Facts and values are two distinctly different things, to me… one is definitive, whereas the other requires discernment.
Facts require hard evidence, values do not… values only require a reaction to external stimuli, to prove that they exist and are pertinent to us… if no-body else.
I use definitive to categorise “statements of fact”, and discernment to categorise “statements of value”, to differentiate between the two, in my mind. This way, I can separate fact from fiction, and so make better judgement-calls, decisions, and choices… with ease.
Well no… because I would have already initially discerned if something was aesthetically-pleasing to me or not, next… to what degree it was or wasn’t pleasing to me, and lastly… whether I liked it, wanted it, wanted to buy it, etc… or not.
Pizza is delicious (a feeling), but I am highly allergic to it and to all processed foods (a fact), so I choose not to eat pizza nor all other processed foods (a decision).
How can a person have felt differently, when that is how they were feeling at the time? That doesn’t make sense to me. We can feel differently after that initial reaction to the stimuli, due to a change of heart and/or mind, but that doesn’t change the initial feeling we initially had… such changes are time-dependent, and not just whim-dependent.
It’s about value. We made all this shit together, including value. What people do or don’t value. If you can’t rise to my dimension, that’s not on me. We literally made this shit together. I came out of our co-creation as a counter-balancing force. Just like all of you, I’m here for a reason.
Note that the subject of this thread are the two questions presented in the OP. There is no third question, no question such as “Can people shape their perception of what’s valuable to fit reality?” I am not saying this is an unimportant question, and I am certainly not saying that we shouldn’t be discussing it here in this thread, but let’s not bring it to the forefront. Let’s discuss it if you want, but let’s not forget what was actually asked in the OP.
I think what you’re saying, but without being aware of it, is that in order for you to adopt certain view, you need to go through a process that will genuinely motivate you to adopt it. And that’s what I said in my previous post, but for some reason, it does not resonate with you. That’s fine.
Note that some sort of deductive reasoning is involved even in processes that are almost, if not completely, unconscious. For example, your brain employs it each time it sends you a visual signal that what’s presented to your senses is of blue color.
Any light with wavelength between 440 nm and 485 nm is of blue color.
This particular light has a wavelength of 460 nm.
Therefore, this particular light is of blue color.
You don’t do this consciously, right? But your brain does it anyway. And it doesn’t stop there. Your brain can do, and it does, far more complex reasoning outside of your consciousness too. The process of figuring out what’s valuable and what isn’t is an example. The feeling of beauty, is in fact, a signal sent to you by your brain that it estimates that the object under consideration is valuable.
The question posed in this thread – the second one, that is – is merely whether this process, whether one is actively or retroactively conscious of it or not, is influenced by what is real such that what it estimates to be of value may not in fact be of value.
I hate long posts. I have to sneak in short moments without my wife finding out, sometimes using my phone so I apologize if you are similar.
Exactly what distinguishes “core values”? Where is the line drawn and which draws that line - emotion or logic? Something can change them. Which dictates that logical argument can go no deeper than some preset, authoritarian limit - initial first appearance instincts or higher cognitive reasoning? You appear to be saying that first instincts, set by whatever means, gets to limit what any cognitive reasoning has permission to change (exactly what socialism proposes for all society - nothing is allowed to change our rulers’ priorities unless they give permission - which means that they avoid any improvement no matter how rationally sound). The egotism of the inner mind, I think.
That is what I meant by not having faith in your own reasoning capacity. Some people are right in thinking that they could not possibly be wrong about certain issues, that there is no possible alternative. Those are the people I want to inquire of in order to find out when they are actually right. When I can see that they are right (through detailed and careful logic), that there really is no possible alternative, I can then adopt what they have said as probable “absolute truth” over prima facie instinctual or emotional urges. And even if I cannot be absolutely certain, there is a point where probability is on the side of the logic rather than the instinct.
Well let me say that you care less than I do.
