Something Instead of Nothing

And all paranormal phenomena, insofar as it exists, rather than having conspiratorial, extra-terrestrial or spiritual explanations, might have a partly, or fully spontaneous explanation.

The universe may be (un)consciously playful, mischievous…whimsical, on occasion.

But you only say this because you were never not going to say it.

Whatever you said yes to here:

Biggy says yes.png

That’s my question to you.

I’m at a loss regarding why you think I’m not owning up to it. I’m just not troubled by it.

That’s just a generalization of the same question.

Yes or no will do.

Clarity at last!!! Thanks Biggy! You see, now I understand your position a bit better. So I see the banana as yellow because I choose to, but I could not have made any other choice (which is why it doesn’t feel like a choice)… does that mean it’s not really a choice, or that we only have one choice? And if it’s not really a choice, does that make meaning impossible? As in, I see the banana as yellow, but that doesn’t mean anything–certainly not that the banana is yellow.

Let me tell you something about human nature, Biggy: we may get a certain measure of comfort out of the thought that there is a benevolent God watching over us, or an afterlife of everlasting bliss, or that we are free to make choices in this world, or that what we think we know is directly connected with the truth. But we are creatures of evolution, creatures built for survival. We are predominantly focused on finding means of survival in this world. So while all the above may give us a certain measure of comfort, there are far more pressing things to worry about. What good would it do us in the game of survival to count on an afterlife to secure our survival and well being? What good would it do us to believe in freedom from the laws of nature when the laws of nature are what we count on to predict and control our world? What good would it do us to worry about knowing the absolute truth about the very essence of ontology when all we really need to know is what’s immediately in front of us and how to maneuver through the world in order to survive? If anything, evolution wants us to to have a grim outlook on the afterlife, for how better to motivate us to put off death for as long as possible? Evolution would want us to believe in the laws of physics, for how better to enable us to predict and control our world, thereby making survival that much easier.

For this reason, we are far more inclined to cling to and defend our beliefs and values regardless of whether they bring us comfort or are really, really, really grim. How pleasant or depressing our beliefs and values are is a very small factor in what motivates us to cling to or reject our beliefs and values. Evolution doesn’t mind putting its children through a lot of shit–forced to endure a painful life with an asbolutely grim outlook–so long as our survival is ensured. And we are given the tools by which to do this to ourselves. We are creatures of thought. Cogitation is one of our most useful tools of survival. We try to figure things out, and once we do–once we’ve formed a cognitive model of the world that informs our values and our actions–we cling to it like a newborn to its mother. And if we don’t figure it out ourselves, we learn it from others–through our upbringing, through frequent contact with our social groups, through trusted authorities, etc. ← This means that our beliefs and values perform and very powerful social function. Clinging to our beliefs, therefore, is not only a matter of fearing ignorance or being wrong, but of maintaining harmony and cohesiveness with our community. It helps communication immensely, and oils the wheels of friendly socialization, of healthy relationships, or being accepted. This is primarily why we cling to our beliefs and value, why it matters very little how delightful or grim they are. When our beliefs and values are torn apart, a terrible sense of insecurity settles in; we feel naked, defenseless, forced to grope in the dark. And we risk the scorn of our peers who will ultimate outcast us. While it may be a grim prospect that we are not really free, or that the knowledge gap is unbridgeable, or that the obliteration of the ‘I’ upon death is inevitable, the tearing down of our beliefs and values is absolutely horrifying.

The fact of the matter is, you could easily believe in whatever you want. Believing in something based on faith is one of the most natural things the human mind can do. Other people do it all the time. And I keep telling you, Biggy, you’re not special. You could convince yourself that you have an answer. Whatever seems the most plausible. Make all that grimness go away. There’s not really a lot stopping you except an instinct, one that we all share, to cling to whatever beliefs and values you’ve been clinging to up until now.

I don’t get it. Are you saying that my “I may be right, I may be wrong,” attitude implies that I have the answer? Or that there is an answer out there and it may be mine but it may not?

I’m not sure how taking a “I may be right, I may be wrong” attitude is compatible with a “I am right, period” attitude. I can only surmise, therefore, that you mean this attitude of mine implies I think there is an answer out there (and maybe I have it, maybe I don’t).

