Objectivists?

Once again, you are denying that there any such things as facts.

You have turned everything into identity, value judgement and political economy.

And don’t bother quoting me your usual “distinction” because you don’t use it consistently. It appears to be nothing more than a rhetorical tool.

You move on from the starting position that “there is no God”. Deal with it.

Stop talking about a God that doesn’t exist for you. Stop wanting stuff from your non-existent God. Stop asking people about God. What’s the point? You’re just going to negate everything that they say.

Once again you mock the distinction I make between an either/or world bursting at the seams with facts demonstrably applicable to all of us, and our subjective/subjunctive reactions – conflicted reactions – to those facts, insofar as we have pursued our basic needs historically embedded in one or another political economy.

Really, why on earth would you propose something so patently untrue?

Same here. As I noted recently to zero sum on the JSS thread:

[b]Like most of us, I am reasonably certain the empirical world around me is in fact applicable to all of us. 24/7 as it were. In fact, the overwhelming preponderance of our interactions with others [here or elsewhere] appear to clearly revolve around demonstrable truths.

After all, it would seem that since the Big Bang [whatever that means] a staggering proportion of material interactions happened only as they ever could have. Immutably some suggest.

Where things get mysterious however is when matter evolved into brains evolved into a consciousness able to grapple with the “philosophical” implications of it all.

Then the part where minds react to all the either/or stuff only to bump into other minds who react quite differently. Then what is the truth? Let’s call this the is/ought world.[/b]

Yet [no doubt] you will continue to level this absurd charge against me down the road.

Not really sure what your point is here, but I would never argue that all exchanges here should start with the assumption that we live in a No God world.

How on earth could I possibly know that?!!!

Instead, that just takes folks like me back to the gap between what I think I know/believe about God “in my head” here and now, and all that would need to be known about Existence itself to be sure.

Of course God is one possible explanation. Maybe even your own rendition of Him.

But: All any of us here can do is try to persuade others that our own frame of mind about these things may well reflect the optimal assessment. But I sure as shit am not arguing that I am able to demonstrate that it’s mine. I only note the manner in which I have come existentially to think myself into believing that we live in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that ends in oblivion for my own particular “I”.

And then to ask others who do not believe this is applicable to them to at least make an attempt to demonstrate to folks like me why they don’t.

No, I think that the existence of God is of fundamental importance in exploring human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments.

And in all the ways that I have noted.

But thanks for the advice.

It amounts to this :

If you think that a functioning car is good then there is a way to build it. If you think that a functioning car is not good, then there are ways to build that non-functioning car.

If you think that 2+2=4 is a good answer, then 4 is the right answer. If you prefer that 2+2=5 then 5 is the right answer.

If you think truth is valuable, then you will pursue truth. If not then anything is “true” when you choose it to be true.

In other words, all facts, truth, knowledge is trumped by identity, value judgements and political economy. I see that as the natural consequence of your nihilistic philosophy. Truth and facts are essentially valueless or of equal value to falsehoods and lies. Their value comes from identity, value judgements and political economy. As I said before, a 1984 world.

It’s not that you are going say that there are no facts. But you might as well say it.

Or, re capitalism, you can note the manner in which folks like Marx and Engels imagined it coming into existence re the evolution of methods employed over the centuries by our species to provide us with means of producing basic necessities able to sustain our existence.

From their perspective, capitalism is replaced by socialism not because one or the other political economy is inherently more virtuous, but because historically/organically/“scientifically” one evolves from the other dialectically/materially.

You know, in theory. They don’t call them “left-Hegelians” for nothing.

Again, are you comparing mathematical truths with the alleged arguments/justifications embedded in the narratives of capitalists and socialists?

Note the particular context. What truths are you insisting are valuable? Are you or are you not then able to demonstrate that your moral narrative/political agenda is such that all rational/virtuous men and women are obligated to embody them in turn?

And, indeed, if Mary believes that abortion is the political right of all women, and John believes that life is the natural right of all unborn, then for them that is true. And, most importantly, in believing it is true, their behaviors will become embedded in that assumption. And it is actual behaviors that precipitate consequences for others, right?

Then what? Well, from my frame of mind, we become entangled here in conflicting goods rooted largely in dasein and “resolved” by those with the political power to legislate a particular set of behaviors relating to unwanted pregnancies.

Now, what’s your frame of mind here? Are you or are you not a moral objectivist when the discussion comes up?

This is your own absurd rendition of my own take on all this. And all I can do is to wonder why [time and again] you allow yourself to be reduced down to it.

Now, I have my suspicions based on my history with objectivists over the years. But, sure, I’m [still] willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. :wink:

Well, it’s an absurd world so it would be pretty strange if I was not absurd.