The issue is how much trouble someone else has to go through versus how determined you are to learn. I am certainly not suggesting that you just listen to anyone for years on end. I prefer to listen to the tone and discipline of the speaker to see if he truly has solid reasoning for whatever he is claiming. That requires effort on my part to earnestly inquire and contemplate the possibilities. But I have a practical limit. I can’t bring myself to dismiss truly solid characterizations even if I instinctively feel that they couldn’t possibly be right. On the other hand when someone presents no sense of rationality even after a challenge I dismiss them pretty definitively (that happens a lot now that I can actually interact with people more). But that is just me. Everyone has to live within their own bubble.
Yes I am, especially recently.
As far as the God reference, it would very much depend upon who was saying it so it isn’t really about God saying anything but rather the credibility of the person who is speaking for God (damn few on that list). There is a very slight chance of God speaking directly and that chance is even more minuscule. So let’s move past that.
You say that you will not override your revulsion regardless of “proof”. That seems both interesting and revealing. My wife is very much that way (very feminine). It indicates a serious lack of confidence that what you call a “proof” is really trustworthy, or alternatively perhaps a dedication to an ideology that forbids rational thought from interfering with your hedonism (my wife being a little of both). Let’s assume the former.
As far as me being willing and capable of changing my instinctive urges, I have a variety of examples. A simple list of examples concern merely food preferences. A far more serious one involves something more recently that I discovered literally from interacting with Magnus on this board when I not only convinced him of something that had to be logically true, but at the same time, myself. My issue became and is still pending, what to change in my instinctive behavior in order to align with my new cognitive understanding. I’m still working on that one.
Due to a trip to New York and my willingness to “try new things” I got infected with a few American staple foods that were seriously revolting to me - American “hotdogs”, mustard, boiled spinach, green peas, scrambled eggs, and others. I couldn’t bring myself to finish eating the American hotdog with mustard and relish. And when I discovered what is in hotdogs (very different from German franks) I felt that I had terribly betrayed myself by being willing to experiment. That part hasn’t changed very much but the others things on the list I discovered through credible sources were actually good and healthy foods. I just couldn’t stand the new taste.
So being dedicated to the idea that I shouldn’t merely take the urging of my senses as gospel, I decided to work those other foods into my diet. Fortunately in my family I often cook for myself, although to the dismay of my wife.
I started with that disgusting thing called “mustard”. I research it to find that it was actually an aid in digesting such things as American hotdogs but other things as well. So with that in mind I slowly allowed mustard to become something that I liked. At that time, I didn’t know anything about any specific methods involved. I just felt my way through it and managed to get to the point where I actually prefer a little mustard on my scrambled eggs (my wife is still revolted by even the sight of scrambled eggs). The boiled spinach and other things I managed to slowly work in as well. Now my preferences, my “feelings” and senses, are different because I chose to cause them to be different rather than letting them dictate my diet and my level of comfort.
It wasn’t until I was reading through James’ posts that I discovered exactly what I had been doing and why it all works. I now actually understand how the whole “Spell of Changing” works and how to use it intentionally. So now when I cognitively discover that some behavior or preference can be improved, I can instill the improvement - I change my “values”. I suspect that I could alter all but the most serious addictions.
On one issue the value(s) that needs changing is a serious challenge. It relates to very core values, the most fundamental values. I am still trying to figure out the details of exactly what to do about that one. My point is that because I have cognitively, rationally, logically discerned that an instinctive urge is misaligned with my pentacle goal, I owe it to myself to first ensure that I am right and second to find a way to alter even my most core values to fit what I have learned to be wiser.
So yes, I think that I am different than what you confess.
I don’t think so. We couldn’t begin with something that you strongly refuse and we can’t begin with anything you already accept. That leaves us with only being able to begin with something that I am sure I could convince you of very shortly (in a post or two) even after your certain immediate rejection. How can I know that in short order I could change the mind of someone who has already said that his core values cannot change (are not allowed to be changed)? It would be like trying to convince Ecmandu that 1=2 really is a contradiction even if referring to 2 infinite lines versus 1 infinite line. People instinctively defend any prior claims they have made to the point of absurdity (just look at American media and politics).