But I don’t think it even implies that. If I’m right, then there is an answer out there and it’s mine. If I’m wrong, then maybe there’s an answer out there that isn’t mine, or maybe there is no answer. Maybe the truth is beyond human comprehension.

I struggled with this for a while when trying to flesh out the logic of my theory of mind. The question for me was: how can I propose to know anything about the things outside my mind when my own theory says that 1) such knowledge would really be just another mental artifact inside my mind (an intellectual contraption as you put it), and that 2) anything outside my mind is necessarily incomprehensible (except maybe for other people’s minds)? But then I stumbled upon a whole new way of thinking about the relation between knowledge and the known. I call it the “key and lock” model–to be contrasted with the “copy” model. It says that our concepts and knowledge of the things outside our minds are not to be thought of as “copies” of those things, but as keys to a lock. The concept or knowledge in the head is like a key and the things conceived or known are like the lock for that key. ← The point being that they didn’t have to “match” but that there could still be a connection between them, that the one could belong to the other.

^ But anyway, the point is that as my theory stands today, I have a way of conceptualizing a connection between what I think I know “here and now” and what there actually is out there in the world. I know I haven’t explained it in enough detail for you to get it, but there it is. Still, it doesn’t provide me with a right to say I know I’m right. The keys I have in my mind may be the right ones for the locks out there, but they may not be. And this includes the very “key and lock” model that allows me to say this. If the key and lock model is wrong, then I’m back to square one–having to take seriously the prospect that what I think I know here and now can’t match anything out there–and this remains a possibility even while taking comfort in what my key and lock model of knowledge allows me to believe.

Fuck yeah!!!

That’s exactly what I just said.

See Biggy, you seem to have a tendency to take agreement between us and turn it into disagreement. I consistently agree with you that whatever I think, say, or do, I think, say, or do because I could never have not thought, said, or done it. And yet, in response to that very statement, you bring it up as an objection: but whatever you think, say, or do, you think, say, or do because you were never not going to think, say, or do it–as if that counters what I just said. I get the impression you think that if you repeat this a critical number of times, some light switch is going to go off in my mind, and I’m going to realize how wrong I am… despite that I’m actually agreeing with you.

This is why I’ve said more than once that our contention is not over something that we agree with or disagree with, but over the fact that I’m comfortable with all this and you are not. While I’m OK with the fact that anything we think, say, or do may be only as we were ever going to think, say, or do, you seem to bring it up to point out that we have not gotten rid of that fact… as if I’m going to say: oh geez, you’re right, and here I thought we had risen above that pesky truism. No, I’m saying I have no idea how we’re going to rise above it, and I don’t care. Sorry I can’t help you.

But I also get the impression your issue isn’t really with determinism, but with knowledge. You seem to need to know that what you think here and now is the truth, that what seems real to you here and now is reliable. You seem to bring up determinism, or that whatever you think here and now is a consequence of the laws of matter making your brain think whatever you think here and now, as the final thing to grapple with before you can move forward. You seem to regard the laws of matter–the dominoes that topple over–as accidental, as arbitrary. That is, that because everything obeys physical laws, nothing is done “on purpose” or “with intent” or “according to a plan”. And the next step for you seems to be: everything we think, feel, and experience is equally accidental, equally arbitrary. So while I may work through a mathematical proof on paper, convinced that the logic holds through-and-through, that the premises I start with do in fact lead to the conclusions, it may just be as random and accidental as a bunch of sentences haphazardly slapped together. As in: I have black hair, therefore my mother likes ice cream, thus the government is corrupt. ← A bunch of accidental propositions randomly slapped together to match the accidental events in my brain which made me think them slapped together by the laws of matter.

