The Philosophers

[phoneutria]

I was referring specifically to iambiguous copypasta

[Jakob]

Were you? I wasn’t aware he was in every thread with that. But that approach to the concept value is precisely what I mean - it is outdated, not dynamic, it does not invigorate the thinker.

The commonized quasi philosophical distinction between “Subjective” and “Objective” is pefectly hollow. Whatever is subjectively, is also objectively. If my opinion is that AC Milan sucks, that is objectively my opinion. And more: it would objectively cause me pain when they win. Wow… how can subjectivity be so objective? Golly.

I want to formalize new standards for philosophy; it must actually be something, propose something, not simply rely on what is assumed to be ‘common sense’ or ‘common knowledge’. A part of this ethics would be shunning the definitional method of referring to dictionary entries. This may not have occurred to all people, but dictionaries weren’t written to satisfy philosophical concerns.

[Jakob]

To be clear, if you ask a simple minded Liverpool supporter who hates Arsenal why he thinks that an Arsenal supporter is happy when Arsenal wins, even though he (the Liverpool man) thinks Arsenal is a shitty club, he will quite likely be able to acknowledge that the Arsenal supporter happens to think that Arsenal is not a shitty club.

In other words, it does not take a philosopher to understand that subjectivity exists, and quite objectively so. But what is is, and by extension, that there is, objectively speaking, nothing besides subjectivity, this is beyond most people.

All that is objectively “the case” in Wittgenstein’s sense, consists of subjective response-patterns in Nietzsche’s sense.

All objectivity is subjectively grounded. Subjectivity is objectively real. So what is subjectivity? Plato called it Eros, Nietzsche Will to Power. But these terms can be freely interpreted to mean anything. Our approach to language so far has lacked both orientation and consistency.

[Jakob]

Modern man wanders around in language cluelessly, and yet the clues are lying around like pinecones after Thor ripped the sky a couple of new ones. I’ll give just one example.

matter
ˈmatə/Submit
noun
noun: matter; plural noun: matters; noun: the matter
1.
physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.
“the structure and properties of matter”
a particular substance.
“organic matter”
synonyms: material, substance, stuff, medium
“decaying vegetable matter”
written or printed material.
“reading matter”
PRINTING
the body of a printed work, as distinct from titles, headings, etc.
2.
a subject or situation under consideration.
“a great deal of work was done on this matter”
synonyms: affair, business, proceeding, situation, circumstance, event, happening, occurrence, incident, episode, occasion, experience, thing; More
LAW
something which is to be tried or proved in court; a case.
the present state of affairs.
“we can do nothing to change matters”
the substance or content of a text as distinct from its style or form.
synonyms: content, subject matter, text, argument, substance, thesis, sense, purport, gist, pith, essentials, burden
“the matter of the sermon”
LOGIC
the particular content of a proposition, as distinct from its form.
3.
the reason for distress or a problem.
“what’s the matter?”
synonyms: problem, trouble, difficulty, upset, distress, worry, bother, complication
“is anything the matter?”
verb
verb: matter; 3rd person present: matters; past tense: mattered; past participle: mattered; gerund or present participle: mattering
1.
be important or significant.
“it doesn’t matter what the guests wear”
synonyms: importance, consequence, significance, note, import, moment, weight, interest More
(of a person) be important or influential.
“she was trying to get known by the people who matter”
synonyms: be influential, have influence, be important
“she was trying to make an impression on the people who mattered”
2.
USrare
(of a wound) secrete or discharge pus.
Origin

Middle English: via Old French from Latin materia ‘timber, substance’, also ‘subject of discourse’, from mater ‘mother’.

[Sauwelios]

@von Rivers

List of Unfortunate Errors to Avoid When Conducting Thinking Business:

1. “Some value conflicts are unresolved, therefore all value conflicts are in principle unresolvable”.

• No. Two doctors can have different diagnoses, but it doesn’t mean there’s no truth about your illness.

