What all men ought to do

Iambiguous,

"Though the word ‘fatalism’ is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable,

Perhaps there is a more positive word to use than powerless. Anyway, we are only really powerless unless we see things that way and feel no hope. But then again, psychologically speaking, maybe that experience of powerlessness is a gift and what lights the fire under us and gives us the momentum to make the choice to transcend it or plow through it ~ that is, if we want to experience personal freedom.

We can reasonably say that we had no other choice in the matter in view of what we saw and how we saw the future if we did not take steps to become pro-active and change something ~ in other words, to be self-determined creatures and re-create our reality. Is that being powerless?

Was Martin Luther King powerless?
Was Frederick Douglas powerless?
Was Helen Keller powerless?
Was William James powerless?

Those are just the few who popped into my mind. History is full of reminders of how we do not have to be powerless.

Admittedly, I am never really quite sure how to react to this sort of thing.

Consider:

Once the parts of an automobile engine are put together correctly the car can be driven. No one will question the parts themselves. As mindless matter, they do what they do because that is what needs to be done with them in order for the car to be driven.

But what about the minds of the men and the women who invented the engine? the men and the women who assemble the invented parts into the engine? the men and the women who choose to drive the car to point A rather than point B?

How is this matter different from the matter in the parts of the engine? Given that it is said that all of the matter that make up all of the elements in the universe came from exploding stars billions of years ago.

But: How it came to evolve into living matter, into mindful matter, is still the big mystery. The whole conundrum embedded in “dualism”.

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

But what does that really mean when discussing matter able to become mindful of itself as matter able to discuss something like this?

If we are “powerless to do anything other than what we actually do” than how are we not just the “parts” that nature managed to assemble into brains much the same way in which our brains assemble the parts of the enigine?

Here I always come back to dreams. In my dreams – “in the moment” – I am convinced that I am choosing to do what I do. But instead it is my subconscious and unconscious mind – the chemical and neurological interactions in my brain – that is/are calling the shots. But only as they ever could have; as, in other words, just a more extraordinary manifestation of matter.

We simply do not know what is [b][u]really[/b][/u] going on here. Or, rather, I don’t. Others might. God might. But until I am apprised of how it really works, I don’t.

Perhaps. But that still leaves me unable to determine definitively if what you write here and what I read here is only ever as it was all going to unfold anyway. Whether we feel powerful or powerless is the same thing: an inherent manifestation of the immutable [mechanical] laws of matter doing the immutable [mechanical] laws of matter’s thing.

In a wholly determined universe however everything that everyone thinks, feels and does is only as it ever could have been. Going all the way back to why there is something instead of nothing; and why it is this something and not another something altogether.

Or so it seems to me.

But: Whatever that means.

Re-watching sex lies and videotapes

So what?

Well, there is an exchange between two of the characters in the film that captures the frame of mind I was trying to convey above with regard to “I” as an existential contraption…

…out in the “what all men ought to do world” that we actually interact in.

In other words, the manner in which your sense of self here is basically an accummulation of all the variables in your life strung together into a ceaselessly fabricated and rebrabicated narrative out of which you make sense of the world in a moral and political predisposition.

Ann: I just wanna ask a few questions, like why do you tape women talkin’ about sex? Why do you do that? Can you tell me why?
Graham: I don’t find turning the tables very interesting.
Ann: Well, I do. Tell me why, Graham.
Graham: Why? What? What? What do you want me to tell you? Why? Ann, you don’t even know who I am. You don’t have the slightest idea who I am. Am I supposed to recount all the points in my life leading up to this moment and just hope that it’s coherent, that it makes some sort of sense to you? It doesn’t make any sense to me. You know, I was there. I don’t have the slightest idea why I am who I am, and I’m supposed to be able to explain it to you?

Of course in the film it all reconfigures into a happy ending. The young and beautiful Ann and the young and beautiful Graham are together. The shitty sex, lies and videotapes are a thing of the past.

Well, for however long that will last.

Our own lives however may or may not come even close to this particular trajectory. There are, after all, countless actual historical, cultural and experiential contexts that any particular individuals might find themselves in.

Thank goodness there are Gods and political ideologies and Kantian intellectual contraptions and asssessments of nature able to steer some down the one and the only path that all virtuous men and women are obligated to take.

Okay, so now we know (as if we didn’t already know).

So what do you want?

What do you expect?

