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Guilty of the first [ see sig ] but not of the second. Now were it not for my open mindedness then I might not be able to
post this link for Know Thyself is supposedly not for me. Well all I can say to that is I decide what I like not any one else
I do think I am unique but only in the sense that everyone else is too. And as far as egotism is concerned I have no need
for it and particularly as I seek those rather more intelligent than my self with regard to my own knowledge acquisition
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No and no. First one because I am an atheist and second one because I absolutely refuse to
deny free speech merely because the subject matter is deemed too controversial to debate
Reality-denial and modern SJWS vs more moderate liberals/leftists
From here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=190328&start=75#p2607656
This recent development is interesting. More and more people are denouncing SJWs and feminism lately. The majority of people now call themselves egalitarians and will hold very confused views about men and women. From my experience, most often they will claim that the differences are minor, and mostly social constructs, and that neither males nor females are generally superior, but that they supplement each other in their weaknesses and strengths. Those a bit on the edgy side and a little less mainstream may also pretend to acknowledge some more important but still shallow differences between men and women, and they consider this proof of their intellectual honesty.
SJWs have succeeded in promoting leftist/liberal ideas in that the SJW ideology is such blatantly insane bullshit that now its less radical variants are starting to seem like a good deal in comparison to the average person. Those who are moderately detached from reality and moderately stupid will pride themselves in not being extremely so. Yet they still buy into the core of the leftist/liberal bullshit, which is also the core of SJW ideology. For example, they will also take immense pride in not being “racist”, and they will constantly use comparisons to “nazis” and “fascists”, usually only as buzzwords and without actually understanding, or caring to understand, NS and fascism. Not to mention the comparisons to Hitler, who is pretty much made out to be the modern Satan.
Then there are those women, like Shit-Maiden, who noticed that it is very unlikely that they will get more than the current amount of privileges in modern societies without male backlash, so they decided to settle for what advantages they had managed to procure so far. They will try to preserve the current status quo and pacify men and convince them that this is how things are supposed to be. Best examples are those anti-feminist-but-egalitarian, and usually anti-MRA chicks you can find on YT.
The ones with a somewhat deeper understanding of things, like Karen Straughan (girlwriteswhat), may support MRA, because their ideals are based not on an instinctive response to the current environment, but on an understanding of the prevalent and harsh natural environment underlying the facade of human technology and social constructs, so they may notice that castrating their own men legally will backfire in the long-term.
Continuing on that:
I dislike the Milo guy whom some consider to be at the forefront of this anti-SJW movement when it comes to RL activism. I see the entire idea of him opposing SJWs or whomever because he is gay so he cannot be criticized or shamed like heterosexual men as a capitulation to liberal/leftist tactics and an admission of defeat. The same goes for Christina Hoff Summers. The fight against SJWs is only a fight against the most extreme forms of detachment from reality, while the majority of channels doing that, like thunderfoot, Sargon, and all other channels like Bearing, Skeptorr, etc. (most of which I don’t watch much anymore, and I never watched the likes of Bearing and Skeptorr) concede that the less extreme forms are alright, or even belong to these less extreme forms of reality detachment themselves.
Issues like inequality between the sexes are usually only admitted on a trivial level, such as pointing out female higher sexual value and male higher physical strength, mention intellectual differences, cognitive differences, differences in sexual roles, and suddenly everything becomes mystical, too complex to make any judgments confidently, or you’re simply outright bigoted and a Hitler-like fascist nazi or something.
Inequality between the races is even more of a taboo and you’re pretty much guaranteed to be called a racist if you point out some of the relevant advantages of whites over blacks, while of course nobody will mind if you point out blacks can run faster and jump higher.
If you think that the racial/sexual inequality should result in inequality before the law and inequality of treatment (as we humans do with pretty much all other categories, both within the species such as child-adult differentiation and interspecies, the human-other animals differentiation), you might as well have proclaimed your love for Hitler and the evil nazis, which means that 99%+ of the open-minded free thinkers will immediately disregard your position without any rational consideration.