I can agree with that. If something merely “seems” right then you haven’t actually recognized an irrefutable proof. The problem is whether you can realize that any proof is actually irrefutable. If you can’t realize that then of course you will always have doubt and always just go with whatever feelings you had prior. Why bother to learn to like American hotdogs with mustard if you don’t really have to? But then that leaves you as someone who has to be coerced into doing anything that is actually good for you unless your feelings happened to have already been aligned. You said that you were a “fallible human” - all the more reason to seek out fixes for those fallible feelings.
It seems to me that logic is only for the purpose of identifying mistaken instinctive urges, much like Science itself. If you can’t be confident of logic then you certainly can’t be confident of proposed science theories. Yet I bet you are merely because other people give you the “feeling” that they are right. You seem to be persuaded by the presentation skills of others - media. You seem to be a societal product easily reprogrammed by those who gave you your values early on. Some call that “having no soul of your own”.
I really don’t mean to be demeaning. I am just trying to clarify the relevant distinction with a bit of hyperbole. I won’t take offense if you do the same. I believe that you can choose to alter even your “core values” once you identify truly irrefutable reasoning.
Yes you could as described before.
Yes I have and currently still updating. I have to confess that it is harder to reverse something that is first appealing to something unappealing.
Okay briefly. The more serious issue that I mentioned before was the subject that James called MIJOT - Maximum Integral of Joy Over Time. I found myself explaining what I was certain that meant to Magnus to the point that shortly after I finished, I realized how exactly true it really is and so became something that I should seriously consider in my own choices. That became seriously disturbing. The logic of it is irrefutable once you get completely familiar with it. I can’t deny it. So in reality I would be betraying myself if I did not set it as a pentacle priority to any and all future choices or urges.
What that MIJOT is saying is that my, and your, and everyone’s actual unchangeable highest priority in life is to live as long as possible as joyously as possible regardless of whatever reasoning or urges you might obtain. Right now you might disagree with that - not see the irrefutable logic involved. But suppose we had that discussion and you saw that it really is unquestionable. Would you accept it deeply enough to include it in your core long and short term goals and decisions? You have been saying that no you would not because you would not accept the logic enough. That is the problem - not accepting logic enough to give it real authority. You probably believe that there can be no such logic of absolute certainty. I have seen that argument a lot. I think that what it comes down to is knowing when there is no escape worthy of pursuing merely to appease your feelings. That takes some growing up and masculinity that most people just don’t possess. What needs doing is more relevant than what is supposed to be done.
As I said. It is only because you cannot see when there is no escape from the reasoning that proposes taking up the challenge to change your urges. You require a greater extreme of convincing than perhaps any that could be offered regardless of clarity in communication. Some (many) people just can’t get there.
You and most people assume judgments that aren’t there (that’s why observers don’t interact). But you are half right in that I am getting there - “in the muck”.
[quote=“Magnus Anderson”
The question posed in this thread – the second one, that is – is merely whether this process, whether one is actively or retroactively conscious of it or not, is influenced by what is real such that what it estimates to be of value may not in fact be of value.[/quote]
Perhaps I am missing what you mean. I certainly think that what I value is influenced by what is real. I don’t think that I merely have a subjective experience completely disconnected from reality. (this is very simplified, but I don’t want to get too far into metaphysically controversial areas). But to me that is different from saying that my values are objective. I wouldn’t say that someone with different values, for example, is making an objective mistake - unless I felt I could show that cognitive errors are taking place and there are inconsistancies. IOW if they say they value having the skill of the best arguments and so therefore they want no criticism. I would then feel that there is a contradiction, a misunderstanding. I am not going to think that their value of wanting to be able to create the best arguments is wrong, but I will think that their understanding of what leads to that might be faulty. Now this example is of what many here might consider a positive value. But I would have the same reaction if value in question was viewed by me as something negative.
