The Fundamental Flaw in JennyHeart's Logic.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Allan Bloom describes the spot exactly:

“This is where what I called the bottomless or fathomless self, the last version of the self, makes its appearance. Id, Nietzsche named it. The id mocks the ego when a man says, “It occurred to me.” The sovereign consciousness waits on something down below, which sends up its food for thought. The difference between his version and the others is that they began from a common experience, more or less immediately accessible, that all men share, which establishes, if only intersubjectively, a common humanity that can be called human nature. Fear of violent death and desire for comfortable self-preservation were the first stop on the way down. Everybody knows them, and we can recognize one another in them. The next stop was the sweet sentiment of existence, no longer immediately accessible to civilized man but recoverable by him. When under its spell, we can with certainty say to ourselves, “This is what I really am, what I live for,” with the further conviction that the same must be so for all other men. This, allied with a vague, generalized compassion, makes us a species and gives us guidance. At the next stop there turns out to be no stop, and the descent is breathtaking. If one finds anything at all, it is strictly one’s own, what Nietzsche calls one’s fatum, a stubborn, strong ass that has nothing to say for itself other than that it is. One finds, at best, oneself; and it is incommunicable and isolates each from all others, rather than uniting them. Only the rarest individuals find their own stopping point from which they can move the world. They are, literally, profound.”
[The Closing of the American Mind, with added emphasis in bold.]

I have also known such a “This is what I really am, what I live for”; but it was not like that which Jenny describes. I even had the further conviction that the same must be so for all other men.

Now I still feel this is what I live for, but I feel no need to generalize from my individual case. Whoever recognizes his own in mine, let him take it.

2

Well said. =D>

3

Resistance is futile, Sauwelios.

Eventually you will overcome your denial, recover from your addiction to “philosophy” … and become real.

Hopefully it will not be on your old-age deathbed when you are 70.

4

Mind you the preceding advice/warning was not thought out but ….felt.
It came from the gut……the heart.

5

I cannot think of a more appropriate quote to come from JennyHeart. She is, after all, the unthinking, violent, hive-minded Borg. All must operate according to her dictums or perish!

Thankfully we have Data (read: intelligent rationality) on our side.

6

The Borg is the brain, Twiffy.

Psychic pressures do eventually build up in the denial-oriented psyche, resulting in misery and suppression-oriented illness, shortening life.

Resistence against one’s own brain damage, is futile. :astonished:

Join the ranks of the healthy, or greatly miss out on a ton of what life is all about. :sunglasses:

7

Jenny, I admire you. You heavily set your goals in place and you plow your way through with them. I think that’s an excellent quality. I don’t think your logic is flawed at all. I think you have a path set and you go after it without anyone getting in the way. I think what really gets to 'em is your access to the heart. :wink: You get them where it hurts. They’re not used to it. Logical minds are quite vague so when you bring up emotional and moral issues they ache where they don’t like being touched, and with such a steady and unbreakable drive, it hurts bad. You’re like cupid, only they haven’t fallen in love with you yet.

8

Hmm, not sure what you mean here. 1) I’m very healthy. 2) Resistance to brain-damage is futile - still, you can help, by not drinking, not being a boxer, reading and thinking a lot, etc. 3) The brain is the borg? The brain is, fundamentally, what we are. You are your brain - or at least, part of its processes. If not for your brain, you’d be a morally empty hunk of pulsing meat. Our brains, and the ability for rational thought that separates us from lower animals, is the best thing we have, and we should all treasure it accordingly.

9

Yes, I’ve noticed.

Though my intent isn’t to cupidly cause pain, my “request” that they feel ends up functioning that way … in the beginning.

It will be interesting to see if they crucify me as well, as if they do, I can assure you I won’t rise again … here at forum. :wink:

10

Now I know how the Pharisees felt. “Man, this person is annoying as hell. Let’s get rid of him so we can get back to more important stuff. Sure, he might be a martyr to a few in the short-term, but it would take some serious morons to turn him into the focus of a huge mythology that would end up changing the course of history - so I’m not worried.”