Iambiguous,

This reminds me so much of the God question: Is there or is there not? Some of us choose to believe what we have been taught, some of us go to the other extreme and become atheists, some of us choose to believe in a designing God but not necessarily a personal one based on their own experience, and still others make the decision that it is OK not to know either way since to them it is an unknowable thing. For the most part, they have no problem living in ambiguity.

What is the worst thing that could happen to you, Iambiguous, if you were to spend the rest of your life trying to resolve the above?

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

What is more important to you? Resolving the above which I do not really see an answer for except by taking a leap into the darkness and choosing one or the other based on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us ~~ since we cannot ever really be certain ~~ it is just like the God thingy. We can also decide to take the way of the agnostic and realize that perhaps in the final analysis it does not matter.

We either see ourselves as making our own choices, being self-determined, being free or striving for freedom (even though perhaps our sub-conscious is there at work which is also a part of us and working with us). We know this.
We can also see ourselves as being shackled. Which do we want to see? We can continue to allow that ghost to haunt us. Sometimes it is a good idea to face the ghost and ask why It is still there in the first place. That may be a deeper question than the one being asked.

The world is full of ambiguity. What does matter is answering the question for one’s self": How ought I or how do I live? Are we supposed to ask that question of others regarding ourselves?

Do you ever find or sense that struggling with this question may be keeping you from asking yourself fresh new questions which can lead you to knowing, individually-speaking, “how ought I to live” or “where am I going”?

I wasn’t able to figure out from this thread what the discussion is about.

“What all men ought to do” is a pretty heavy presupposition that any one man can decide this for all men. But I think not all men ought to ever be following one dudes orders.

Only what I have been pointing out over and over and over again now for years: In reacting to someone who videotapes women talking about sex, how do we distinguish between our own personal reactions [rooted in dasein and conflicted narratives regarding human sexuality] and the reactions of others?

Is there a reaction that comes closest to how reasonable and virtuous men and women ought to react? Or are our reactions instead largely embedded in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts?

Is there a “real me” here able to encompass the “right thing to do”?

And this discussion is important because one way or another any particular community is going to enact laws that prescribe or proscribe particular behaviors here.

And our behaviors will then be judged by others and rewards and punishments will follow.

And then for some it goes beyond that. For them religion comes into played. Graham’s behavior will also be judged by God.

Now, we obviously react to the interaction of these variables in different ways. My “I” here is more fractured and fragmented than yours. “I” am less able to ground myself in a frame of mind that offers at least some measure of comfort and consolation.

But, again, given the gap [no doubt] between my existential trajectory and yours, how successful will we ever be in closing it? All I can do here is note my own trajectory [as I do re my reaction to abortion] and then react to the manner in which others relate their own to me.

But: Communication here is always going to be far more problematic than communication exchanged regarding relationships in the either/or world.

Of course God just adds another layer of complexity here. If God is said to be omniscient then He knows everything. So that must include knowing what each of us as individuals think we know about Him. So how could we not know only what He already knows that we will know?

As my ex-wife once pointed out, to the extent that you spend your life pondering seemingly unanswerable questions like this, is the extent that you are not out in the world actually living your life. But here [once again] dasein kicks in. For any number of personal reasons each of us become more or less drawn to philosophy. And then for others their options become more and more depleted. They are less able to “actually live their life” out in the world with others. They sink down into themselves where questions of this sort are more likely to percolate.

Here “I” – my “I” – quickly becomes embedded in the thick fog that surrounds any attempts to really understand your own motivations and intentions. You can only remember so much about the past, and there are so many variables either beyond your understanding or control in the present, it’s like aiming a dart at the bullseyes and being lucky if you are even able to hit the board.

It’s a wild ass guess in other words. Even the most introspective among us are sure to leave many, many of the most important parts out. Or, as they say, we are so entangled in our own point of point that we lack the objectivity that others are able bring to bear.

But how we see ourselves in a wholly determined universe is only as we were ever going to see oursleves. If human consciousness [on or below the surface] is just more matter, then it will do only what matter does if in fact there are “immutable laws” of matter.

Back to dreams…

Last night I dreamed I went to the mailbox in a house I once lived in many years ago. I pulled out the mail and there was a letter from my wife. I was reading the letter. It was about our daughter.

Then when I woke up the whole “incident” just blew my fucking mind! How could my brain manufacture this letter “in my head” such that “in the moment” the “I” in the dream was reading it?!!