2. “People disagree about values, therefore nobody is right and nobody is wrong about values”

• No. There are people who think the earth is flat. This disagreement doesn’t jeopardize our knowledge.

3. “Values are not absolute, universal, unchanging, nor do they exist without sentient creatures to hold them, therefore values are not objective”.

• No. Look up the definition of ‘objective’, please.

4. “All values and valuation is dependent on a subject, therefore values are subjective”.

• No. By analogy, you can’t have physical health without a physical subject—but it doesn’t mean that what’s good for your physical health is subjective. Subject-dependence is not subjectivity. See dictionary.

5. “There can be multiple right answers to moral/value questions, therefore it’s all subjective”.

• No. The presence of multiple fine answers, doesn’t mean there are no bad ones.

4, and to a lesser extent 1, are interesting considering that health is integral to Value Ontology. Thus the verb “convalesce” basically means “to gradually regain valence”. And indeed, what you say in 4 also goes for VO. What’s good for your health may not be good for mine, or vice versa, but some things are “objectively” good for your health while others are not. In other words, some things are “objectively” valuable, “objectively” have a positive value, for your health whereas others have not. Now just replace “health” by “self-valuing” and you have VO.

[Zoot_Allures]

All that is objectively “the case” in Wittgenstein’s sense, consists of subjective response-patterns in Nietzsche’s sense.

All objectivity is subjectively grounded. Subjectivity is objectively real. So what is subjectivity?

A skilled philosopher loves those words ‘objective/subjective’ because he can do almost anything with them, but in only one way can two people ever be said to truly have understanding and agreement on what the words meant when they were used. In a particular case where an understanding of the words can be demonstrated in action rather than in explanation… the question of what the word ‘objective’ really meant never mattered to its being used.

Imagine the moment a word is invented. It is assigned as a definition for a thing or process or state of affairs. Take its use as a noun meaning the ‘goal’; our objective is to reach the bank. Now precisely what the concept of a ‘goal’ is has no relevance here… beyond the simple understanding of each soldier that he needs to move his ass to point X.

What the word objective means then is not what it means, but how it is done. No? Suppose then two people begin a discussion on what the word ‘goal’ means (so that they could understand what objective means). One would say “a state of affairs one wants to make happen,” and the other, being a philosopher, would ask “what is a ‘state’, who or what is this ‘one’, and what is the nature of this ability to imagine and forsee a future state and then direct one’s actions toward achieving it, etc., etc.,”… and off they would go.

Because this philosophical process of clarifying definitions is unending (think Derrida’s aporia), the only way the word ‘objective’ could have ever been understood is as it is understood in the context of its use. So there was never some hidden meaning behind the utterance ‘our objective’ that had to be acquired before the word could be used.

The soldiers could all stop, sit down in a circle and discuss the meaning of the word and…wait! holy shit, you just gave me an idea for a skit. A group of soldiers storming a beach are moving steadily up when the company leader shouts ‘our objective is to reach that bank!’… then all the soldiers suddenly stop and look at each other… a cacophony of “objective?”, “what is that?”, “what did he say?”, etc., while bombs and shells are exploding everywhere around them.

Contrarily, how is an agreement on a mathematical, objective truth demonstrated, done? Is there some platonic side to the understanding of this peculiar fact that two mathematicians seems to have found something that is true independently of their perception of it (a Kantian a prior truth lets say)? If there is, it will forever be completely unaccessible, so how is the understanding of the adjective use of the word ‘objective’ to be made here; in all the ways in which the mathematics is applied to real world processes… in calculating quantities, measuring distances, determing trajectories, designing structures, and so on. Not what this mysterious thing called mathematics is, but how it is used, has ever been important and certain.

“Don’t look behind the word when you want to know what it means… look at the various ways in which the word is used in our way of life”- W

[Jakob]

The soldiers could all stop, sit down in a circle and discuss the meaning of the word and…wait! holy shit, you just gave me an idea for a skit. A group of soldiers storming a beach are moving steadily up when the company leader shouts ‘our objective is to reach that bank!’… then all the soldiers suddenly stop and look at each other… a cacophony of “objective?”, “what is that?”, “what did he say?”, etc., while bombs and shells are exploding everywhere around them.

