We need to move to india and build a philosophy compound. We can stay in india for up to ten years without a visa… plenty of time for us to set this thing up. Saully’s pretty good with the hindu stuff so I think he can get us some kind of funding from the government or at least some rich indian factory owners. If not, we’ll have to finance the filming by ourselves. We gotta have a contingency plan as well; if our films don’t make it big, we need a source of income. We can go into the cobra catching business or something. There’s a big demand for cobras over there. Or we can work in the ship wrecking industry and die on the third day of work because of the horrible safety regulations over there.
If not india, it has to be a place where the american dollar and the euro get the best exchange rate. I know you can buy a house in mexico for 5 grand american, but mexicans generally aren’t philosophical (save Santayana, RIP) so our compound isn’t going to get much business. What we want to do is open a place where an ordinary person can come for two weeks and get a complete philosophical make-over. We want to do to ordinary people with desk jobs and mortgages what the Egyptians did to Pythagoras and Plato. We want John and Marcy Q to get back to the states after their two week vacation package at the compound and tell their friends during a discussion at dinner “I just don’t think of it that way anymore, Harry, because I’ve been enlightened by the five horsemen (aka “The Frivolous Five”); Sauwelios, Jakob, Erik, Pezer and z00t. You and Dana really ought to go… plan a trip out there next year… Marcy and I will go with you… I’d do it again, wouldn’t you, honey?” Marcy would put down her fork, blot the corner of her mouth with her napkin and say “oh absolutely John!”
Spanish, Mexican, whatever. Cortez and his crew brought Spain to the Aztecs: Spain + Aztec = Mexican. The Spanish genes made the tall, attractive Mexicans like what’s her name in the movies, while the Aztec genes made the short, chubby Mexicans that became maids, landscapers and drunk drivers here in America.
I think you’re setting up a false comparison here:
“Jim plays the stockmarket” is to “Jane does not play the stockmarket” as “Jim is embodying virtue” is to “Jane is embodying vice”
or
“Jim plays the stockmarket” is to “Jane does not play the stockmarket” as “Jim is embodying vice” is to “Jane is embodying virtue”.
Whereas the correct correspondence is this:
“Jim plays the stockmarket” is to “Jane does not play the stockmarket” as “Jim is embodying virtue” is to “Jane is not embodying virtue”
or
“Jim plays the stockmarket” is to “Jane does not play the stockmarket” as “Jim is embodying vice” is to “Jane is not embodying vice”.
Now then: how is objectively establishing that Jane does not play the stockmarket different from objectively establishing that Jane is not embodying virtue or vice? There is as little evidence–namely, none–of her embodying virtue or vice as there is of her playing the stockmarket. If it makes answering my question easier for you, you may suppose that there is no evidence of anyone’s playing the stockmarket. Isn’t the only difference, then, in the fact that there’s agreement on what “playing the stockmarket” means whereas there’s disagreement on what “embodying virtue or vice” means? But then, couldn’t I define “playing the stockmarket” as “going for a jog”? The stockmarket is as much subject to definition as the good. The way the stockmarket is commonly defined, however, we can say with the greatest amount of objectivity that it exists; whereas we cannot with the good. Ergo… the good probably does not exist. (Logically, however, the good is precisely the attribution of goodness to things.)
But my point here is to contend that there is no good reason for making such a distinction. The only difference is that the performance of abortions has been quite universally established, whereas its morality has not. Many people, supposedly, have witnessed abortions, but none, as far as we know, have ever witnessed the morality of any abortion–nor, for that matter, the immorality. They may have vehemently disliked it (not necessarily just witnessing it, but possibly also merely hearing about it or even merely imagining it), or they may have strongly valued it if the pregnant woman consented to it, but that’s as far as the realm of “objective fact” reaches here.
I can’t, because I don’t think it does.
Okay. I guess we agree, then.
Why do you care if they ever resolve their dispute or not? Just because you don’t want your “I” to fracture and fragment to the point where nothing is able to keep it together, at least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically?
I’m a moral nihilist, but not an ethical nihilist–as I put it in this OP I wrote almost nine years ago:
Zoot - that is again brilliant. Both ridiculous and a mockery of all of it and yet, containing some real ideas that can be implemented under less caricatural terms.
Look, the point is not to teach Joe and Mary, because philosophy is hard. It does not offer resolve. Satyr seems to think that VO offers resolve. Iambig that it should - but he is at least correct that it does not. It offers a tool when you want to resolve something - it’s kept me out of custody once already - talk to a cop with this in your mind and it goes a lot smoother - he was nearly apologizing and didn’t even give me a ticket. But it’s dangerous to do if you do not have an absolute goal, I sense. And it costs a lot of concentration. My goal then was to stay out of police hands, because of all sorts of things with prior records and not wanting to upset my mom on her birthday. I was pretty much absolutely determined, so I started applying VO. Of course it works, I would not make such a big deal out of if it didn’t… But… to what end? This is the question that arose as soon as the idea was there, and has been the question ever since. Finally we are starting to get somewhere on that.