All of this leftist/liberal and SJW nonsense is merely an adaptation to globalism and the need to integrate all humans in a single, multicultural society to avoid conflict and make them easily malleable by one global elite. Given that it goes against the nature of people to be around those from radically different genetic and cultural backgrounds it requires indoctrination and reduction of everything to pure hedonism that all can identify with, with no cultural and genetic identity permitted as they would give out the existence of relevant differences.
In a broader sense, it is merely a short-sighted response to the immediately perceptible human made environment, where submitting to authority and being tolerant is necessary to ensure short-term survival. In the long-term, however, it leads to extinction of some races, either “peacefully” by low birth rates and race-mixing, or violently, by increasing numbers of lower races breeding due to handouts by higher races.
The majority will, of course, choose the easier route and simply respond to the immediate environment, accepting the globalist premises. Going against this natural flow of things is difficult and demands immense mental strength. Going against the natural flow itself demands at least an intuitive understanding of natural processes, unlike going with the flow, which every beast and manimal does instinctively. It means being aware of cyclical natural processes of rise and fall, and maintaining a constant rise even if the environment allows for a fall. It means acting in response to natural environments even if the current environment is a sheltering, human one. It means being noble.
Conclusion and how all of this relates to reality-denial
The extreme insanity of the SJWs ultimately only served to reinforce the leftists/liberal delusions, because after witnessing such extreme insanity, less extreme insanity seems like sanity in relation to it. Few will actually continue questioning and exploring the issue beyond moderate liberalism/egalitarianism. This is because the basic premises of it were never questioned, since they are shared by both the moderately detached from reality (egalitarians, MRAs) and extremely detached from reality (SJWs, feminists).
Moderate reality-denial uses extreme reality-denial as its justification, and it places itself in the center and claims itself to be reality, while putting reality on the other side of the spectrum opposite to SJWs, making it seem just as insane. Egalitarians claim for what is actually reality to be another form of reality-denial on the opposite side of the spectrum from SJWs (the horseshoe theory). For example, since SJWs have a blatant hatred for whites and men and thus constantly criticize them (if you can call that criticism), anybody who criticizes blacks and women, regardless of whether their criticism is true or not, will be considered equally as crazy as an SJW. This is how SJWs were actually useful to egalitarians and moderates, whether they like to admit it or not.
That kind of reasoning is consistent with the logic of equality and egalitarianism, however the problem is that equality and egalitarianism themselves are reality-denying, since no two things are equal, much less all humans.
To people like that the primary concern is whether a claim is comparable to some other claim made by some other group of people, instead of whether the claim is true (has referents in reality). This already signifies the desire to detach from the real and remain in the clouds of their mental abstraction of equality and egalitarianism, which to maintain itself must denounce an honest exploration of reality. For them reasoning is checking whether a claim conforms to their own self-constructed ideals, instead of checking how it relates to reality. This makes them self-referential, since they deny reality as the referent, which also, obviously, makes them reality-denying.
Let us explore a concrete example of this kind of reasoning, and why it is reality-denying.
If somebody says “blacks on average are less intelligent than whites”, it is irrelevant whether that person’s claim is comparable to the claim of some black supremacist/SJW/whomever that “whites on average are less intelligent than blacks”. The only thing that matters is whether the claim itself is true. You don’t get to reject the claim as untrue just because its logical structure resembles some other untrue claim in the sense that both claims are proposing that one race is less intelligent than another. This is the faulty logic of egalitarianism, consistent with itself, but inconsistent when applied to sensual information about reality. The claim is to be rejected or not based on its referents in reality, or the lack thereof. If intelligence is a mental trait that has consequences in reality, then it is to be observed whether the expected consequences of intelligence manifest more in black or white societies, whether the behavior and accomplishments of whites or blacks demonstrates intelligence. But of course, this would require an honest engagement with the world - honestly perceiving and processing information. It is already taken for granted in modernity that most people are either incapable of it, or refuse to do it, which is why discussions are reduced to such pathetic “arguments” and word games and aren’t philosophical at all. It is pseudo-philosophy parading as philosophy.