Thats hilarious. The panickyness is the best part? “wait, what??”

Contrarily, how is an agreement on a mathematical, objective truth demonstrated, done? Is there some platonic side to the understanding of this peculiar fact that two mathematicians seems to have found something that is true independently of their perception of it (a Kantian a prior truth lets say)? If there is, it will forever be completely unaccessible, so how is the understanding of the adjective use of the word ‘objective’ to be made here; in all the ways in which the mathematics is applied to real world processes… in calculating quantities, measuring distances, determing trajectories, designing structures, and so on. Not what this mysterious thing called mathematics is, but how it is used, has ever been important and certain.

“Don’t look behind the word when you want to know what it means… look at the various ways in which the word is used in our way of life”- W

Agreed, large part of what I am after is the coordination of terms.
Unfortunately at this point precisely 5 people understand the terms more or less in the way I wish to standardize them. No one tell me I lack ambition.

Reports from BTL: Pezer was impressed by your capacities. He was also interested that apparently youre ‘a bit of a bum, just like us’. That made me laugh very hard. I think a video is coming on that.

[Zoot_Allures]

Ask this dude what he means by ‘bum’. I hear it a lot from people who haven’t matched even a third of my productivity in their lives, and never will.

[von_Rivers]

@Jakob

I want to formalize new standards for philosophy; it must actually be something, propose something, not simply rely on what is assumed to be ‘common sense’ or ‘common knowledge’. A part of this ethics would be shunning the definitional method of referring to dictionary entries. This may not have occurred to all people, but dictionaries weren’t written to satisfy philosophical concerns.

Referring to a dictionary is helpful when a misunderstanding or confusion is solely due to two people using the same word equivocally.

Do the new standards that you would formalize for philosophy involve not being clear about what the words that you use mean? Muddy the waters to make them seem deep.

[Jakob]

Mo, yes. Note that I have the good sense to not want to enforce these terms. I do offer them in general, but do not exlect you to be drawn to them.

That said, such clarity is the only reason I had for inventing these terms. To be clear, not a single term had seemed sufficiently clear and consistent in their context-forming to me to practice logic with.

Z - I think I mentioned it only because I too was insulted. I produce a manifold of what people around me produce as well. I am sure what he meant is unrelated to that but to be clear, I would not surprise myself becoming a millionaire within a few years of heading into a path of business, as I consider myself among the he richest men on Earth in terms of resources and abilities. It just has seemed too pointless to enploy these resources except for philosophy, which is the reason I quit film and tv. Im getting back into it only with a truly good story.

[Jakob]

In any case it is true that we do not quite ‘fit’, I suppose this is the meaning. And we tend to travel.

As for money, it is easy to make when you have mass-pleasing-talent and a network. There is a ridiculous amount of cashpiles standing around in that world, the quantities even the regional network where I had refuge for a time uses up for 2 minute items are absurd. “Spend money to make money” definitely rules there.

I like to predict trends. I outlined the iphone in 1999, conceived many commercials and movie plots years before other people thougt them up and made them - all philosophers could probably do that, it is only deriving from givens. I wish to set up a film production company run by philosophers, as that is the freeest form of being I can conceive.

[surreptitious57]

@A Shieldmaiden

Encouraging others to form groups of people who are likeminded in my mind only creates the death knell of challenging

Try to engage with others who do not think like you for no one has a monopoly on wisdom

Try also to treat being right and being wrong with zero emotional consideration for either

Have zero barrier within your own mind to anything except that which is objectively false

Accept the greatest truth of all : that in the grand scheme of things nothing truly matters

[iambiguous]

@Sauwelios

@iambiguous

Yes, when it comes to noting that some folks think cows are sacred, I am an objectivist. Why? Because, objectively, this is true. It can be demonstrated to be true such that the fact of it can be shown to be more than just my own subjective opinion that some folks believe cows are sacred.