The trick, I think, is to be fully aware of the games the hearts mind plays in itself but not try to stop it in them. Play the games along. That is Greek. This is why a Greek hero can uncontrollably weep when he loses some glorious thing he received earlier - he goes along with the discourse of his world. His lament increases the value of what he has lost. That is noble. Now that we know there is nothing concrete that is essentially of value, now that we fully know what it is, we are completely free in creating it. But it is also infinitely harder, because for most, to know that it is they who create the value devaluates the value. That is the harsh selecting principle of nihilism.
Given that there are no values that passively exist, that value belongs to what values, the family is one of mans primal ways of establishing a consistency in valuing, which is required for health and joy, which is required for life’s circular, superhuman will to itself. Not all are connected to their valuing through their family - but it is the most earthly path, this is why I have resigned myself to it. I’ll eventually move to Italy.
Only if you do not treat it with respect and allow its multi-faceted nature.
…and directly from Latin respectus “regard, a looking at,” literally “act of looking back (or often) at one,” noun use of past participle of respicere “look back at, regard, consider,” from re- “back” (see re-) + specere “look at” (see scope (n.1)
Not exactly, as I was long predicting trends before I hit on VO, but rather that a philosopher, a good one, is able to look into the future. This is because he understands what he observes, and can infer much of what it will lead to. If one does understand humans in their fundamental drives, and is able to suspend judgment, then very little of what is now presented as mysterious will remain mysterious.
So whether or not I meant it, yes - a proper understanding of VO will certainty allow more efficiency in predicting trends. An ontology is basically a universal predictor…
I’m glad you think so. We need not just one great script though… so by all means, screenwriters among you, get to work…
It’s not only philosophical jargon that you avoid here. It is also an attempt to situate this argument out in the world of conflicting goods. For example, how is the point you raise here not applicable to folks on either side of the abortion wars? And then the objectivists on both sides still insist that their own moral narrative/agenda reflects the most rational/ethical point of view.
Can you offer us an argument regarding abortion [or any other issue] such that it does in fact reflect Who You Are – and not just the individual you became given the life that you lived? Can you offer us an argument such that the conflicting goods embedded in abortion – the birth of the baby, the woman’s right to choose – are able to coexist out in the real world?
Okay, who is the Real You such that historical, cultural and experiential variables are, what, moot? If one is raised in an orthodox Jewish community in Tel Aviv and another is raised in a radical Islamic community in Gaza, the way they come to think about reality is their Real Self? They weren’t indoctrinated as kids to think this way? And they are then both obligated to defend their values despite the manner in which these values clearly are problematic reflections of historical, cultural and experiential factors?
No matter how different your own life might have been there is still only the Real You becoming who you Really Are today? Your moral and political values would still be the same?
And, if different, there is a way, using the tools of philosophy, to ascertain the most rational behaviors?
I think that, emotionally and psychologically, people want to believe this about their Self because this allows them to anchor “I” to necessity. In one or another rendition of Reason or God.
This is precisely the sort of didactic, scholastic – pedantic? – “analysis” we get from the likes of Satyr.
Come on, Mo, you pick the value. Let’s bring it down to earth and explore any possible limitations that might be imposed on an intellectual contraption like this one.
We should be writing one next year. I’ve had an idea which is at the cutting edge of cultural development and which is very funny. Being funny is important.
To be abel to be funny is essential; in fact to find something funny is usually a peak-intelligence experience. There is a mathematician who wrote a book about the similarity of mathematics and jokes, too. Laughter is usually the result of a good find. Virtually all new truths are ridiculous, and science is always making a joke out of its own history.
Not everyone always catches on to every joke.
(And not to say everything needs to be funny - that would seriously not be funny, as anyone who has used psychedelics knows)
Some people can actually do that well. I have one of these friends, though I rarely see him anymore, who can say those few words that leave a table helpless, and keep doing it. For me, best is to rely on the idea that the way life and language combine is bound to produce funny results.
In that case, I will repeat something I addressed to Zoot–part of an explanation of my signature’s third axiom:
If we disvalue valuation (a.k.a. valuing), i.e., if we consider it of little or no positive value or of negative value, then we logically must also consider this disvaluation of ours of little or no positive value or of negative value, as it is itself a valuation–namely, a relatively or absolutely low positive valuation or a negative valuation.
Compare this to your great problem:
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.
Does my axiom not bring an objective value within your reach?