Like most reality-denial, its psychological foundation are cowardice (inability to cope with reality mentally) and/or stupidity (prone to indoctrination, incapable of perceiving beyond the immediate environment). If it ever gets a little glimpse of reality about something superficial and/or irrelevant, like the existence of God or feminism, it will attach itself to that and hold on to it, sometimes to the rest of its life, happy to separate itself from the more extreme reality-deniers, feeling sane in comparison. It is most observable in those people who after becoming atheists talk about and explore nothing else for years and make it the purpose of their life to spread atheism and talk about atheism, when they usually buy into humanist nonsense, which is Christianity sans God. Or those who are determined in fighting the “evils of feminism”, not seeing that feminism is only a symptom of a problem that goes beyond ideology and is deeply rooted in culture, biology, physics, and ultimately, metaphysics, and that feminism is nothing but a consequence, not the cause.
The two types of reality-denial:
Dogmatic, typically religious - claim that something which is not, is, and claim it with absolute certainty, leaving no room for doubt. It is considered to be exempt from the epistemological standards applied to everything else - so while there are no more proof for the Christian God than any other deity, Christians will claim that all other Gods are fantasy and theirs just happens to be the one. Dogmatism is usually applied about ideas people are most uncertain about and have no other way of proving them, so they have to exaggerate their position to one of absolute certainty in truth - 100% probability, no other possibilities, tendency towards absolute order.
Skeptic, typically leftist/liberal approach - Claim that something which is, is not, and set the standard of evidence conveniently too high for anybody to prove it, or reject the possibility of it being proven in the first place on the grounds that it would be bigoted to even consider such an idea - morality intervening in epistemology. The same means of obtaining knowledge that would lead us to conclude that animals are different from humans (observing animal behavior and human behavior, perceiving differences amongst them and generalizing on the basis of those observations) can be used to further perceive differences between humans - races and sexes, but then it suddenly and for no obvious reason becomes unreliable. Skepticism is usually applied very selectively to socially controversial ideas in order to undermine their validity to avoid hurting the emotions of the masses and keep them docile and happy, they exaggerate absolute uncertainty to the point that all possibilities are equal and no probabilities can be discerned, rendering discrimination/differentiation bigoted and biased, as it is indeed without basis from this point of view - tendency to absolute chaos.
Dogmaticism gives leeway to certain ideas and specially exempts them from further examination while still holding ideas it does not like up to ordinary epistemological standards while skepticism does the contrary and selects specific ideas whose validity it doubts on purely emotional grounds and holds them up to often impossibly high epistemological standards despite those ideas being based on the same kind of reasoning as other ideas which are accepted.
Both dangerous in their own right.
Autsider warned for (unnecessary) sideswipe at another poster, having just been warned. Fifth warning.
I agree with this a hundred per cent even though I regard myself as an egalitarian. But that is more in principle than in practice because
as you say reality gets in the way. This is why my own worldview is not absolute but conditional as long as it does not contradict reality
You post interesting material AutSider even if I do not agree with all of it so I hope you do not end up getting permabanned from here
I try to blend all points of view/reference regarding reality, always incorporating the subjective into the objective simultaneously. Reality demands that both, objectivity and subjectivity, occur simultaneously. How is it ever an either/or scenario successfully? I would need concrete examples of how one could occur without the other.
For me it is not so much between subjective and objective and more between competing world views. The one I have [ atheism / nihilism / egalitarianism ] is the one I think most approximates reality. But it is only provisional so I could be wrong. What is interesting is how deep thinkers like Satyr and Jakob and HaHaHa and Trixie all seem so sure that their world view is absolutely true but I do not share the conviction with regards to my own. So I do not know if I am supposed to have opinions any more. Jakob has already highlighted my ignorance. So am I wasting my time on a philosophy forum when I know next to nothing about it ? The older I get the less I know. I am an old man but Trixie and HaHaHa know more than me already. The one thing I definitely know is that death is inevitable. I should spend less time on the internet and more time reading books. Even at my age
S57,
My world view is MMism. Enjoy your books.