But how then do those who do think this demonstrate that all other rational, moral, virtuous, conscientious, spiritual, enlightened etc. folks ought to [or must] think this to?

They don’t. Supposing that “sacred” means “worthy of religious veneration”, and “worthy” as “having sufficient worth or importance” as Merriam-Webster defines them, then they would have to demonstrate that cows have such worth or importance. How does one demonstrate worth or importance? The question that logically comes up is: “Worth to whom? Importance for what?” They would have to demonstrate that cows are the end, or part of the end, to which man exists, or indispensable means to that end.

Yes, but my argument always revolves around conflicting goods.

For example: thenational.ae/news/world/so … -cow-crime

So, one individual treats cows as sacred, another individual slaughters them for food.

What happens then when their values do collide out in the world? One argues that cows should not be slaughtered for food, the other argues that they should. They both have a set of reasons that they claim justify their own behaviors.

Now, there are “the facts” here. Truths that can be established as applicable objectively to both of them. But their value judgments are subjective – rooted histortically, culturally and experientially in particular contexts. And ever subject to revision in a world of contingency, chance and change

How then would VO be applicable here? That’s the part I am still fuzzy about. The ontology of human values? That just does not compute to a moral nihilist like me.

[surreptitious57]

One can not use objectivity to define morality because that is subjective by definition
And so it makes zero difference to the degree to which a moral belief is held as it will
ultimately have been arrived at by emotional reasoning rather than by logical analysis
That is because the degree of conviction does not determine the validity of the belief
And actually the two are entirely independent of each other and are not related at all

[iambiguous]

@Sauwelios

Okay, let’s call it a fact that, say, the earth is round, not flat. People who believe the earth is really flat are then wrong, but they may still believe it–even in spite of all the evidence.

Now suppose there are people who believe there is a celestial body orbiting the sun between the earth and Mars. Some of them think it’s a planet and some of them think it’s not (compare the debate there has been about Pluto; also Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta). What’s the difference between those people and the people who believe that, say, abortion by the pregnant woman’s choice has an objective moral value (some of them thinking that value is positive and some of them thinking it’s negative)? You could even change “planet” and “asteroid” to “yeti” and “unicorn”–things that science hasn’t observed anywhere else, either. Need I go on?

Again: People can believe that Mary had an abortion and people can believe that she did not. But if having an abortion is a capital crime and Mary has just been arrested for murder, to what extent can it be demonstrated that she did in fact have an abortion? Because, after all, she either did or she did not have one.

On the other hand, if the fact of it can be established how is the fact of its morality or immorality to be established in turn?

Is it your view that the only necessity here is someone who believes it to be one or the other?

To me, it’s like folks believing the earth is flat versus folks believing that the state has the moral obligation to execute those who believe the earth is round. The fact of the earth being round can be established such that those who believe it is flat can be said to be irrational. But no matter what one believes about the shape of the earth how does one go about demonstrating the morality of executing them for not believing what the state believes?

Beyond merely simply believing it?

@Sauwelios

To me, this is not about whether certain pro-life people really think abortion is absolutely/objectively wrong, it’s about whether or not it is. And, contrary to the “material fact” of playing the stock market, that has never been demonstrated. The stock market is being played when it’s open and not being played when it’s closed; but there is no evidence of the goodness or badness of playing the stock market. You see what I’m saying? No objective value has ever been found! Not in the stars, not in the human heart, not on the bottom of the ocean. Just as no cheese has been found on the moon.

From my perspective, the purported evidence revolves around subjective assumptions that one makes as dasein. And then these assumptions clash with the assumptions of another – conflicting goods. And while it may be possible to establish objectively that Jim plays the stockmarket and Jane does not, there does not appear to be a way to establish that one is embodying virtue while the other is embodying vice. That’s just a matter of one’s personal opinion, of one’s political prejudice.

