Internet-Forum is Combat

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

It seems to me that the forum member who participates in a thread approach the experience invigorated with much the same attitude, as does a boxer entering the ring for a fight. See quotes below from:
the-brights.net/forums/index … topic=4031

“Its like our brains instinctively assume the person we are speaking with, but can not see, is a knife wielding assassin - unless proved otherwise visually. Healthy and stable communication evolved with visual cues as a foundation - we fly into trouble without them.”

“I’ve noticed the same phenomenon. Discussion board postings quickly regress to vitriolic that none of us would use in face-to-face discourse.”

We have a gut feeling about some things because our sense of correctness comes from our bodies. When Newton provided us with his theory of physics we could “feel in our gut” the correctness of much of it because he was using such concepts as acceleration, momentum, distance and velocity all of which we knew because we could intuit them, we could “feel in our gut” these concepts. Such was not the case when the physicist attacked the problem of quantum physics. Who has a gut feeling for the inner workings of the atom?

[b]Our “gut feeling” often informs us as to the ‘correctness’ of some phenomenon. This gut feeling is an attitude; it is one of many types of attitudes. What can we say about this attitude, this gut feeling?

“Philosophy in the Flesh” says a great deal about this attitude. Metaphor theory, the underlying theory of cognitive science contained in this book, explains how our knowledge is ‘grounded’ in the precise manner in which we optimally interact with the world.[/b]

“To see a butterfly, as in the garden, we have to project a nontrivial amount of imagistic structure onto the scene. We have to conceptualize the boundaries of the garden as a three-dimensional container with an interior that extends into the air. We also have to locate the butterfly as a figure (or trajectory) relative to that container, which serves as a ground (or landmark). We perform such complex, though mundane, acts of imaginative perception during every moment of our waking lives.”

“Our bodies define a set of fundamental spatial orientations that we use not only in orienting ourselves, but in perceiving the relationship of one object to another.”

“The study of spatial-relations concepts within cognitive linguistics has revealed that there is a relatively small collection of primitive image schemas that structure systems of spatial relations in the world’s language.”

“The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movement) plays a central role in conception. That is, the very mechanisms responsible for perception, movements, and object manipulation could be responsible for conceptualization and reasoning. Indeed in recent neural modeling research models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conceptual work in language learning and reasoning.”

Let us say that in early childhood I had my first fight with my brother. There was hitting, shoving, crying, screaming, and anger. Neural structure was placed in a mental space that contained the characteristics of this first combat, this was combat #1. Six months later I have a fight with the neighbor kid and we do all the routine thing kids do when fighting.

This is where metaphor theory does its thing. This theory proposes that the characteristics contained in the mental space, combat #1, is automatically mapped into the mental space that is becoming combat #2. The contents of combat #1 become a primary metaphor and the characteristics form the fundamental structure of mental space combat #2.

This example applies to all the experiences a person has. The primary experience is structured into a mental space and thereafter when a similar experience is happening the primary experience becomes the primary metaphor for the next like experience. This primary metaphor becomes the foundation for a concept whether the concept is concrete experience or abstract experience.

What I am saying is that for some reason the Internet discussion forum member considers engaging in a forum thread is a competition, it is a combat, and the primary combat metaphor is mapped into the mental space of this forum experience and thus the forum experience takes on the combat type experience. That is why lots of forum activity gets very combative. (I think).

2

In real life we have body language too. Some words do not have to be spoken. In an extreme case there is crying, but on the net crying would not get any response from the member. If someone wrote…

“Now I am crying.”

It sort of works, but the person that is upset has now admitted a minor shame, which is rare on the net. I read something similar in the ‘I am going to kill myself’ thread, and I was a bit surprised to read it.

Some jokes without body language are taken as insults, so we have smileys, but some smileys seem to have two meanings…

This smiley could be insulting, or funny, some people have even said “Tongue in cheek” but I see it as insulting. It was used on me a few times, and I was getting annoyed by it, but when I asked the person to stop using it he said that it was not an insulting smiley.

Some threads get out of hand because of difficult to explain situations. Double meanings…

How many times have I read a reply that got the meaning completely back to front. Someone arguing against someone with a reply that is almost identical to the original post. (Happens a lot)

I say… Respond to a thread allowing room for doubt, especially on philosophy.