No worries. Respond to what you can. I am not on a phone. I’ll pick my spots and be shorter, so I may not respond to everything then. [and yet it ended up long despite my leaving some thing unresponded to]
No, it’s a recognition of the situation I seem to find myself in. And what seems to be the situation of others.
And then you have a split self. As do I on a number of things. So what do you do to get integration? What do you do now that your head and heart, say, no longer agree?
And I would guess that you have a less complete sense of what you actually believe. But we are both speculating. I would guess that like many you take your official, wordy verbal beliefs, what you would fill out on a form if asked, to be your beliefs. That like many people you confuse on portion of yourself with yourself. And, to repreat, we are both speculating. And really, why go ad hom, as you in the first post. Yes, I was ad hom about myself, i the sense of talking about what I do. So, focusing on problems in that argument is going to be ad hom in the to the man sense. But you go further and perform mind reading and criticize me personally, no just my arguments. And then to top this off you say you are just observing. But you are not just observiving. So why don’t you avoid the personal judgments and judge my arguments and drop the enlightened guy schtick? Just observing, just the rational poritons of the brain, not feminine, not negatively judging, just noticing schtick. I think it would be rather interesting to see what your wife makes of your ‘objectivity’. I’ll bet her intuition regardless of her skills on paper with deduction, is nevertheless spot on about some of this. You got skin in the game and it’s skewing your evalutaion of people including yourself. There’s limbic system all over this stuff, but under a pose.
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Yes I am, especially recently.
As far as the God reference, it would very much depend upon who was saying it so it isn’t really about God saying anything but rather the credibility of the person who is speaking for God (damn few on that list). There is a very slight chance of God speaking directly and that chance is even more minuscule. So let’s move past that.
Thank you for adding the scare quotes. That is precisely it. There is a problem of providing proofs when it comes to values. An epistemological problem.
Ibid. I addressed this. YOu first interpreted as I must distrust my own reasoning abilities. Going incorrectly ad hom. But let’s see if you actually address the issue and also give concrete examples of your own process.
Great a specific example. So here you had a judgment that something was bad and you actually went and experienced it. You had an entirely imaginative judgement about something you hadn’t experienced. It was not a situation, really, of sense experience vs a correct idea. It was a lack of sense experience and then new experience. It wasn’t the logical cortex showing the limbic system or the lower portions of the brain their value was wrong. It was one part of the cortex testing the conclusions of another part of the cortex.
And my tastes in food have changed over time, as my body changed to adulthood. As I encountered better versions of certain foods, higher quality. As I encoutered intermediate tastes. I never made it to blue cheese which I still find revolting regardless of quality, but I do now like cheeses that would have disgusted me as a child. But NOT through objective argument. I had experiences over a long period of time. The process perhaps might have been shortened by someone or myself saying ‘maybe that was poor, supermarket shit you got’. So, I would then try something anew. But the primary changes were physiological - I do think changing bodies desire both new tastes and different tastes, though not always - and experiential, rather than someone showed me what was objectively true and what tastes, therefore, one should logically have. And that my extending myself, also, was guided very much by desire.
I would also not assume that someone who just likes their cheddar is make an objective mistake in their values.
[just got this from my exchange with Magnus]IOW now you like mustard. Are you really going to argue that if someone does not like mustard, they are necessarily wrong?have an objectively wrong value? That what you achieved through your reasoning and experiential process was not merely finding out you did or could like mustard, but that you now have objectively better taste than someone who does not like mustard?
You learned what you actually like, cool. I do that kind of thing too. I even did it with mustard. But I don’t confuse that with objective values. I am better in touch with what I value/like. But that doesn’t make my value objective or universal, even. Not even within my own species. Are dogs mistaken if they don’t like some food I like? But heck, as said, values aren’t even intraspecies universal, which is also an entirely different category from objective.
