Philosophical Perversions

A small bunch of examples I’ve collected for a little while, here at ILP. First, the primary one I see all the time…

(I don’t think I got that one from ILP, unless someone named Jimmie Burroughs posts here or someone copy-pasted from his website “Christian Personal Development for Successful People”.)

An ILP version of the same idea…

And some other examples of philosophical perversions…

Some philosophical perversions are examples of equivocation (i.e. pretty much anything involving the word “absolute”). All are examples of the degradation of communication, language, and meaning.

source

I have a high level of respect for the ILP thinkers I’ve quoted, by the way. I hope nobody is offended by this. I do think the particular posts I’ve quoted here are quite silly though.

LOL

Glad you appreciate my effort, phyllo!

I really like the idea behind this one, anon. I can’t help but also think of the endless discussions regarding the existence of ‘nothing’ as another example–

“If nothing exists, then nothing is something.”

Excellent. I was hoping people would add to my list. Thanks Statik.

I don’t exist and neither do you.

Everything you do, you only do because you wanted to. Therefore, you should always do what you want.

The often recursive nature of the paradoxes presented in these posts is interesting. Kurt Godel’s incompleteness theorems are taken by many to invalidate the foundation of Russel’s Principia. While I realize that Godel’s work must have consequences for logic and mathematics, there is something about the procedure he uses that smells to me of… a parlour trick. Some kind of “slight of hand”. If anything, for me, it underscores the idea that no matter how we try to describe reality, whether in words or mathematic symbols, we are ultimately doomed to failure (at least in certain domains). Interestingly (and in stark contrast) Godel seemed to feel that his theorems supported the notion of an ultimate being and I believe he is credited with producing a version of the ontological argument that is pretty much logically bullet-proof.

In the words of Bertrand Russell:
“I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers wanted me to accept, were full of fallacies … I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.”
and…

“Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”

You jest but I’ve seen a couple of thousand page thread on that subject, although there’s was a theory of how free will does not exist unless you accept efferent light. In other words, bollocks.

Aware or not, we almost always think with absolute certainty of some sort at some layer of our mind.
And I think we do crave for the absolute certainty.
This is probably the reason most of us are often expressing things in the absolute format.
(Other than that, we often say things in absolute format probably because it can be tedious to express in well delimited relative format with due conditions, especially if one isn’t good enough or not used to doing so)

However, when we want to think in reasonable, logical, or whatever the way that would provide higher level of certainty ABOUT SOMETHING, what we get is always relative ABOUT IT and also relative to all references, methods, etc. (as long as we seek in affirmative manner).
So, our mind is somewhat doomed to desire absolute, in vain, always ending up in relative answers.
This might be the reason for some people making “relativist” statement, while s/he is showing the absolutist attitude in making it, at the same time.

Some people may think it’s a paradox, and other would be simply confused about absolute vs. relative.
But we can sort things out, IF we don’t try to deny our own desire/craving for the absolutes (and/or absolute certainty) and IF we don’t pretend to be absolutely sure when we are not.
So, it takes the honesty about one’s own desire and awareness about the desire and how we think because of it, how we should be thinking, and so on.

It’s not really “philosophical” problem, I’d say.
It appears to me as a problem of very basic thinking, and the perversion at the fundamental level.
And usually it show up as the lack of understanding about the relative nature of our thought, any evaluation, reasoning, logic, and so on, as far as I’ve observed.
Another sign is the lack of awareness about the focus/perspective one is using (if the person manage to have any stable focus/perspective).
When we are not aware of our own focus (or that of others), it’s so easy to mix up things of different level/dimension/nature/etc. Basically, we don’t know what we are saying/thinking, when we are not aware of our own focus/perspective. And most of us keep mumbling practically meaningless words, other than (often vague and confused) expression of desire/hope/fear/etc.

It’s so stupid and insane that you would get sad/mad if you happen to care about humanity a bit.
But emotional reaction would stop if we understand that there isn’t much hope for the most of humanity to think in more or less usable manner.
We are so unaware, to begin with. Yet so many of us are conditioned to think that we are aware and intelligent and smart and capable and so on. So, most of us remain in common delusion that we are “thinking” and “doing” things with their own “will”/“choice” when we are just like bunch of broken robots.
I do think humans (and probably other monkeys and animals) have some potential/possibilities.
But probability of becoming less robotic seems very low.

In other words, we can probably continue our insane talk without worrying too much.
As there would be no big difference if we think and say something, here and there.

You only CAN do what you want. You can never do what you don’t want, otherwise you would have.

Well duh.