3

Pincho

Do you think the things you listed are the reasons we face the forum like we face climbing into the boxing ring? Or are this things you note the result of that fact?

4

I made a list of reasons.

Results are handled by the referee… The Mods.

10 counts, and your out!

5

What makes internet interaction hostile is the absence of the crucial components to real communication- the actual presence to the people.

This rule is apparant. Its proof is in the pudding. If discussions at such complex levels take place within a forum where its contributors display the capacity to work out the simplest problems with ease, not to mention the more elaborate philosophical ‘problems’, then it is obvious that the causes of conflict and hostility are not because of some inability to cooperate harmoneously and work out the problems of moral conflict, but because of the lack of means to do so- the limitation of communcation to strictly ‘posts.’

In other words, you people aren’t totally stupid, angry, or aggressive. You simply aren’t sitting there on the couch with whom ever you are talking to. You’ve already shown the capacity to work out complex issues. Ad hominems should be the least of your problems.

Shame really. We should all be linked by cameras too. That’d be kewl. Except for the ugly people who do not want to be seen. A matter of bad-faith, but that’s another story.

6

Wasn’t this Socrates’ whole problem with written philosophy? The ecological validity of any discussion in written form hasnt the influencial power of speech. That’s why the worlds run by slick speaking demagogues and not philosophers.

Real communication needs the confident body language to validate it.

7

I dunno, but that sounded excellent!

“I like cookies and milk. Anyone else?”- Gamer

8

why thank you [bows] i did try.

The topic: Internet-Forum is Combat drew me because - apart from Everquest - i am an avid fan of the Internet-Forum: Combats.com
Based in newcapital.

There you can forget the formalitys and just say: “Owe, U! Wanna fight?” Which apart from porn, satisifys my needs entirely.

9

Indeed, Socrates and Plato declared war on writing, priveleging it over speech. Derrida goes on at length about why this tendency (to see speech and writing as a binary opposition, favouring the former) is illogical and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

I agree with him, there’s nothing more real or pure about speech than about writing…

10

If philosophy is not merely science, its practitioners should be able to use a less stringent methodology than science. If philosophy is not merely religion, then our approach, while being less (or more) than scientific, would need to be malleable, evolving and non-dogmatic, like science. Establishing boundaries (for the way in which we procede in philosophy) in the tradition of the way science and religion established boundaries would rob philosophy of its identity. So we are left with a necessary mishmosh. This mishmosh is more easily exploited and explored in an online format where people feel free to deviate from the cultural norms of style, attitude, beliefs, intimacy, romanticism and honesty. Taking that in mind, it seems natural that the web format might foster a drift into a more romantic camp, such as a D.H. Lawrence “philosophy,” whereas in-person philosophy might be more conducive to the analytical or rigorous philosophy often practiced in classrooms, i.e. an environment that demands and enforces vigilance, focus and conformity…which describes a scenario Dunamis is seeking for this site. He fails to realize that if “I think, therefore I am” has a home here, so might “I think, therefore…fuck you!” They are both noises we make. They are both potentially fascinating, and non-dogmatic discourse can flow from both. It’s what happens when you don’t specialize.

Maybe we need to split off the philosophy section into subgroups, so we don’t get raving Nietzsche moods running rampant all over Quine’s Theory Of Knowledge. So we don’t get Derrida and Barthes arguing with Kahneman and Tverski. So we don’t have to suffer through De Sade debating with Goedel, or Kierkegaard lampooning Spinoza. But if we did, I’d stop coming here – that’s for sure.

11

Well said, but not worth saying twice.

12

Very well said Gamer.

13

Hi Gamer,

Yup and yup. ILP is like wading around in a room full of cats. All colors, going in all directions. That is the wonderful vitality and of course, the the bane of those who want it to be organized along their own notion of order. Trying to satisfy both POV’s is the devils’ work.

Sometime ago I suggested using the now-infamous heavily moderated forum for those wishing greater order and more ‘serious’ discourse. It was immediately attacked as out of the question.

It’s difficult to understand the necessity of pushing the general forum into a more academic format when all that is necessary is to use what is already provided or simply create what is needed. Do we need greater civility or less mean spiritedness? Yes. But it does not follow that the ‘quality’ of discourse will become more thoughtful. Simple beginners questions and comments are part of what makes ILP what it is.

