That is why I understand, why you post how you do, because we are alike in that respect, but I possess a volatility (that requires exercising now and again), that you do not.
When an argument is not of a confrontational kind, respondents are unsure of how to approach it and formulate a response… because there’s no hook… unlike in ac electricity or Velcro. Our type is also the most disliked by other types, but hey.
“but it seems this forum is pretty well wound up” Meno, it’s called having a pulse… don’t make me have to call you the Endocrinology Police again now, will you… ; )
Of course phoneutria is also quite capable of sustaining exchanges that never seem to come down out of the “theoretical stratosphere”. Here in regard to “value”.
Value? No, not actual things or relationships or beliefs…not actual entities that some value and some don’t. Instead, as “serious philosophers”, it becomes vital to pin down “value” as an intellectual concept. Only when philosophers are thoroughly familiar with all of the technical, epistemological parameters of “value” might they decide to bring that down into the world where people do value different, conflicting things. And, in fact, get into arguments over whether rational human beings are obligated to value some things more than others.
Still, she does come closer to it than he does:
“but I think this distinction is important
as it pertains to being a person
an actual person inside a human body with human thoughts and feelings and processes
and not just a schema of a person written down on some paper”
It’s basically the same distinction that I make. But there’s no actual context proposed in which to “illustrate the text”.
Instead, it stays up in the didactic clouds:
"that when you say:
“Value is the degree to which something is useful in attaining one’s goals.”
i would instead say
“Value is the degree to which something has a meaning”
“but meaningful things are useful!”
“but useful things are meaningful!”
What things pertaining to what goals in what set of circumstances?
“what does it explain about the human animal to say that we value useful things”
Or, for that matter, value things that others consider to be entirely useless.
And in fact it’s not totally unfeasible. After all, FC/Jakob is/was barbarianhorde, abhi-pratapta, and who knows how many more.
Then again, Meno seems unable, by and large, to make sense of others or to make sense himself. You just pretend otherwise out of pity, perhaps (for his having lost his son, and his mind). If you contest this, please explain that post of his which I quoted to Pedro.
Well you do sound upset Which usually a good sign to people like myself, who accidentially step on a buried nerve, thus releasing by catharsis , the negative energy there.
That the barbaric has a function in life is obvious, and the person honest with herself, must admit to the fact that the instinctual callback to it present is only the obvious: The thin veneer of civilization is not a personal thing, but a cover for long suppressed instinctual reactivation of the sorry emotional baggage we all carry around with us.
It does take fortitude to face that in others, but before that, primarily in one’s self.
But at times like these, it’s hard to separate the comic relief from the tragic undertow, and the difference keys in all kinds of misinterpretations.
I’m not at all upset. (Originally you’d written “unhinged”, which is even wider off the mark.) But I am somewhat surprised now; in fact, I think I must have hit a nerve, for you to summon all your wits together like that to form a coherent post! (The last sentence, which you added later, detracts from it again, though.)
I will admit that your “exceptional” objection has turned out to be “the last straw” for me, though. Although my quoting throughout this thread has been an expression of exuberance, not lack, I see now that people need to rationalise it to themselves as a weakness on my part…
::
I understand it may seem out of proportion to lash out at Nemo—and to a lesser extent at Pezo, and Madge—like that, but it’s not; I simply refuse to spare people who provoke me anymore, and confront them instead. I think the earth’s population should decrease, fast! Christians and other deplorables first.
“Some Christian or post-Christian form of monotheism, and with it the death of serious politics, has triumphed everywhere during the last two millennia. If isolated pockets of warrior piety exist today they are pitied as ‘backward’ or ‘underdeveloped’ peoples, that is, people whose ‘sexist’, ‘chauvinist’ or ‘racist’ prejudices require replacement by Christian-liberal ideals. The Jews, and only the Jews, never were reconciled to this replacement. They remained aware of the terrifying emptiness of apolitical, cosmopolitan solutions.” (Neumann, Liberalism, “The Case Against Liberalism”.)
I found it more plausible for you to be FC than Meno, hence my assertion, and not my stupidity.
…and many still don’t believe he was all those posters. He’s very good (I’ll give him that) is probably the reason why, most still don’t…
Lost… as in gaining custody, or lost… as in died. If it’s the latter, then that’s way worse than the former could ever be, but either way it’s a loss and a grieving process to have to go through because of it.
Why can I understand Meno? I’ll blame that on my education and English Literature class… all those books read, which at first were a bugger to dissect, has now paid off, in being able to dissect real people in real time.
Having read the Dictionary thrice, also helps.
Isn’t Satyr going through the exact same experience? Odd!
Perhaps you should lead by example, and take that first brave step into planetary decrease… ; )
Funny that! Meno calls me Madge… as has Ecmandu, and I have often wondered who both really are but then oftentimes, I stop… coz my thinking don’t give a shit, because it’s got too many other things to be thinking about, you know… big city life, n’that.
This is the real heart of communism. People that are easily threatened, so they dream of holocaust.
Everything else is an excuse. Environmental law, for example, is obviously meant to price the poor into starvation. Anti-gmo, the only technology capable of feeding everybody. Affordable energy like nucular.
Also why all this regulation, all these international bodies and accords, all these mechanisms of control. To keep the “rubes” in line, all these people that make them feel threatened.
This is what communists seek to create, a world of people so intimately sheltered, so divorced from the not-actually-unfriendly reality of life, that they will pay any price to be controlled, to be led, to be further sheltered. “Keep them away from me!” And the KGB happily obliges.
And that intention is critically tied up with the contradiction with a hidden transcendent object.
What is the value of a non planned state of affairs, when such can not foresee it’s actual realization? Oh God, please let me be understood, so as to understand!
[b]"12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.
13 For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
14 as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus."[/b]
Ah, now I understand. But just to be sure I’d like to run it by phoneutria. [-o<
Look, I’ve always been out in the open about my own interest in her here. I think that she has one the most intelligent minds at ILP. And easily one of the wittiest.
That always draws me to people. And, no, not just the “young and beautiful” ones. But, as an “old man”, I’ll leave that crap to Pedro, Prom75, Satyr, Shit Smears and god knows how many other men [and women] who are on the prowl for a young and a beautiful “philosophy chick”.
Me I want to explore her reaction to the arguments I make in my signature threads…in regard to human interactions at the existential juncture of identity, value judgments and political economy.
To what extent here might she be what I construe to be an objectivist?
(Originally you’d written “unhinged”, which is even wider off the mark.) But I am somewhat surprised 
but then oftentimes, I stop… coz my thinking don’t 