In other words, as though it had not been a dream at all. “In the moment” in the dream I was the man reading the letter. How is that even possible?

The world is filled with no ambiguity at all if what we think of as ambiguity [in this exchange] is only ever as it was ever going to be thought of.

But how do we wrap our heads around that when intuitively we seem so certain that a real me is calling the shots?

Sure, but how am I ever going to come to grips with why I do the things that I do. Besides, these questions have always fascinated me going back to my uncle introducing me to science fiction. And I sure as shit wouldn’t pursue them if they did not [still] fascinate me to no end.

If someone answers these questions, then the answers are existential contraptions. Correct?

Then what is the purpose in asking the questions?

You know the answers. Right?

Then that community will enact laws which are rooted in dasein.

What’s wrong with that? What’s right with that? So what?

Should I be uncomfortable? Why?

What men ought to do is chill the hell out. =; :-$ :-"

:laughing: That is what all of humanity needs to fish for in an ocean of oughts.
Perhaps one way in which to do this is to drop the ought from one’s vocabulary.

Yes, in relation to the reactions of others. In a No God world.

After all, in a God world there exists a transcending truth that mere mortals can turn to in Scripture.

On the other hand, suppose [in a No God world] someone was actually able to construct an argument about Graham making videotapes of women talking about sex. An argument such that she could demonstrate that in fact all rational men and women were obligated to share it.

In regard to human sexuality, different individuals may have had many different experiences precipitating many different moral narratives; but now there is an argument that is not just a subjective/subjunctive point of view. Now we can know for sure if what we think about Graham is in sync with what one ought to think if they wish to be thought of as a rational human being.

I suspect that my answers “here and now” are rooted in dasein confronting conflicting goods out in a particular world such that political power will determine which set of behaviors will actually be enflorced in any given community.

But that answer is no less an existential contraption. I would never argue that it is the answer. Unless of course someone is able to persuade me that in fact their answer is the answer.

But even then we would have to come up with a methodology enabling us to demonstrate that this is so for all others.

So what?! For the life of me I am unable to grasp how on earth you [or anyone] can ask that.

Communities will reward or punish particular behaviors. And in communities that revolve around one or another objectivist font [religion: Christianity/Islam etc.; ideology: Communism/fascism etc.] the behaviors that you choose carry consequences.

Why one set of behaviors rather than another? And if it is seen as reasonable that morality is largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein then it might seem more reasonable [to some of us] that “moderation, negotiation and compromise” reflects the best of all posible governing agendas.

My point here [more or less] is this: To the extent to which you are able to tug me in the direction of your frame of mind, I will be more comfortable. And to the extent to which I am able to tug you in the direction of mine, you will feel less comfortable.

Then it’s just a matter of how this all actually plays out “for all practical purposes” into the future.

You have constructed your philosophy in a way which makes such an argument impossible. You have left no opening to let it in.

Same problem here. Your philosophy rejects all methodologies.

That sounds like moderation is objectively good, negotiation is objectively good, and compromise is objectively good.

But you can’t mean that because it contradicts your moral nihilism.

No compromise … no negotiation … extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam are just as reasonable for a moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein.

So why aren’t you saying that??

My philosophy is based on the assumption that in a No God world, Graham was predisposed to behave as he did based largely on an accumulation of a particular set of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge.

Others however are embedded existentially in an entirely different set of variables. So they react to Graham taping women talking about sex in entirely different ways.

Now, sure, its possible that the problem here is entirely me. Arguments made by the Platonists, the Kantians and all the other philosohers who have grappled with how mere mortals ought to behave in the world, may have succeeded in pinning this all down “deontologically”, “essentially”, “objectively”. With or without God.

But I won’t admit it. Or I am unable to admit it because I am unable to grasp it.

Yeah, you’ve got me there. I’ll always admit to the possibility of that.

But let’s hear these arguments. All of us can then judge for ourselves the extent to which Graham either ought or ought not to have made those tapes.

Their methodology will either succeed in demonstrating this or it won’t. In much the same manner it can be demonstrated that in fact Graham either did or did not make the videos themselves.

In other words, in the either/or world, we are often able to demonstrate that this happened rather than that. So, why, after thousands of years, are philosophers still no where near to being able to pin down any number of human behaviors as either moral or immoral?

I’ve got my reasons. But they are no less conjectures based on a particular set of assumptions.