^ Is this what ultimately concerns you? If so, I would say your principle concern isn’t over determinism but the reliability of knowledge. You want to know that the mathematical proof you go over isn’t in reality just a bunch of randomly slapped together accidents of thought, that the reason you see in it is real. You suffer a case of classical Cartesian skepticism. Read his Meditation I–he convinces himself to doubt everything along very similar lines that you do. He manages to pull himself out of it in Meditation II, but his method wouldn’t work for you: he convinces himself that if anything’s real, it’s the ‘I’. And well, we all know how you feel about the ‘I’. In any case, the point is that the fallibility of knowledge (or any mental experience) is a problem for both determinists and free will proponents. Our brains can make us think the things we think (or feel, or experience) no less in a non-deterministic universe as in a deterministic universe. Or maybe there are no such things as brains. Maybe God controls everything we think and experience, making us hallucinate brains when we open up human craniums. Or maybe we’re in the Matrix. Maybe we’re being fed the image of a material world but the truth is that the world isn’t material at all. Just like dreams, right? All this is possible regardless of whether we’re determined by laws (physical or otherwise) or are free to choose whatever we want. If we have free will, we make mistakes on account of being misinformed by false experiences. If we are determined, we make mistake on account of not being able to not make mistakes. But at the end of the day, it’s a question of the reliability of our experiences and knowledge.

I will just say that though the things that go on in the universe are accidental (in the sense that no one intended them), this does not mean arbitrary or random. The fact that things play out according to physical laws means that there is an order to things. Take computers, for example. We have built computers to do complex mathematics and logical information processing. It is quite predictable that when you enter “4 + 4” into a computer, you will get 8. This is only possible because computers follow the laws of physics. Why can’t the same be said of the human brain? Sure, it isn’t perfect, but isn’t it plausible that the human brain evolved to have the ability to think rationally and think of the world in terms that make logical sense. Wouldn’t it have to if the world itself is governed by physical laws that require a keen intelligence and rational thinking in order to maneuver around and control it? Wouldn’t brains that think in a haphazard fashion, despite how much sense they think they are making to themselves, come to an abrupt end when they fail natures tests? There probably were brains like that in the past, but they died–that’s how evolution works. Now, I realize this is just another intellectual contraption but I hope it at least offers you a way of thinking about determinism that doesn’t have to imply that reason and logic are ultimately illusory.

This seems to be based on the idea that there is an “orthodox” determinism which is … static? agreed on? understood? exactly reflecting reality?

Instead, I think it means different things to different people … even to “real” philosophers.

Agency is closely connected whenever the discussion arises

You seem to think that philosophy and “language games” are hard categories with well defined boundaries. I see them as much more fuzzy with considerable overlap.

I don’t even agree with this because the definitions of the concepts are going to be based on how you approach it. They could be connected. One notices it when digging deeper into the meaning of the words “absolute”, “darkness” and “light”.

But let’s agree to disagree or whatever. Moving on.

If there is an actual door, I will see it just as you two do. Instead, my focus is on the extent to which I am choosing to see it given that I could have freely chosen not to see it. Or given that this choice – all of our choices – are really only as they ever could have been.

How is this in fact demonstrated definitively such that no reasonable men and women could doubt it?

And if you see a door in a dream? How is this either the same or different from seeing a door once awake? How is the relationship between the brain and the mind the same or different?

Of course some here insist that I have a firm point of view regarding all of this.

And that is simply preposterous. As with my arguments regarding “I” in the is/ought world, my arguments here are profoundly problematic. If only because of that ubiquitous gap between what I think I know here and now and all that can be known about these relationships.

Still [I suspect] what seems to agitate some folks here more than others is my suggestion that their own “I” may well be considerably less substantial than they think it is.

This post should rather be named Philosophy Instead of Sophism.

No ruffled feathers intended.

I am of the belief [here and now] that “generally speaking” mathematics, the laws of nature, empirical facts and the logical rules of human language, provide us with answers that seem clearly to be either right or wrong. Objectively.

But: In a No God world even this can be questioned if we go far enough out on the ontological limb: sim worlds, demonic dreams, solipsism…

Then going back to gap between what we think we know about existence here and now and all that can be known about it.

As for our identities, there are any number of demonstrable facts that we can provide for others. Things that are in fact true about us. And doctors can examine us to determine the parts that are true “naturally”, biologically.

This thread however focuses more on the extent that, in a world in which something rather than nothing seems to be the case, our thoughts and feelings about this something are truly our own, freely, autonomously.

No, an ambivalent person would seem more likely to grapple with the ambivalence itself. In particular someone like me. Why? Because clearly my thinking is at odds with the preponderence of others.