Said this myself very often: There are No Absolutes, but then it just ends up going into an infinite Recursion, since any Relative entities or items must be based on Absolutes, some Invariants, but any and all Invariants have Variant parts of them and are composed of/can be Variables and so on. The solution is to take it is a VAGUE IDEA, AN APPROXIMATION, AN IDEA THAT IS STRUCTURALLY CONTRADICTORY, BUT THE CONTRADICTIONS ARE OK SINCE YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ELIMINATE THEM, etc. The problems is thinking in Absolute terms like saying “There are NO Absolutes” meaning every point in Space and Time and every Entity imaginable and Every anything else and such. The problem is in the word ALL, you can’t see ALL and be sure, you can’t talk for the entire Universe and for all Time and for all Possible Possibilities (and Combinations of Matter and Possible Interactions and Events and such as in New Modified Man Brains plunging into a New Instant Singularity by suddenly and immediately changing the Neural Wiring of the Mind and such or dumping Wild Chemicals, Wild Symbols and Signals in the Man Brain), the problem is with the Universals and Generalizations.

So just say, There are not Many Absolutes, Most things Seem Relative, But I may be wrong, etc.

Progress Achieved

As you know in Brainium, every point in Space and Time is a Brain, a new Brainform, a new Mindform, a new design of an Observer, and every combination of points in Space and Time, every combination of items, elements, and entities, every concept, every design, no matter how disjoint is a new Brain, a new Processor, an Observer, etc. so the Mountain is a new Brain design, wildly different from ours and processing information (and undergoing an experience of existence and life and living, a new Lifeform a new Consciousnessform and experience of life and such so wildly and incredibly different from ours, trillions of times “Higher” and “More Advanced” and “Better” than ours and such) in a very wildly and completely different way from our Old Klunker of a Stone Age APE MAN BRAIN. So imagine what the car over there is as a Brain as an entity experiencing a lifeform and existence and consciousness: and imagine what the pebbles, and the ocean wave over there is as a new brain design and such, and imagine all the combination of material items and designs, all wild contraptions and such, a chunk of a highway, a chunk of a Stop Sign and a chunk of Food and a chunk of a Skyscraper and a chunk of a car dashboard and a wristwatch and such all mixed together to create a completely new and better and wild and interesting Brain Design, a new Brainform, a new form of Man Brain (maybe using other designs as signals as emotion subsystems, as circuits or neural networks, as thought machines, as the arguments of the functions as the Variants of the instantaneous Invariant a new Man Brain Design is and such), but actually of the Overman, as it is something that completely overcomes our puny one transistor circuit mind based on our puny Identity Principle and non Contradiction Principles and such.

But now, each brain decides to modify each other brain, each contraption decides to stick wild chemicals and signals into the other contraption and that other contraption becomes a new brain and that brain decides to modify the other brain so A modifies B, but then B modifies A and so on in an infinite loop, so the original universe from which A came from is lost forever, all reference points are lost forever now they are brainforms modifying each other reciprocally and recursively forever getting further and further away from the original universe, the memory of the past is gone forever and such, and then all of the points of Brainium are doing the same thing to all other points: the entire Monolithic Slab of Matter defined and delimited as Brainium self modifies itself recursively, ever faster and forever reaching infinitely higher levels of existence all stable infinite points, all achieved, all higher, and ever more metaphysical denotations and abstractions becoming real and such forever, all symbols upon symbols upon others all mixed, all experiments of all combinations forever 10^10^10000 (exponents of exponents, numbers so large you couldn’t fit them in the universe) new combinations each one infinitely further away from the previous and such.

So the entire idea of Absolutes falls apart in a jiffy: you just need to instantly change the wiring of our Man Brain instantly, just shove new circuits inside the Brain, just open the brain, mix it all up and close it, and you get the Instant Singularity, you don’t need Science or Reasoning, or the Evolution of something gradually leading to a Smarter and Deeper brain as in the Traditional Singularity that thought that Computers would reach a point of designing ever smarter computers into a singularity point, you just need to instantly and wildly experiment inside the Man Brain (as crazy as possible, be as illogical and contradictory and wrong as possible, invent the most impossible causes and effects just for fun (lie like crazy), like shoving a V8 engine in the Man Brain making it become a new Experiencing contraption, and then explain how it works later, make up all kinds of imaginary and fake and make believe mechanisms to justify the insanity, and then who cares if the Man Brain simply dies in the process, the goal is (was) very ambitious anyways, it justifies all and any experiments) chaotically and randomly inserting and mixing and changing the neural circuits inside it to reach a new experience and universe, etc.

THE APE MAN HAS SPOKEN ONCE AGAIN, THUS SPOKE THE TOBOR

While something positive cannot be absolute, negative (or the absence) can be considered as absolute, from certain perspectives.

I’m not offended, but I will defend my post as not silly at all.

If nothing is fixed, for example, that would mean

Everything is always changing.

Is that not an absolute statement.

If nothing is absolute, doesn’t this mean that…
No rule/law is true everywhere.

To me this is making a statement about what is the case everywhere.

But maybe I am missing something.

Another way to put my objection is that those statements are metaphysical statement and very strong versions of metaphysical statements since they describe, well, everything.

If you are not in doubt about something it doesn’t follow that you are absolutely sure. And vise versa.

Well, I guess I knew that, but maybe I am missing something.

Feel free to be “absolutely sure” of that.

Well, my ‘maybe I am missing something’ was actually more of a rhetorical expression than a literal one.