I mean, what do you expect?

The existence of “the world” – of the “human condition” in it – is less absurd than profoundly, well, problematic. Why does anything exist at all? And why this particular existence and not another?

And who among us will go to the grave able to provide answers?

What absorbs my own attention however is the distinction between those things that appear to be true for all of us and those things that appear to be embodied more instead in dasein and conflicting goods.

Now, in a wholly determined universe that distinction would appear to be just an illusion. But if there is any capacity embodied in “I” to choose values and behaviors with some degree of autonomy, how close can we come here to an either/or moral/political narrative/agenda?

Only when objectivists of your ilk are able [effectively] to describe how your own conflicting interactions with others are not entangled in my dilemma, is there any hope at all of being able to yank myself up out of it in turn.

In other words, to embody what appears to be the only access to comfort and consolation in what appears to me to be an essentially absurd and meaningless existence that ends for all of eternity in oblivion.

Sans God, how is this even possible?

I could answer but the answers would mean nothing to you.

The only things which are true for all of us are unsaid and unthought.

Choose and the universe responds. That’s all.

There is one of your fundamental problems … you think that you need me to do something for you.

You can’t have comfort and consolation without God?
I don’t think that’s true.

No, my point is the extent to which your answers are able to be demonstrated as obligatory for all those who wish to be thought of as rational and [in some contexts] virtuous.

And how could that not revolve around an epistemological capacity to grasp both the ontological and the teleological meaning of Existence itself.

After all, each of us as individuals are able to think ourselves into believing an number of things that are profoundly meaningful to us. But when we choose to interact with others the behaviors that result from these beliefs can come into conflict. Then what?

Really, what could possibly be more abstract and abstruse than that?

Really, what could possibly be more abstract and abstruse than that?

It has considerably less to do with you personally than with those who embrace one or another interpretation of “objective morality” noting for me how it is “for all practical purposes” embodied in their interactions with others.

Of course you can. Still, on this side of the grave, that often revolves around a belief that this is embodied in choosing behaviors said to be in sync with one or another secular “script[ure]”. Call it, say, the Prismatic Syndrome.

And, in turn, you have to be able to accept the fact that sans God, “I” is almost certainly stripped of all consolation and comfort – when shuffling off this mortal coil – for all of eternity.

I would not insist that my answers are obligatory for anyone. Others are free to have different answers.

Then you have a conflict.

That’s fine.

Actually, this is practical and pragmatic. Whatever you do, you will get feedback from the universe.

I know that it’s not about me personally … you want someone/anyone outside of yourself to do something for you.

Well, in that case, you would seem to embrace my own frame of mind. This: that, in the is/ought world, answers are rooted in one or another rendition of “you’re right from your side, I’m right from mine”. In other words, with respect to those answers that cannot be demonstrated as true for all of us, they would seem to be rooted instead in a particular set of assumptions regarding human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments.

Is this the case? And, again, here, to the extent that it is not, we would need to bring our arguments down to earth – entangling them in a context we are all likely to be familiar with.

My point is always to make a distinction between those who, on the one hand, insist that moral and political conflicts can be resolved objectively when one becomes “one of us”, and those who, on the other hand, suggest that, in a No God world, answers here are rooted subjectively/subjunctively in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Okay, I see what you mean. But my aim here is to shift the discussion from noting whatever it is that you do, to probing why you chose to do this and not something else. Is this predicated on a philosophically sound assessment of “how ought one to live?”, or is rooted more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Yeah, yeah, I get this all the time. I’m a rather pathetic sort looking for someone to tell me how to live.

When, in fact, the life that I actually do live is bursting at the seams with all manner of satisfaction and fulfilment. It’s just that, given the hole I have dug for myself philosophically, my interactions with others become glumly entangled in my dilemma. I can’t just not believe “in my head” “here and now” that we live in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that will all too soon devolve into oblivion.

Of course I’m on the hunt for a less debilitating frame of mind!

Well, no. These are several cases that come to mind:
“I’m right and you’re wrong.”

“I’m right and you’re right based on your assumptions which are right.”

“I’m right and the situation is unclear so it’s impossible or too difficult to determine whether you are right or wrong.”

“I’m right and I don’t care whether you are right or wrong.”

One thing to note is that you don’t need me to say that you are right. You can be wrong. It’s “allowed”.

I see you completely ignoring biology, instinct and common human needs as reasons for that “why?”. Instead you focus on the very narrow “here and now” of dasein.

Well, that’s great but you seem to be asking for help with “your dilemma”. When you are offered help, you ignore it.
And you keep asking for somebody to describe something for you : “Only when objectivists of your ilk are able [effectively] to describe how your own conflicting interactions with others are not entangled in my dilemma, is there any hope at all of being able to yank myself up out of it in turn.”