Cartesian doubt: I’m gonna doubt in and be skeptical of everything that is right in front of my eyes and that my senses tell me obviously exists such as the sky, earth, color, sounds, and I will even consider my own hands, eyes, flesh and blood to be mere deceptions. I will assume none of that exists.
I will, however, assume that an evil demon exists whose specific purpose is to trick me into believing the above things actually exist when they don’t, even though I have absolutely zero fucking basis for assuming the existence of any such being, much less that it has the specific intention of tricking me into believing some things exist, and others don’t.
This will be the basis for all of my further reasoning.
^^ I’m supposed to treat this la-la-land nonsense as serious philosophy according to some. It’s very typical religion-influenced thinking in that it ignores the actual reality and pretends it doesn’t exist while at the same time coming up with complete bullshit for which they will claim is reality.
Being sceptical of everything is self defeating since one needs some basic axioms or first principles to operate from even if they are not absolute
Ones senses and cognitive ability might not be entirely reliable but they are all one has and so better to have some trust in them that none at all
The purpose of healthy skepticism directed at your own conclusions is:
- to verify that your conclusions are logically valid (i.e. that they can be logically derived from your premises)
- to acquire new observations in order to derive stronger conclusions
The purpose of pathological skepticism is to replace existing conclusions with conclusions that can never turn out to be wrong in the future.
This is impossible because no matter how precise your instruments are and how many observations you acquire the conclusions you derive can never be absolutely certain.
Pathological skeptics are thus forced to conclude that “knowledge is impossible”.
The problem is that the purpose of knowledge isn’t to be infallible.
The purpose of knowledge is to be sufficiently precise.
Knowledge is not impossible but absolute knowledge however is. Empirical truth can not be guaranteed to be absolutely true
but abstract truth can. For example the statement one plus one equals two is absolutely true. This is because it is deductive
so is definitely true as distinct from inductive which is only probably true
By using that logic, you can also say that empirical truths can be absolutely true.
For example, if you have a sequence of observations such as {1, 1, 1} then it is absolutely true that the next observation in the sequence will be {1}.
This is simply because there is no other logically valid way of extrapolation.
Instead of saying “absolutely true” when it comes to such propositions, you should simply say they are logically valid.
I think that’s more accurate.
Empirical truth is dependent upon evidence not logic and evidence does not always conform to our expectations
This is why any hypothesis in science has to be tested as merely assuming it does not automatically make it true
Empirical truth is dependent upon BOTH evidence and logic. Evidence isn’t enough. You must extrapolate properly. You can’t extrapolate arbitrarily. If you have {1,0,1,0} as your sequence of observations then you can’t conclude the next observation will be 0. That’s logically invalid.
My point remains. If you have a set of observations such as {1,1,1}, and these really are your observations, not merely imaginations, then there is only one logically valid conclusion regarding what’s going to happen next and that is 1. So why not call that “absolutely true”? Since it’s the only logically valid conclusion?
See, deduction and induction aren’t so different from each other as is commonly thought.
Either way, I understand what you’re saying. You’re saying that we are seeing no way in which logical truths can possibly change in the future wheraes we can easily see how empirical truths can change (since they are dependent upon evidence and since evidence is something that is acquired over time.)
Reality does not always conform to logical expectations because it does not follow such rules of inference
Which is why assuming the next stage in an apparently logical sequence is flawed for it might not be true
So one should avoid making assumptions and instead be open minded about what the evidence might be
Regardless of what turns out to be the next event in the sequence {1,1,1}, the conclusion that the next event is {1} would still be logucally valid i.e. the best guess given the evidence we have. If you’re calling logical statements such as “1 + 1 = 2” absolutely true then why not call the above, which is also a form of logical statement, absolutely true?
Of course, now that you have a different sequence of observations, say {1,1,1,0}, you will make a different conclusion. That doesn’t invalidate the previous conclusion.