One is a matter of fact and the other is a matter of opinion. Choosing this behavior as a manner in which you value yourself is [to me] very different from choosing to justify doing it or to justify not doing it.

@Sauwelios

Why is it a matter of fact that there is no cheese on the moon? Only because no evidence of the presence of any cheese on it has been found? But then the fact that no evidence of the absolute wrongness or rightness of any abortion has been found means it’s a matter of fact that there is no such thing, either. It does not matter that cheese has been found elsewhere whereas absolute wrongness or rightness has not.

There either is or there is not cheese on the moon. But who is arguing that it is the moral obligation of the universe that there must be cheese on the moon? But there are folks who argue that it is the moral obligation of the woman to give birth. My only point here then is to suggest that crucial distinction between the fact of an abortion and the morality of it.

@Sauwelios

Now what value philosophy does is, on the basis of the lack of justification for the fact/value distinction, assert that any belief springs from the self-valuing of the believer. This ranges from the belief that an uncaged hungry tiger represents a mortal danger for human beings to the belief that abortion is in itself evil. The difference between these two examples is simply that it’s significantly easier to understand how the former springs from the believer’s self-valuing than the latter.

Explain to me how the manner in which individuals come to value particular behaviors as either “right” or “wrong” transcends the manner in which I construe the meaning of identity here [pertaining to value judgments] as rooted largely in dasein?

Start with one of your own values.

@Sauwelios

By making the fact/value distinction, you exempt anyone who claims the existence of absolute values from having to provide scientific evidence.

How do I do that? Instead, I note the manner in which my own value judgments have become entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, 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 then I ask others who do not share this point of view to note how their own value judgments “work” out in the world when they come into conflict with others. In other words, for all practical purposes. And not just from inside what I construe to be an intellectual contraption [re folks like Satyr] in which words define and defend other words that then go around and around in circles. The “logic” then being entirely [or largely] internal.

@iambiguous

I still fail to see what this “analysis” has to do confronting an actual flesh and blood human being about to be executed. There’s a protest outside the prison. Some construe the execution as just, other as unjust. They ask your opinion and you tell them…that? It is as though [to me] you see yourself as somehow above all of that “existential stuff”. As though, in other words, your argument here has no practical relevance at all. Sure, maybe it does. But I don’t see it.

If it did “unite them all against you”, it would be precisely because the actual execution itself seems almost beside the point to an advocate of VO.

Or so it seems to me. I just don’t see the connection between the theory and the manner in which it might be practiced “out in the world”.

@Sauwelios

It is beside the point, in the sense that it’s not necessarily on point. It’s only on point for those who give a damn one way or the other.

But those outside the prison walking around and around with their conflicting goods posted on their placards do give a damn about it. Not to mention the family of the man to be executed and the family of his victim. And my point is merely to note that there does not appear to be a way [using either the tools of science or philosophy] to resolve their dispute.

Unless of course there is. And that is why I come into venues such as this one: to find one. And, if I do, I may well be able to finally yank myself up out of that [at times] accursed “dilemma” of mine.

@Sauwelios

There is no reason to think that any rational person should or must give a damn. My argument has practical relevance in that it argues that trying to convince people rationally is pointless, as neither side is right. Insofar as those protesters don’t (secretly) already know that, I suspect they just couldn’t bear it. As Nietzsche puts it, “integrity on this point would work [their] instant downfall.” (Antichrist 54, Mencken trans.)

So, are you not then basically a moral nihilist yourself? I agree: There is no moral integrity to be had here. Instead, there are just the self-delusions of those who believe that there is.

Unless, of course, I am wrong and there is an objective morality to be found – invented? discovered?

[Jakob]

Just got in from another thread. Jesus, I get so pissed off by deliberate stupidity, by people who are lying to themselves for the sake of their social image.
VO is a selecting principle, but I need to emulate its rigidity and no longer invest in those whose word means nothing to them.