Ultimately, it is the membership at large that creates what the forums are to be. The wishes of the few in every and all camps must bow to this - unless the aim is to narrow the scope of what can be discussed here.

ILP is going through growth pains, and after all the “I want it my way” discussion has finally faded away, the membership will vote with their feet. Hopefully, the vitality of ILP will not be lost in the process.

JT

14

Very important JT, to point out that improving our congeniality doesn’t necessarily mean a more academic or philosophically rigorous or fruitful discussion. I don’t buy into the “derailing” phenom that Dunamis suggests. More often a mass shift in tone is symptomatic of a latent and inevitable waning interest built into every topic, rather than the result of some scalawag’s mischievous zinger.

I’d take it further to suggest that ad homs can often be medicinal or a catalyst for a paradigm shift in a forum participant. A decisive bow delivered upside the head at the right time can make a buddha out of you…and every word of the old testament has a musical accent, a trope, a layer, a spin. It’s not hard to name how the mods know the difference between “eat shit and die you fucking kike” and “perhaps you should go outside and play rather than undulate toward omniscience in this way…” because the latter CAN BE READ as a commentary on the enterprise of philosophy whereas the former is pure ill will and devoid of layers.

Perhaps the problem with perennial academic philosophy, and the reason it’s derided and anemic, is because the methodology ignores the needs of philosophy itself. When one tries to sterilize their prose of all ad hominems, not only does it become dry, but by its very nature it becomes maddeningly passive aggressive in its tone (Dunamis). Perhaps philosophy, like Talmud study, could be an enterprise of careful debating, but also scolding and weeping, jokes and meditation, before we have a full appreciation of any value philosophical seeking may hold.

Perhaps we need more ritual, more discipline, more ad homs. More painful reminders that we know nothing, that we speak foolishly, that we take on lies willfully too often, perhaps we need nothing more than blatant honesty. Perhaps we need to see the forum as one big mind that is sometimes plagued with self doubt and is self deprecating, but only to a degree it can tolerate before it self-destructs or becomes suicidal or fatally underconfident. Monitoring this in real time is the devil’s work you speak of.

But for ILP to act as one mind, a great cyberbrain flickering like a star in a pool of eons, smiling like a buddha, it needs to withstand its baser voices, its ids, egos and super-egos…and alter-egos. The philosophy section of this cyber forum is a gift…the cranky headmasters and conservative anal retentive politician investors and repressed psychotic endowment-classes have NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS PLACE. Seems a shame to keep it focused on civility, scholarship and reasoned discourse when we can have it all. I can’t explain the Dunamis phenom…Narcissus simply cannot sojourn ala Goldmund. The line he finds hilarious is the saddest of truths, next to his inevitable self-bannishment from this place.

Let it be said to all who’s faith in ILP is flagging, I believe in what it was, is and will be. Do not stop. Do not leave. (Stay the course. Do not cut and run.)

15

Hi Gamer,

An overt ad hom is easy. Readily apparent to any and all. I too understand and enjoy sarcasm and the occasional poking my finger in their eye (or wherever inappropriate). I’d love to see all of that in the forums. As a good british friend pointed out to me, it’s good to ‘take the piss out of each other’. It can be the most valuable service we can do for one another. That said, there is a line between ‘good natured’ poking at one another, and just plain meaness. It is the dynamic mix of all sorts of viewpoints, all the myriad voices that make ILP the great place it truly is. ILP will continue on as it has been. There will be exciting times and times when a root canal job would be preferable. In the midst of all this is a collection of imperfect moderators simply trying to keep things down to a dull roar, and still allow everyone their opportunity of ‘freedom of expression’. A perfect set up? Hardly. But it’s the best that we can do. Sometimes, it almost mimics real life! :wink:

JT

16

This place is a wavepool of hilarity, and I’m riding my stoic surfboard.

Everything changes, and I feel like those who loose track of that fact are the same ones who feel like empty feeling in the depths of the their stomachs when they keep checking, only to see no one has posted anything. Those are the people who rely on this site as whatever crutch. It’s a place to chat folks… that’s it. There will be uptimes, there will be downtimes.

Buy into the Game(r)