They are construed by me to be good only because I have not come upon an argument of late that persuades me that an essential/objective good does in fact exist. It always revolves around what I think I know about human morality in a No God world. Here and now.

However: Convince me that what I think I know should instead be what you think you know; and I’m sure I’ll feel less fractured and fragmented than I am now.

All you are basically arguing here [from my frame of mind] is that this is bullshit. I am determined to reject all arguments from others that do not align themselves with my own set of assumptions. And even though my own frame of mind here does leave me fractured and fragmented [with little or no comfort and consolation and oblivion right around the corner] it’s all about me and my own psychological bent here.

It’s all about me and my willful obstinance. My need to defend moral nihilism even if it does make me feel broken, beaten and battered.

All I can do is to come back to this:

1] Here and now someone thinks they know that some particular behavior is rational/virtuous “inside their head”
2] Here and now someone thinks they know that this is not just based on the components of my own argument above
3] Here and now someone feels confident instead they can demonstrate why all rational/virtuous men and women ought to think the same

About Communism or abortion or any other set of conflicting goods.

Then around and around and around we’ll go.

But: this is something that I would expect to be the case in a No God world. In other words, given the manner in which I construe the actual existential interaction of the components of my own moral philosophy: nihilism.

Out in a particular context, out in a particular world.

Every argument that you hear will fall into the category of “existential contraption”. You’re philosophy defines it that way.

Thus the futility of repeatedly asking people for an argument.

What are the characteristics of a “non-contraption”?

What is a “demonstration”?

Think about that.

All I’m basically arguing is that what you call “more reasonable” is in fact not “more reasonable” than something else within the context of nihilism. It’s just that one thing makes you feel better than something else. Why call it “reasonable”?

You can’t even figure out what is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences. Right?

They are construed by you to be good.

You have reached a conclusion.

He points out you reached this conclusion that they are good. Why you reached this decision DOES NOT MATTER in the context of IS THERE A CONTRADICTON IN A NIHILIST CONCLUDING THAT THESE THINGS ARE GOOD. Here you admit that you concluded that they were good. Of course we all know you are not sure, but as you say here, you conclude they are good. This is not what a nihilist CAN POSSIBLY do.

Once you have reached a conclusion that X is good, you are no longer a nihilist. And that is still the case even if you say you are not sure. Even if you qualify it with the idea that you might be wrong.

Phyllo was pointing out that you think some things are good. You are not sure, but you think so. That means you are not a nihilist. One does not have to be 100% sure something is good to no longer be a nihilist. That’s not psychology, that deduction from what you say in two different instances.

I think what Phyllo and I react to is that you contradict yourself. You never admit this. You never, as you put it, wobble.

And here you do not respond at all to the contradiction. YOu again put down the gauntlet for others as if your own behavior and beliefs cannot be the issue.

Iambiguous,

Is it really important that God know everything? How would your life change, your behavior change, if you could find out, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God was omniscient?

Is THIS the way that you see it also? One can seek answers to the hard problems while at the same time striving to find balance between the two.

I think that one could but I also intuit that that would depend on the individual him/her -self. Some find meaning and joy in asking these questions albeit they may at times be a struggle. We all have our holy grail that we go in search of.

I am not so sure. Perhaps it took root in something which happened within our life that we are still learning to come to grips with, have not as yet resolved.
Perhaps for some it comes from a human being who has both a moral and ethical heart and mind who cares about others and who’s focus is “to do no harm”, someone who sees and understands the inter-connectedness and the entanglement of us all. Perhaps it comes from someone who has an unquenchable thirst to seek and find the wisdom and truth of things.

I suppose that what is at the bottom of it is human evolution.

I am not so sure that these people who as you say sink down into themselves will necessarily find their answers within like that but I may be wrong. I think many of the answers are to be find without, while looking, listening, reflecting on everything which they see.

So, is this question about God being a puppeteer and we the puppets, that no matter what we chose, after much reflection and struggling, let us say after having chosen one intelligent and reasonable option out of five different ways we could have gone, our choice is not based on self-determination and freedom because we would have ultimately made that choice anyway?

Did you mean to say my (as in your) own motivation, etc.?
What is that thick fog - you standing in your own way?

This is true and I think partly because we do not always remember our past as it actually was. We like to fill in some gaps to suit our purpose or just to have no empty unresolved spaces.

True too but at the same time an intelligent, reflective and reasonable person will know how to maneuver his or her way through it - just as an expert at darts will be able to find that bulls-eye or at least come pretty close to it. It takes practice and discipline.