This, Pezers latest video, is honesty – it’s all over the place but there is actual thinking going on. That’s what happens with real thinking - it is a seeking, a hunting, the objective is quick footed and quite elusive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6vuhQa64Wk[/youtube]

[iambiguous]

@von Rivers

Petition to bring Pezer back to ILP

Signatures:

Mo

Sure, I’ll sign it.

iambiguous.

In fact, bring them all back. Create [or recreate] the equivalent of the dungeon here and confine them to it. And then, sure, every once in a while, invite them back into the thick of it. If they can refrain from huffing and puffing and name-calling and flagrantly breaking the rules, they can then post everywhere.

It’s a dilemma though. Some truly fascinating minds have left ILP because they demand the right to say whatever the fuck they want and in whatever the fucking way in which they want to say it. And that pisses some folks off.

But then there are also plenty of folks here who obey all the rules and conduct themselves in a civil manner, but: But they have almost nothing really interesting or intriguing or, sure, controversial to say. And philosophy seems to be the last thing they are really interested in.

You know, in my opinion.

Conflicting goods as it were.

[Jakob]

edit (perspective is a bitch)

[Jakob]

Pezer left for BTL because there is richer philosophy there and he’s a bloodhound for that. He was also in the dark belly of Caracas or 2 years, a state of being that isn’t really compatible with these notions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘danger’ that fairy boys like to wallow in. When he got back to BTL, the philosophy quickly got to be so good that we decided the time had come to spill over into 'the ‘marketplace’, visual media.

Let’s say we’re building a horse.

[iambiguous]

@iambiguous

In any event, my own interest here revolves largely around the extent to which these largely scholastic contraptions [in my opinion] can be effectively implicated out in the world of actual human interactions that come into conflict over values. And then the extent to which they address the points I raise regarding identity, condlicting goods and political economy.

Of course, that may not be your own interest here at all. And, yeah, I can respect this. These particular relationships just happen to me my own particular proclivity. Philosophy is valuable to me only to the extent it addresses the question, “how ought one to live”?

So, when you note…

@Jakob

Moral absolutes’ do not belong to the category of existing things. The notion of such absolutes directly contradict being.

…I am then interested [for all practical purposes] in how VO is employed by you when in fact one of your own value judgments comes into conflict with another’s. If there are no moral absolutes then how do you address the gap between your point of view and the manner in which I embrace moral nihilism?

@Jakob

VO offers a solution to to given of contradicting notions, or rather, to the imperfect human state of being bothered by the.
it is not logical at all that things should not contradict. Logic itself is quite irrational, if it considers A=A as more than a useful fiction.

Perhaps, but what does that really have to do with this:

@iambiguous

…how is VO employed by you when in fact one of your own value judgments comes into conflict with another’s. If there are no moral absolutes then how do you address the gap between your point of view and the manner in which I embrace moral nihilism?

You note…

@Jakob

That values exist, and that they contradict, and that this contradiction is life itself. It basically explains to you what politics is, and it gives you the clarity that you can not do politics or uphold morality and expect to remain ‘clean’; unless we understand conflict to be the cleanest thing of all. Which is the basic warrior mentality that VO propagates and creates, enables.

And it prompts me to wonder: how is this not just one more nihilistic rendition of “might makes right”? In fact, this is basically Satyr’s rendition of the Ideal. Or so it seems to me. Only he turns it on its head: Might makes right becomes right makes might.

In other words, might prevails but only because [philosophically] it is the ideal might — the might that ought to prevail.

Then [in my view] he employs reasoning of this sort:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the Ideal
3] I have access to the Ideal because I grasp the one true nature of the Objective World
4] I grasp the one true nature of the Objective World because I am rational

Only I can never really get him to bring one of his own value judgments down to earth. To see how this actually works for him when, in fact, one his own values/ideals clash with another’s. In other words, being a “warrior” for him seems to mean tusseling with other “serious philosophers” over the definition and the meaning that he gives to his Ideas/ideals up in the didactic/scholastic clouds that are The Lectures.

And, alas, it’s the same problem I seem to be having on this thread as well.