So, there is a polemical aspect to my response to the OP, which I may have misundestood, I am still trying to triangulate his intent and meaning. I should hope it is obvious that reasoning plays a role in my life.
Yes, I get that. I did not mean, let’s test the idea and I will show you you can’t convince me so it is not objectively true and/or there is no other way to be than my way. That’s the Iambiguous approach. But I want to know what you are talking about via an example. I promise not to say ‘Well, you didn’t convince me, so it can’t work.’ I think I will 1) know better if we are actually talkign about the same things and 2) be able to discuss in a more concrete way my objections to objective values.
Any ¨proof’ that value X is the right value, depends utterly on a shared value premise. You can only deduce from a shared value to prove that some secondary or derived value is correct. IOW at best it is a universal value in homo sapiens should such a thing exist not an objective value. Though actually what you have is an assumption that all creatures , really, deep down, have the same core values. That’s not my experience. Not anymore.
Curiosity, desire, knowing that seeming not to be good is also fallible, changes in me…
I place a high value on integration. Most people manage to have new conclusions, some based on very good processes others less so. They don’t seem concerned much about their internal ecology. You actually came to like mustard. I will take that as a given. I think most people don’t actually know, when it comes to moral values, interpersonal values, social values…what they actually like, need, and are experiencing. I don’t think they have a great deal of introspective ability. They slide new slogans into their minds. Every extremely smart people, and they are not concerned about where their limbic systems are and what (and might intuit) and really getting these things aligned. They confuse their thinking selves with their full selves and further they judge their emotional selves and desiring selves, often, and do not want to see some kind of integration of thinking and feeling or prefrontal cortex and limbic. They maintain their splits and act as jailers one part of the brain to others. I recognize greatness in both ‘parts’ (and yes, I recognize that even in people who maintain strong splits, the two parts are inevitably intertwined) and while emotions and desires can be confused and mistaken about what my particular organizm needs, the mental verbal functions have a certain kind of hubris not only it this person’s ability to deduce, say, but in humans in general, even the smartest, in what they deduce. I don’t merely side with my emotions and tell my thoughts to fuck off. But if my emotions and thoughts are arriving at different conclusions, well, we are just at the very beginning of an enormous process. Because I respect my emotions and I see that those who don’t, generally end up extremely confident in deductions that have inherent flaws.
You’re taking me as saying I don’t respect my thoughts. But I do. I hope that is clearer now. But I also respect my emotions and intuitions. And I notice in those who don’t are not as good at noticing when their so called proofs are driven by them.
And hey, why do you, presumably with a masculine mind, given your judgments, allow someone with a feminine mind to control what you do in a philosophy forum? IOW one could look at our dynamic as the masculine mind judging my mind as too under the control of the feminine mind. But it just seems like you have an another person acting out the role of your own feminine mind. She takes that role. She is irrational, not you. And yet, she has some control over you, keeps you from doing what you really want to do, presumably a good masculine activity, one with strong objective reasons to be valued. Does this take place in other areas? Why have you allowed another person to take on the role of your limbic system? Have you really resolved the split in your own mind? Or do you have another person taking on the role of your own limbic system, very common in marriages, so you can feel superior to it and see it as not you? And now you can play that game with me too. ’ I’m just observing.’ A Buddha.
When it is so obvious that this Buddha has skin in the game and is doing things he claims he is not. Such a fundamental disconnect. I mean, this was such a fundamental disconnect in your response to me. A so obvious denial. And one that I find common in those who see their mascluine minds as superior to what they judge as feminine minds.
You mean to say that the process by which you judge whether something is valuable or not is influenced by your perception of reality?
Can you confirm that?
If so, that means that your value judgments can be wrong because they depend on something that can be wrong – your perception of reality. (I assume you agree that perceptions can be wrong.)