All I can do then is to explore the significance of that. Though, sure, there is not much chance that I will be able to persuade folks like you from thinking what you will about my motivation and intention.
[b]
After all, you are someone who seems to believe in God and objective morality. What if I am able to persuade you not to? And here on this thread I am questioning your very capacity to pursue these relationships autonomously. It’s the part about seeing “I” as an existential contraption in the is/ought world that seems most disturbing to you. Well, what if even this “I” is just a mechanical contraption in a wholly determined universe.

In other words, one way to look at our exchanges, is that you have much to lose in being unable to anchor “I” as you do here and now. Whereas as “I” have so much to gain if I can jettison the hole and the nothingness that is oblivion and the dominoes that may well be toppling over in my head at this very moment.[/b]

No, I’ve convinced myself that here and now I don’t know if, in regard to any of my wants and needs, they are truly my own autonomous choices.

Making them my fucking wants and needs doesn’t change that.

Isn’t that the whole point of moral and political objectivism? Or of those philosophical objectivists here convinced that how they grasp the relationship between the human brain and the human mind has in fact been demonstrated to be the right answer for all rational men and women? Why? Because they have, first and foremost, convinced themselves of it!

With you it’s Communism, with them it’s the understanding of existence itself!!

Okay, note a context. Note behaviors in conflict. Note your own distinction between rational and irrational interaction.

Then note the manner in which you are convinced that these interactions are truly autonomous.

You keep refering to “rational human beings” but you never establish what that actually means. Given your philosophy, it seems unlikely that you can make a distinction between rational and irrational.

Now you want me to do it for you. #-o

Here we go again…

1] first you seem willing to exchange substantive posts regarding one or another philosophical issue
2] then over time something analogous to contempt seems to creep into your posts…I become the issue
3] then you abandon the exchange – actually responding to the points I raised above – for a “retort” like this one
4] then you steer clear of me altogether until the next “round”

Or, rather, so it seems to me.

As for the part about “rational human beings”, my aim is always to zero in on an actual contexts in which behaviors come into conflict. And then to explore the extent to which any particular behavior might be called rational or irrational. And then in exploring how that might be demonstrated beyond “general description” arguments embedded in intellectual contraptions.

On this thread however the focus is on autonomy itself. Are these exchanges the embodiment of autonomous human beings able to freely choose one set of words rather than another? Or, instead, is it merely a manifestation of a seeming “psychological freedom” that we think we have, but that, given the assunmption that mind is brain and brain is just more matter, we really don’t.

And in how that might be demonstated one way or the other once and for all.

Would you guys settle on the legal definition ?

This hypothetical person referred to as the reasonable/prudent man exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct that society requires of its members for the protection of their own and of others’ interests.

For one thing, you repeat yourself. It’s like I’m reading the same things over and over. If I try to shift to something new, then you either don’t understand, or you ignore it completely or you ignore it by shifting to something you prefer to talk about.

And then there is the fact that you don’t seem to remember anything that I have written. I wrote several times about my ideas of self which seem to be completely lost on you. What you remember seems to be mostly a stereotype person - not me. This is particularly evident when you bring up my ‘supposed’ thoughts about God, religion and communism.

It feels like you have known me for a week instead of the years that I have been posting.

Yeah, after a while I get enough of it.

If you can’t distinguish good and bad in general (or in a context), then how can you possibly distinguish rational and irrational in general (or in a context)???

Really. Seriously. This is fundamental.

Think about what you are asking.

You can’t explore it because you have no basis for deciding what is rational and what is irrational. There is no way to get off the starting line.
:confusion-shrug:

Sure. One can start there.

But will he?

You’re only reiterating the implications of a deterministic world. Everything from the smallest event to the most complex are only as they ever could have been.

But consider that our species forms low resolution mental models of the world and the mechanics that propel one event into the next, and that this allows us to imagine alternative outcomes of past events and predicting outcomes of some future events.

That is not to say they ever could have been different… but our ability to imagine it being different if only we had done x instead of y, is how we might adjust our behavior and navigate the world.