11

Maybe it separates us from “lower” animals :unamused: … but cats and dogs and such are capable of thought, and likely rational thought at times.

Do you think animals feel, Twiffy?

Can animials feel sad, glad, mad, ashamed, afraid, hurt?

Sometimes it seems that they are more in touch with their feelings than are many humans.

12

Hmm, cats and dogs are clearly capable of thought, and also of most if not all of the emotions you describe. But rational thought? Highly unlikely. They have intentions, of course, but it is highly doubtful that they actually think the way we do, or are at all capable of abstract reason. Math is impossible to lower animals, except in a VERY limited fashion (addition with small numbers) to apes and dolphins.

13

Indeed, no need for you to worry, Twiffy.

Two thousand years from now you won’t end up in a bone pile along with six or seven million other thinkers for having crucified the feelers’ “Messiah” …

… Because, after all, feelers don’t do that do thinkers – it’s only the other way around. :astonished:

14

The condemnation of “thinkers” in any sense is really rather disgusting. The reason the holocaust happened is because Hitler, who was repulsed by Jews, acted on his feelings rather than rationally thinking in a cost-benefit sense, or even in a rational morality sense.

All the greatest contributions to the world today have been due to thinkers - scientists, mathematicians, and even rational philosophers and moralists. Religion - the product of irrationality - has only hurt this world, while trying to compensate by making a few people a little less afraid of death. Small potatoes, compared with holocausts, terrorism, racism, homophobia, you name it.

Rationality = good. Going off of pure emotions / instinct = bad, usually.

Think of it this way. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar who balanced the budget, funded education, and generally made the world a much better place. Bush is a total moron who has done nothing but fuck things up. Clinton is rational; Bush “goes from the heart”. Who would you rather vote for?

Although, Jenny, I actually am not sure what your response will be… but understand that “Clinton” is the correct answer and go from there, to understand my point.

15

It seems that this change of heart necessarily occurs in a state of weakness.

I do know an in-touch-with-yourself-situation like the one you describe; but it is very unlike the one you describe. It is paradoxical:

“Nietzsche’s “depersonalization” is nothing more than an effort to become one with the will to power, with that god [Dionysos].”
[Kalev Pehme.]

16

I described feelings, not emotions, Twiffy – the difference is significant.

And the way a fox hunts for food, that appears to be performed in quite the sly rational manner.

And animals do talk with each other, so some abstraction is occuring.

So, do you see it that rational thought is what separates us from the animals?

Is it the more we think in a rational and abstract fashion, the less like an animal we are?

And, if we feel more than think, are we more like animals to you?

17

And you’re saying ethicists don’t like to be touched by these important issues? That’s like saying a mathematician does his best to avoid having to do sums. Just think Burmese labourers vs. US energy giant. That alone proves you wrong.

Your opinion here is so badly wrong. I assume you appreciate that people in your society cannot rape and kill one another without breaking laws? You realise that law exists thanks to ‘logical minds’ who deal rather brilliantly with ‘emotional and moral issues’ and that were your opinion true we would not have such laws?

We can all see Jenny is the worst kind of troll, but I really think you are above this kind of nonsense anti-thinker rhetoric.

18

“Health and sickliness: one should be careful! The standard remains the efflorescence of the body, the agility, courage, and cheerfulness of the spirit - but also, of course, how much of the sickly it can take and overcome - how much it can make healthy. That of which more delicate men would perish belongs to the stimulants of great health.”
[Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 1013.]

19

What’s the difference between feelings and emotions, then? I use them interchangeably, as do many, so I’d need to hear your definition before I can really talk about the difference further.