And that means that value is objective. (Recall that by “value is objective” I mean “what’s valuable to someone is independent from what anyone thinks (or feels) is valuable to that someone”.)
Whether or not humans can change their value-related beliefs is a separate issue that has to do with how flexible humans are (specifically, the degree to which they are capable of adopting new beliefs and acting upon them.) I am told that some animals are born with a set of beliefs that they have little to no ability to change in response to new experience. They don’t think – thinking here understood as the process by which existing beliefs are revised and new ones are formed – but stick to their initial beliefs no matter what. This makes it possible for them to act quickly. I think that humans, at least some of them, are better than that. But either way, that’s not exactly the subject of this thread. (Though it’s a related and moreover interesting topic to discuss.)
The specific evaluation can be wrong. I hate red cars so I hate that car. But it’s not red. Oh, yeah, it was the orange street light that confused me. But my hating red cars is not right or wrong. It’s a taste issue.
And also, even then. I could be wrong in relation to my own values. But that doesn’t mean I can be right. Let’s say my perception is correct. It is a red car. That doesn’t mean my value judgment that it is a bad color for a car is now right. Or that the guy who likes red cars has the wrong value. There’s a kind of category error here.
If I like butterscotch ice cream and you don’t, is one of us wrong?
Your position also, I think, assumes that all of us are really the same deep down. That deep down we all want and need the same things, that if our perceptions and logic were very good, we would all have the same values. I don’t think that’s true.
It seems that I made the mistake of thinking that we were talking a little more collaboratively. I have to confess a bit of disappointment. I thought you were speaking a little more positively than you now seem to have been and you seem to have been reading me as more negative than I know I intended to be. I’m still a little new at this two way posting thing.
My claim is merely that “I like butterscotch ice cream” means “I perceive that butterscotch ice cream is of use to me in some way” which means that whether or not butterscotch ice cream is of use to someone is decided by reality.
I am not claiming that what’s valuable to you is necessarily what’s valuable to everyone.
There’s a number of beliefs related to the subject of value that are usually treated as if one of them being true logically necessitates that all other beliefs are true as well (and vice versa, that if one of them is false that all others are false as well.)
Let’s separate them:
VALUE OBJECTIVISM.
What’s valuable to someone is independent from what anyone thinks (or feels) is valuable to that someone. (And when I say “anyone” I literally mean anyone – that someone including.)
VALUE UNIVERSALISM.
What’s valuable to one is what’s valuable to everyone. This means that things have the same value for everyone.
HIGHEST GOAL UNIVERSALISM.
The highest goal of every human being is the same.
Going into this blind, just my initial thinking on the OP.
Value = a pre-defined bearing or orientation
Values are objective and perceptible in the sense that the concept maps to something about us that’s real and knowable, if indirectly, and even if we don’t entirely understand it.
Values factor into the premises of all our activity. They give weight and meaning to our decisions. Everyone has a set of values, no matter how conflicted or suppressed. They aren’t a static set, but I’m not sure they are so freely altered either.
Another question is whether values can be good and bad, and whether judgements about value can be made without recourse to values.
Suppose you marry an alcoholic who ends up physically and verbally abusing you every single night and every single day for every little thing you do that he finds in one way or another unpleasing to his eyes and ears. Wouldn’t you, in such a case, say that you made the wrong decision? You are certainly not going to say “But how can I have decided differently, when that is what I decided at the time?” Even though that’s true. The idea is to evaluate past decisions in light of something you didn’t know previously. Of course, that won’t teleport you back into the past and let you change your decision, but that was never the point anyways. The point is to ask yourself, “Could I have done better?” That’s all.
The same applies to foods. Perhaps pizza tastes good but it shouldn’t actually – even if tastes are difficult to change. You want to figure out what’s better so that you can eventually train yourself to make what’s better part of yourself. You want to develop a new way of feeling – a better one – in order to replace the old – the worse one.
