist pinhead. Fine. Choose a context involving conflicting behaviors revolving around conflicting value judgments and let’s explore our respective moral philosophies.
Then [to me] stratight back up into what “I” construe to be the “intellectual contraption clouds”:
Again, note some of these “objective sounding statements” as they pertain to the distinction I make between the trucker protest re the either/or world and our reactions to it re the is/ought world.
I may simply be misunderstanding your point here.
Yes, and, in part, I speak of this discomfort because, in once having been both a God and a No God objectivist myself, I felt and still do feel the profound discomfort of experiencing the world of conflicting goods from a fractured and fragmented frame of mind. And from a frame of mind that presumes “in the end” I’ve still got oblivion to deal with. This discomfort is an everyday reality for me…but not for the moral and political and spiritual objectivists. For them it only becomes disturbing if my arguments start to “get” to them.
I sense this here all the time. But, again, I have to acknowledge that what “I” do sense here is no less a subjective manifestation of dasein…as “here and now” I understand it.
Yes, I have in fact done precisely that in regard to those like Sculptor. Just ask Bob or Ierrellus. He can be truly mocking in regard to the religious minded here. Whereas I am the first to admit that, sure, there may well be a God, the God. That’s certainly one possible explanation for the existence of existence itself.
Instead, for the religious minded, I request that they bring this God [spiritual path] of theirs here:
1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed…but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual’s belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path
This is the part that brings about the most discomfort for them. Or, rather, given my own existential reaction to them down through the years.
Yes. That’s the whole point of this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
The objectivist belief can be anything. It’s the belief itself that is the main point. Or, rather, my main point. Their reactions to the trucker strike is often just a springboard to convey their reactions to the role of government in our lives itself: “I” vs. we", “capitalism vs, socialism”, “genes vs. memes” and on and on.
Again, if you choose to construe my own frame of mind here as source of comfort and consolation, I can only note how completely preposterous that is. To live with the existential belief that my own life is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that I have access to no capacity to differentiate right from wrong behavior and that any day now “I” will tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion…To believe that could possibly be a comforting way to construe one’s reality?
Then it all comes back to whatever the hell this means…
…in regard to the trucker protest the role of government and whatever else you subsume inside your own “metaphysical philosophy about consciousness and mind”.
But so much more to the point [mine] it’s not what this epistemological/intellectual contraption philosophy means to me but what it means to the truckers doing the protesting.
Run it by them or anyone else protesting something that the government does wholly in sync with your political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein, and get back to us.
How about the war in Ukraine?