Even if every thought or action we ever have or take is predetermined, it does not change the process by which they arrived…

It is parts of this process we might take ownership of and the results of those parts that we could call “choice”

These were certainly my experiences: 1)

Right: Repetition if it applies or not. And as if one has not understood what is repeated.

Right: does not really notice his discussion partners.

And when you get irritated, he interprets this as his discussion partner feels threatened. Not once can he consider that it might be for the reasons given. He certainly leaves open that his interpretation might be incorrect, but cannot manage to actually consider ANY OTHER INTERPRETATION for why others get angry. And despite his own philosophy he will happily tell someone else what they believe and what their minds are like. Through the mists of dasein he only finds one thing, every time.

Oh, thank God my time with this is over.

Meanwhile, lets remember that the forum is not an proxy referendum on Imbigious, but on a forum on Something Instead of Nothing.

Where he becomes of interest, ( to me, at least) is, his referentiality descending further then an existential nihilism. This holding is perceived by the ontological reduction(eidectic)- leveling out below the dualistic: either/or , pre-ontic phase of phenomenology, wherein existence is currently analyzed and treated.

That sounds high fallutin’ but what it implies is that the cognitive faculties are dealing on the level of residual and part (cut) dissemblances rather then with current accepted familiar language structures, which have by now have ‘leapt’ to the basic core of meaning.

This ‘leaping’ has to occur, in order to fill in the missing parts, and the effort to leap within a constrained level of acceptance of a medicum of reasonableness on the basis of absolute certainty, ignores the weakness that such absolution is never completely possible.

In moral terms, particularly with religious overtones, such tolls in the never-ending search for IT, the Being. , not only in It’s self, but within It’s Self.

This is an admirable effort, a purely Platonic or Neo-Platonic effort, one that a purist would hold.

But this forum’s intention , I presume does not, can not lower to a point which is much lower than an existential plane , congruent, or at least compatible with Sartre’s ’ Being and Nothingness’. With Nietzsche, it is above a moral equivalent, its beyond good and evil, even if Sartre was his contemporary.

Limits of the modern reify into boundaries between the Enlightement and the Post Modern, and the idea just posted, I think by Phylo, that we can imagine a non determined world, even if knowing that exist facto, it will be interpreted as statistically determined, may give credence to a difference between such a forward hyposthetized look into a possible past occurance, OR, give the opposite view of a completely locked in , intractable lack of any freedom whatsoever.

There is this difference, and the new choices are 3: nothing(nihilism); something (leaping unwisely headlong), or, using new partial differences schemes to change not perhaps the hard drive structure, but the rebuilding a slowly disintegrating and archaic structure piece by piece.

.

No, I keep pointing out that I do not have access to an argument that is able to convince me that I was either able to choose not to say it or that I was not able to choose not to say it.

And that the argument you propose is likely to be embedded in the same antinomy. The one revolving around the exact relationship between the brain as matter and the mind as brain. A relationship that [seemingly] can only be understood to the extent someone understands the existence of existence itself.

Actually, that’s my question regarding the entire exchange. Is it unfolding only as it ever could have going back to an essential understanding of existence itself, or do we have the capacity to both ask and answer these questions with some measure of autonomy going back to an essential understanding of existence itself?

But that just takes us to this: Were you ever able not to not be troubled by it?

Again, if, hypothetically, we lived on a planet that was wholly determined, an observer from an autonomous planet, could note that you are not troubled by it. But then his friend points out that, unlike them, you were never able to freely choose to be or not be troubled by it.

Though sure my thinking here could be flawed. If so, then, using this example, straighten me out.

Note to others: What point do I keep missing here? However general or specific the questions, we either choose to ask them “of our own free will” or we were never able not to ask them.

Clarity? How clear can we be about any of this until an argument is framed that resolves the question such that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace it.

And how on earth is that possible until an argument is framed connecting the dots between this resolution and the ontological understanding of existence itself?

Or are your posts [and your book] as far as we need go?

In a wholly determined universe this would seem to be just the banana matter and the brain matter going through an “experience” that was never, ever going to unfold in any other way. Was never, ever able to. What’s mindboggling of course is still the part where matter evolves into mind able to convince itself that the meaning it imparts to the experience seems to be one that the mind was able to not choose instead.