Well then, is that not why we have ILP? lol

This is true. If we see ourselves as being fixed in time in a manner of speaking in a wholly-determined universe, how could there possibly be any other way for us to see ourselves except as puppets who have no real choice or freedom - so then what does it matter how we live our life? “What all men ought to do” then becomes kind of a moot issue, no?

It seems to me that that belief system paves the way for one to disallow any sense of responsibility toward himself and his fellow creatures unless one chooses to see his life choices as having meaning and real truth to them.

So just what is it that you are expecting consciousness to do if it is indeed some form of matter? What would it have to do with answering your question?

pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/physi … of-matter/

That was an interesting read.

Dreams are part of a process. Your consciousness, for whatever reason you needed, had already been in the process of creating that letter for some time. It was just the right time for the mailman lol to deliver it.

You would probably have to answer this question yourself based on the content of the dream, which is really something that you yourself conjured up from a combination of your desires and needs and thoughts about your relationship with your wife and daughter and all of the materials used from your conscious waking life and the world around you which you see.

That being the case, what would the next step for the philosopher be? What would his next question be?

You kind of remind me of the character, Quentin Clark, in Matthew Pearl’s book, The Poe Shadow. You came to mind as I was reading it the other day. I intuitively felt that you and he had something in common.

The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. When he is discussing how we should interact, then compromise, negotiation and moderation are what he concludes are good. Why? because since we cannot know what is good, we should have these attitudes. When he is focused on the mind or we point out something in his behavior, then he will say - but I always say my ideas are also contraptions.

But the odd thing is: he does not seem to believe it himself. IOW if he think it is all contraptions he would never say C N and M are good. He would simply be this fragmented, confused person who cannot draw conclusions.

And further it does not make sense for a nihilist to conclude, however tentatively, that something is good. A nihilist does not believe there is a good or a bad and, yes, as you point out thinks there are only preferences.

And he claims not to even know his preferences, since he only seems to have an ‘I’.

And yet, despite his not having an I, being a nihilist, being fragmented,

he manages to post the exact same thing for years.

How does a fragmented nihilist with no sense of consistent self manage to assert for years and years in a row that compromise, negotiation and moderation are better, iow more good, than other approaches to politics and human relations?

How does this broken being with no sense of a consistent self manage to write in exactly the same way, often with the same phrases in the same sequence with the same opinions, maintaining the same position for years, and without ever presenting specific doubts about any of his beliefs?

It’s all fine and dandy to make disclaimers: I know this might be an existential contraption on my part. But never once does one of his various fragments actually express an option about how his beliefs might be bad, how his logic might be off, in specific. Never does he present the belief that moderation might be a problematic thing for people to have as a guideline, with a specific argument or example.

I know that regarding abortion, in the abstract, he can express being pulled towards differing positions - but even objectivists can react that way. Even objectivists can be torn on some or many issues.

But in relation to his own behavior and his own beliefs of what is good, he never reacts with ‘on the other hand moderation might be a bad guideline because saying this to people could lead to X’ or ‘no you seem correct, when I, in that post you responded to, judged his position by not my own with specific bad consequences, I was not being consistant’ or ‘you’re right a nihilist would not conclude, even tentatively that X is good.’ This fragmented ‘I’ always manages to be amazed that anyone is questioning what he wrote as a possible contradiction with his major beliefs. He is always shocked that anyone might think that he is being hypocritical in specific communicative acts here. This fragmented ‘I’ always draws the same conclusion that his behavior here, in any specific example we bring up, is consistant with his philosophy. His fragments either all have the same evaluation of everything he does- God I wish my parts always did - or he is hiding hiding what thes other fragments think about, for example, moderation and compromise.

This fragmented unsure non-I seems utterly consistant and sure.

I think maybe its not so unnihilistic to say something and then not take responsibility for it and ignore when it is disproven and then say it again as if it was never even discussed upon, as if he just told you. No matter if a dude believes some thing is maybe good if he doesn’t have heart to stick by it when some other dude says no to it, he’s still a nilly no? You can say you have values but that doesn’t make it so.

You gotta be compassionated. It succs to know nothing not even have the luck to know what you like, didn’t it make of Socrate a happy dying camper? Life succs if you don’t know how to choose from its goodies. All in a pile it looks grey but the colours only come out when you jump in and pick your cherries. Then they’ll be red I can promise.