For example:

@Jakob

Have you read Sauwelios’ posts about VO to you and Zoot in this thread? I can not be sure what I need to reiterate.

@iambiguous

I have read the posts that he addressed to me. And I fail to see how his own take on VO effectively addresses my argument here. This one: If we cannot live in a world where women have the right to choose and where babies have the right to be born, there is going be violence done to either women forced to give birth [or arrested for murder] or to the dead babies.

How does VO effectively change any of that?

@Jakob

One of the things it would change in this context is your way of phrasing things - it would not suggest that the world should be different than it is. It is rather a way of understanding how the world is, and how that is inevitable, and what you can do within that. it delineates freedom as much as it clarifies necessity.

It will not solve your problems for you. But it will show you which problems you can solve and which ones you have to accept as being itself.

Again: I still fail to see how VO effectively addresses the conflicting goods embedded in the abortion wars. How would the “warrior” address it “for all practical purposes”?

@iambiguous

…I still don’t really understand the relationship between VO and the nature of this compromise you speak of. For all practical purposes. Can you perhaps cite examples from your own life regarding your own behaviors?

@Jakob

Look at this thread. I a ealing with people who have absolutely no power to recognize my logics and yet, I am able to remain polite and generous, an happy about talking to them. I understand conflicting goods. I accept that you might never try to grasp VO, and ignore what people say about it to get back to your own personal interests (confirming thereby VO), because I accept that to you it is more relevant to not understand that conflict is not a bad thing, and I respect that. I also know that it is not necessary to accept this to have a worthy life.

I am merely attempting to understand the manner in which your “logic” here is or is not applicable when confronting actual conflicting value judgments out in the world. What are the limitations to your logic?

If you understood conflicting goods as I do you would not be making distinctions between those who are warriors and those who are not. Not in any “ontological” sense. Or you would be more explicit in making that distinction between “might makes right” and “right makes might”. With respect to abortion or to any other moral/political conflict.

@Jakob

I now with certainty that the people in the scenario I gave are fucked, because VO is ontology, an describes the nature of being, and has not yet been contradicted - because it is logically impossible to contradict it. To this extent, to the extent that thinking is able to produce truths, VO is absolutely true.

With respect to what though? Why don’t you connect the dots for us here – between VO as a philosophy and VO as a methodology for dealing with your own values out in the world when they come into conflict with others. Why is one point of view that of the warrior and another that of…the sheep?

And how can this distinction even be made without suggesting in turn that these things can be known objectively.

@Jakob

What you are, actually, really, seems the only sensible departure point for any serious thought.

“Free will” is precisely one of those “big questions” that philosophers and scientists have struggled with now for millenia. I explored it considerably myself here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=170060&start=750

But, again, what are the implications of that for this very exchange? If it is unfolding only as it ever could not not have unfolded then VO and my own “dasein dilemma” are merely inherent components of it. Right? You and I are but two more manifestations of the “immutable laws of matter”.

@Jakob

Matter is only a function of possibility. As we now matter is composed of non-local coherences, which I call self-valuings.
(Nothing to do with consciousness - consciousness is a complex form of self-valuing - a consciousness can never think beyond its values, like a plant can never not respond to water, carbon and sunlight)

I truly and sincerely have no idea what this might possibly mean “for all practical purposes”. At least not with respect to the points I just raised.

@Jakob

You want to see conflict resolve, I want to see that will to see conflict resolve resolve. All your thinking, all the ways in which you choose your paths along my words, are functions of what you desire to get out of this. I will never be able to give you what you are out for - as I consider that to be both irrational to desire, and undesirable. And yet, I respect you in the capacity of desiring this.

No, I acknowledge that [here and now] I do not know if moral and political conflicts can be resolved. Using either the tools of science or philosophy. I suspect that they cannot and so I argue for moderation, negotiation and compromise within the context of political economy.

What would be interesting to me is to follow you around observing your interactions with others when your values came into conflict. I’d love to be that fly on the wall listening to how you are able – “for all practical purposes” – to deal with it.