I note this…

…and somehow you are convinced that these points reflect an effective response to it:

None of this enables me to grasp if my “really really really grim point of view” is or is not “beyond my control”.

And none of it enables me to grasp in turn the extent to which the things that I cling to or defend is or is not “beyond my control”.

We do seem able to grasp that the evolution of life on earth has culminated [so far] in the minds of our own species. But that doesn’t resolve the quandaries embedded in dualism, in the mysteries entangled in the part where the brain ends and the mind begins.

And then, for others, the part where the mind ends and the soul begins.

And “the fact of the matter” is that I don’t know if what I come to “easily believe” is or is not in turn “beyond my control”. I only think I know this based on all of the information and knowledge and ideas I have fortuitously bumped into over the course of living this one entirely unique life.

Same with you.

Really, can you even begin to grasp all of the information, knowledge and ideas that you have not yet happened upon relating to these relationship.

Explored in, for example, these arguments: google.com/search?q=free+wi … es&ie=&oe=

Okay, let’s try to pin this down more. Do you believe that, in regard to the relationship between the brain as matter and the human mind this matter has evolved into, “I” is able to understand it such that it can be determined whether or not “I” am freely choosing to type these words or, instead, “I” was never able not to type them?

To what extent do you construe your arguments here as true objectively? To what extent are you able to demonstrate that there is in fact one right answer and that you are convinced it is yours?

Otherwise you would seem to embrace the assumption that “I’m right from my side and you’re right from yours”. Based entirely on the intital conflicting premises that the arguments falls back on.

Or maybe you were never able to come to any other conclusion but that one. Your “theory of mind” being just another sequence of dominoes toppling over “inside your head” reconfiguring necessarily into a sequence of words in a book that was never able not to be written.

But this “intellectual contraption”…

… is entirely too abstract to be of any practical use to someone like me. How on earth would/could this be related to the actual behaviors that we choose? In either the either/or world or in the is/ought world?

So, in regard to your increasing exasperation with me as someone not able to grasp the points you make, is that just an exercise in polemics? Or do you really believe that, as intellectual contraptions go, yours is right up there with the best of them. And mine is not.

Sure, as long as just insisting that something is true need be as far an one goes.

But: Is that exactly what you were only ever able to say? And, if so, what are the existential implications of that regarding all of the other things that you think, feel, say and do?

How on earth is your theory of mind relevant here? And, in a wholly determined universe, how is anything that you claim to mean here not just the next sequence of dominoes “in your head” as nature unfolds necessarily.

And then the part about how time fits into all of this. Is the future only as it ever can be? And what is this “time” that matter topples over mechanically into?

And the fact that you figure you are more comfortable with what you think you mean here is only just another inherent component of reality itself. Yet you express it as though this were an accomplishment of yours. An accomplishment that you were never able not to achieve if “I” is no less determined than all other matter. And you point out that you can’t help me in what may well be a world in which there was never any possibilty of you not thinking and feeling this.

If the reason and the logic that any particular mind is able to utilize to function only as it ever could have functioned then that reason and logic exist only as they ever could have existed in turn.

But we do not seem to have the capacity to determine if this is in fact the case or not. It’s just that some think they do have that capacity and others think they don’t.

Then it’s either/or [if it is either/or] all the way down to whatever brought into existence the existence of existence itself.

Okay, I’ll leave it to others to determine for themselves how accurate accusations of this sort are. Provided of course this is something that they are actually able to determine for themselves freely, autonomously.

Okay, let’s give this one more shot…

1] Explain and describe your ideas about the self in a particular context we might all be familiar with. How are these ideas integrated into actual behaviors that you choose such that the manner in which you construe the meaning of God, religion and Communism become easier to understand.

2] How is your argument embedded less in an existential contraption and more in a set of assumptions that all rational men and women are likely to adhere to.

3] how do you go about making moral choices on this side of the grave given the manner in which you construe the fate of your self on the other side of it?

And how is all of this then understood by you given the arguments of some that, in a determined universe, all such explanations and descriptions are only as they ever could have been given that the mind is a manifestation of the brain is a manifestation of the matter that interacts given laws embedded in how the existence of existence itself came into being.

So, what do you do? You head straight back up into the clouds.