Rational in the sense of achieving his gains, maybe - but not rational in the sense of possessing clear thought, which is how I mean it. We can contemplate ideas - we can have an inner dialogue. To the best of our ability to tell, lower animals don’t have these abilities. They can process ideas, like how to best hunt the rabbit, sure - but in a way surely closer to pure instinct than ours.

No, this is a settled issue. Animals do not talk. There is more advanced communication between dolphins and whales, and apes possess a limited ability to learn sign language – very limited – but no animal other than humans have an isolated linguistic center to their brains. And we’ve looked, so not finding it is a pretty good sign that it isn’t there. Culturally and neurobiologically there’s a huge difference between communication (which you can do with your dog, or even your computer) and language, and non-human animals do not have language.

Of course. We’re different because we’re smarter and have language. This intelligence gives us a much more true and appreciable “rationality” than any other species has.

Of course! Humans act much less on instinct than any other animal. That’s the closest thing we have to free will - the fact that we can contemplate our actions, without being restricted to a knee-jerk response.

Not “if we feel more than think”, but rather “if we choose to act on feelings rather than on thought”, yes. Emotions evolved as a quick guider of action, and if we act on these more than on intelligence, we’re more like sub-human animals, and are ignoring the great gift of intelligence that we’re lucky enough to have.

20

If Hitler had not thought that the Jews were expendable, that they were dirty and inferior, etc., if he had truly been in touch with his feelings and processed his affective experiences with his family’s Jewish housekeeper and the German collective mental attitude toward Jews, which he instead superegoistically (the superego being in the mind where one thinks) followed the German cultural herd, he wouldn’t have ordered the holocaust.

Indeed, Hiter was most certainly a thinker. He sufferred from affective detatchment from his feelings and his unresolved psychological “pain”, and his unresolved pain kept his erroneous thinking from becoming inerrant.

I see … and are you a thinker, more than a feeler?

Care to take that quiz in the psychology forum (if you haven’t already) and present the results as indication?

I do find those who can’t feel to truly pride themselves on their thinking ability.

Irrationality is still thinking, Twiffy.

Indeed, religion is more thought-based than you wish to give it credit for.

Religion and science are intuitive cousins in thought – both are focused on understanding, explaining, predicting and controlling.

The main difference between religion and science is who you quote and the nature of their “experiments”.

You panderer, you. :laughing:

All of which are based on thought – erroneous thought – but still thought, nevertheless.

Not a humane honest and straightforward conscious experience of feeling in the authors of any of the bunch of your list here, pardon my hyperbole.

Love, Twiffy, is not completely rational, so good idea to include the escape clause of “usually”.

But the first functional opposite of rational isn’t “emotions” or “instinct”, Twiffy – it’s irrational … and both are forms of thought.

Not only that, rational thought can be just as deadly as irrational thought, as one can logically conclude and rationally proceed quite nicely in the bad of murder if one’s thought premises are wrong.

While his lack of moral respect for his wife became legendary.

Despite his 180s IQ, “slick Willy” was quite deserving of his reputation, though I would not argue against you regarding the topical irrelevancy of preferring life in his administration over that of GWB’s.

Bush may come off comparatively as a total moron, but his IQ is reportedly in the 130s – not quite a genius, but hardly a moron.

Just because his speech is a little drawled and his vocabulary a bit limited for our druthers, doesn’t mean he doesn’t accomplish exactly what Emporer Rove wants him to accomplish.

And while so many are diverted by his comparative “moronicism”, his handlers go about the business of slaughtering scores of thousands of Iraqi civilians merely for their oil, and so few think that “Bush” is mentally capable of pulling that off … while he and his gang real geniusly pull the wool over the eyes of nearly everyone. :unamused:

Now who’s the “moron”, Twiffy. :astonished:

As you wish.

It appears, Twiffy, that you associate over-generally that thinking is good and feeling is bad.

You do know that most women are feelers, Twiffy, don’t you?

How do you “think” about women, compared to men?

:sunglasses: