The Truth and Kropotkin

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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I have been on ILP since 2005, thus I have stated my
‘‘truths’’ for over 20 years… and equally in those years,
I have a number of people tell me how ‘‘wrong’’ and misguided
I am… and that’s fine… and even if every single who has
ever been on ILP were to tell me how wrong I am, I’m still
not concerned… but Kropotkin, you should care what others think
of you? bad news kids, I don’t care one iota what others think…
Oh, back in the day, I would launch into day’s long writing frenzies
about my thoughts if they were attacked… today, I just don’t care…
but Kropotkin, your thoughts, they contradict other thoughts you have
posted… and I say, so what? It matters how exactly that my thoughts
often contradict each other? Kropotkin, you want to be consistent if
you want others to take your thoughts seriously…

In life and I have lived a while, one realizes that the human condition,
is one contradiction after another after another… you can’t make
three statements without contradicting yourself… it is the nature
of being human…and within this being human, lies the contradictions
of existence… that scientifically, life and human life really shouldn’t
exists… little less have some sort of meaning or purpose…

One might ask, what is the meaning of existence and the answer could
just as well be, chance, randomness, contradictions, emptiness
and loneliness… they have as much a role in our lives as anything
else… but Kropotkin, you are wrong… and I ask, seriously ask,
so, the fuck what? What difference does it make if I am wrong
or even occasionally right, according to Greenfuse I am always
wrong, no matter what I write and that is fine, because his belief
in how wrong I always am, really has nothing to do with me…
it is his values and his beliefs, and how does that impact me?
It doesn’t…because I am not even trying to work out the ‘‘truth’’
because that ‘‘truth’’ is a rather elusive search… What is the ‘‘truth’’
and more importantly, how do we know what is the ''truth?"
and I don’t care about contradictions because they have no more
validity than the ‘‘truth’’ does…

I am old and I have seen many proclamations claiming
this statement or that statement is the ‘‘valid truth’’…

Words I would use to describe reality: contradictions,
conflict, inconsistent, incongruity, error, discordance, variance,
paradox… to name a few words that seems too accurately
describes reality… and how are we to navigate a universe
that is both real and unreal? in fact, if there was an experiment
that effectively describes our human existence, it is clearly
Schrodinger Cat… and we are the cat… are we dead or alive?
and my answer is yes… but Kropotkin, that is a contradiction,
yep, yes, it is… and now what? it is the human need to find,
exists within clearly understandable and fixed universe…
but we don’t have that… we have, whatever this mess we
call reality is… Human beings want certainty… a fixed, set
way to see and understand what reality is and our place within
that reality… but that doesn’t exists… and now what?

Einstein once wrote that until you can explain a scientific theory
to a 10 year old and he understands it, you don’t know that theory…
can you explain reality to a 10 year to where he can understand
what reality is? Nope, and neither can I… or we can say this…
any description of reality that we can put forward is by definition,
a lie… because it can’t cover everything, indeed, I hold that the more
we try to explain the universe, the worse the explanations get…
I suspect, but can’t prove, that any description of the universe
is wrong… it’s that simple, any description of reality/the universe
is wrong… by the very nature of reality being unknowable and
contradictory… not because ‘‘two or more statements, facts
or ideas cannot be true at the same time’’ but because two or
more statements, facts and ideas can be true at the same time,
even if, even if they contradict each other…

and one might say, but Kropotkin, that means the universe
makes no sense… finally a statement we can agree with…

Kropotkin

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In my latest response to you, I agreed with the core message, when it finally came around, but disagreed with a number of points you made. I have never said you are always wrong. It now seems like you are saying it doesn’t matter if what you write is right or wrong. OK. Perhaps you could learn from responding to criticism. Perhaps not. Perhaps there would be no point. It seems like a rather odd and depressing view of yourself and what could happen in a philosophy forum.

Truth is an illusion, contradictory emotions is the same thing as logical fallacies, we can’t know anything. Why retreat and undermine your entire project?

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Why do people post their thoughts online when they don’t care what others think about their thoughts?

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@Peter_Kropotkin

“I don’t care what others think at all.”

We know Peter, we know.

:clown_face:

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Though if you have to say it to the people whose thoughts you supposedly don’t care about…

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So ‘you’ contradict “yourself” and instead of working out why ‘your thinking’ is contradictory ‘you’ prefer to make up some absolute lie and the excuse “It is the nature of being human” when my contradictions are pointed out to me.

Look, “peter kropotkin”, the only one ‘you’ are fooling and deceiving here is ‘you’.

Obviously, if there is something contradictory in your views, then something NEEDS reviewing and changing.

But ‘you’ also ‘try to’ claim that contradicting “yourself” is the nature of being human. So, there is a ‘nature of being human’, but no ‘meaning of existing’. Well, according to “peter kropotkin’s logic” anyway.

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yeah, because if you cares what I thought, I would actually read your stuff because it wouldn’t be all chopped up

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Do you know what my explanation of reality is???

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Explaining ‘Reality’, Itself, and having that explanation understood is a very simple and easy process.

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No. What is your explanation of ‘reality’, “seeds”?

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Mr Kropotkin wrote a great OP, but problem is that you done exactly the same thing that he tried to explain: The world is to complex for any single model to explain it, any theory has a flaws and limitations and we can poke the holes in it all day long- and at some point some people realise that there is a limit to logic and you can’t intellectualise everything, perfection can not be achieved- so what then? You can go completely silent or as Mr Kropotkin you can try to make some theories which will be imperfect.

Also: every person is limited by their own worldview and abilities and they can only see what their own mind lets them to see- and trying to make them see from your perspective is usually not possible- so why even try?

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Who is the “you” in the above quote?

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Most of the people that replied to his OP, he has been with you for 20 years and most of posters didn’t even make an effort to understand what he tried to say and show some camaraderie and maybe say something like: Buddy lot of the times I/we don’t agree with but thanks for being with us here.

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I realize that he was making a general statement to the forum and wasn’t talking directly to me.

However, Mr. Kropotkin boldly proclaimed that I wouldn’t be able to…

“…explain reality to a 10-year-old to where he can understand
what reality is…”

However, how would Mr. Kropotkin know that I couldn’t make a 10-year-old understand what “reality” is if Mr. Kropotkin doesn’t know what my explanation of reality actually is?

So, I was simply trying to find out if Mr. Kropotkin had the slightest clue as to what I would say to the 10-year-old.

The point is that Mr. Kropotkin presumes that just because Kropotkin doesn’t have at least a plausible (and explainable) idea of what reality might be, it therefore follows (in his mind) that no one else has one.

With that being said, I learned a long time ago that Mr. Kropotkin treats these forums more as a “personal blog” and rarely gets involved in conversations with those of us who provide him with follow-up questions to something he stated. So, it’s no surprise that he’s ignoring me.

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Well, it’s good to see you go ad hom and do some mindreading in defense of someone who has often done this in response to my posts when he does respond to people in his threads. Peter made it clear quite a long time ago that he’s not interested in responding to criticism of his posts, though he does do a smattering of this. He’s assumed things about my politics, which were incorrect, and used ad homs and insults rather than responding to criticism. He uses us/them framing while criticising groups he disagrees with - conservative and religious people - but also criticizes them for being us/them.

I don’t experience PK as comradely. It’s not clear to me at all that 20 years of blogging in a philosophy discussion forum means that other people should just pretend he hasn’t misrepresented a thinker or made a fallacious argument. Though the lack of comraderie is not just based on what is, yes, a blogging approach. In any case, I got used to his not responding so my posts in his threads are not for him. I doubt many are rushing to read my criticisms of his thoughts on his OPs, but if anyone it is for others.

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Fair points from both of you. For what it’s worth, I had no intention of going ad hominem, and I apologize.

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Our colleague.

(+ enough characters to have more than 15)

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Are you joking here?

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What did “he” try to say and show, exactly?