What is generally – fundamentally – good and bad in any particular context? Let’s focus in on conflicting value judgments from the news that the objectivists on both the left and the right might construe to be in sync with that which is generally good or generally bad.

How does any particular “I” come to embrace one frame of mind here rather than another? Assuming that human autonomy does in fact exist.

On the contrary, I make a clear distinction between that which we are able to determine is in fact true for all of us or is in fact false for all of us — regarding any particular context.

The basis for determining what is in fact true revolves around the extent to which it can be demonstrated that what we believe is true is in sync with the laws of nature, with mathematical proofs, with empirical evidence and with the logical rules of language.

Does God exist?
Is abortion immoral?
Is building Trump’s wall the right thing to do?
Are the choices we make autonomous?
Did everything explode into existence out of nothing at all?

And on and on and on.

What needs to be known by any particular “I” to answer these questions objectively?

Then the part [on this thread] where it is demonstrated that this knowledge is something that any particular “I” is able to acquire autonomously.

What I am reiterating is the fact that I am pulled in both directions when trying to determine if in fact this is true.

But how is this ability to imagine and to navigate not in turn wholly in sync with that which could only ever have been.

Instead, some might argue, the natural evolution of matter into the human brain has created this truly extraordinary matter. Mind matter actually able to become conscious of itself as matter able to convince itself that “I” is choosing what it does “freely”.

This is what neuroscientists are attempting to pin down. But: Have they accomplished it?

I suspect instead that all of us will go to the grave believing that what we think we know is…is what exactly?

How do we even begin to grapple with these relationships given that gap between what we think we know and all that there is yet to be known?

Sure, we can marvel at questions this big. And they make for some truly intriguing answers.

But the answer?

This is [admittedly] the part I may well be tripping up on. How is the “process” itself not but one more manifestation of a wholly determined universe?

Does “I” have any more autonomous control over that?

Okay, you too:

[b]1] Explain and describe your ideas about the self in a particular context we might all be familiar with.

2] How is your argument embedded less in an existential contraption and more in a set of assumptions that all rational men and women are likely to adhere to.

And how is all of this then understood by you given the arguments of some that, in a determined universe, all such explanations and descriptions are only as they ever could have been given that the mind is a manifestation of the brain is a manifestation of the matter that interacts given laws embedded in how the existence of existence itself came into being.[/b]

Yet another round of huffing and puffing in which I become the issue.

Look, if you have no respect for either the points I make or the manner in which I express them, fine. Move on to others. But here you are piling on with Phyllo in order to inform others of just how far removed I still am from taking philosophy seriously.

Like you do, right?

Anyway, with any luck, your own contributions to this thread will only have been what they could ever have been.

Not unlike, for example, mine.

I ask you to state what rational and irrational mean so that we can discuss it in this forum and you accuse me of heading up into the clouds. Are you fucking kidding???

Is that it? Is that your definition of rational?

A rational human is someone who demonstrates that a belief “is in sync with the laws of nature, with mathematical proofs, with empirical evidence and with the logical rules of language”.

Is that your answer?

If it is, then we can tackle abortion.

And I responded to that above:

As for the part about “rational [or irrational] human beings”, my aim is always to zero in on actual contexts in which behaviors come into conflict. And then to explore the extent to which any particular behavior might be called rational or irrational. And then in exploring how that might be demonstrated beyond “general description” arguments embedded in intellectual contraptions.

We have tools in the either/or world for distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable thoughts and feelings and behaviors. Are those tools applicable in turn to the is/ought world?

Well, the only recourse we have is to focus in on the behaviors of particular human beings out in a particular context and discuss that which we contrue to be either rational or irrational.

Right?

Only this tread is more intent on exploring the extent to which, in regard to human interactions, the is/ought world is actually just another manifestaion of the either/or world.

You [and others here] are the ones ever intent on defining it. I am more intrigued instead with the extent to which one can take his or her definition out into the world of human interactions and note for us the actual existential parameters/implications of what they think it means.

Yeah, that’s one way in which to encompass it out in the world of human interactions. Is it the only way? Maybe not. All I can do in places like this is to take note of other arguments.

So, let’s focus in first on what it means to “tackle abortion” given the manner in which you define rational.