People tell you why they feel that they don’t have a dilemma but you seem to reject it as “their answer”, a product of their intellectual contraptions, which is not applicable or “satisfactory” for you. I don’t see how it could ever be otherwise. That response is built-in to your dilemma. Asking other people for an argument to get you out of your dilemma will never be a solution to your dilemma.

Either you can’t see that or your reason for asking is to pull others into your dilemma.

I have no desire or reason to join you in the hole.

Yes, clearly, given the numbing complexity of all the variables intertwined in any one particular context construed from any one particular point of view, there are any number of possible combinations of reactions.

But there are still those who insist there is only going to be one optimal reaction. Why? Well, because they already embody it!

But there is also still the part where any particular individual is able to demonstrate that this is in fact so for all rational human beings.

And right from the start I acknowledge that my own narrative [moral nihilism] is no less an existential contraption.

But, really, how much is accomplished when we throw these “general descriptions” at each other. How much more might be accomplished if we intertwined these words into a context “out in the world” that may well be familiar to most of us?

Though here we clearly disagree regarding what this encompasses.

Doesn’t that just muddy the water all the more? Once the “nature” vs. “nurture” debate is introduced here, we bump into the arguments that range from Satyr’s “genes thumps memes” dogma to those who insist that in a wholly determined universe everything is nature.

Just out of curiosity, how would you encompass the help that you have provided me? How have you mangaged to describe your own conflicts with others such that I might clearly see how my own dilemma is baseless?

Your arguments either persuade me or they don’t. My arguments either persuade you or they don’t. But all I can do is to note the arguments of others and react to them.

Exactly like you.

For example, if I entirely shared your own reaction to Communism, then the next time I encountered a debate pertaining to political economy, I would no longer be drawn and quartered in confronting conflicting goods. Instead, like you, I would have at least some measure of comfort and consolation in knowing that in regard to this “issue” I am right from my side.

Only when others are able to persuade me that their own “intellectual contraptions” reflect the optimal philosophical assessment – one that transcends the points I raise regarding dasein – is that likely to happen.

And all you are basically insisting is that others have already made this attempt and, over and again, I refused to just accept their own frame of mind.

It is like a theist arguing to an atheist that hundreds of folks have come forth to give arguments for the existence of God but the atheists simply refuse to become “one of them”. To be, among other things, “saved”.

Desire isn’t really factor. Why on earth would someone want to be down in it?!

As for reason, that is always subject to adjustment in a world teeming with contingency, chance and change.

After all, I spent the bulk of my own life staunchly convinced that the hole wasn’t even there!

Clearly

No, it clears the water at least somewhat. Once you see, for example, that monkeys have a morality in which they share food even when it goes against their “selfish” self-interest, then some arguments that people make about human morality disappear or become suspect.

Human morality becomes more objective and biology based. Humans are not simply blank slates written on by religious and political ideologies. Humans are not driven primarily by selfishness and self-interest.

I have said “look at this”, “look at it from this direction”, “consider it in this way”.

And you respond like this :

You insist that I present the answer in this particular way - “describe your conflicts” - as if you know that the answer must be in this form.

I don’t demand that the argument must take a particular form.

And then there is this problem where you are looking for other people’s answers when you should be looking for answers from within yourself.

All others can do is to offer you food for thought … you have to digest it.

On the other hand, from the perspective of a moral nihilist entangled in my dilemma, clarity is riven with any number of disorienting ambiguities.

Though things do tend to become clearer when the abstractions embedded in the arguments of the “serious philosophers” here are taken down out of the didactic clouds [awash in definitions, deductions and “general descriptions”] and fleshed out in the world of actual conflicted human behaviors.

With monkeys however this behavior would seem to be derived considerably more from genes than memes. They don’t possess near the number of social cues embedded in human interaction historically and culturally. They don’t interact in philosophy forums or enact legislation that revolves around moderation, negotiation and compromise. There is generally a clear cut hierarchy in which everyone has a place and everyone knows their place.

Not much here in the way of “right makes might” interaction. At least not philosophically.

On the other hand, the closer one comes to embracing sociobiology, the closer one comes to the arguments of Satyr…or to the arguments of the determinists.

Well, okay, I then suggest, bring those arguments down to earth. With respect to issues like gender norms, abortion, animal rights, gun control and the role of government, where do the genes stop and the memes begin? What really does constitute “natural” human behavior?

My dilemma is either baseless regarding your own conflictied interactions with others or it is not. You’ll either provide examples here or you will not.

I can then only react as I do. And the objectivists can then point out that my reaction is not their reaction. And since their reaction is the correct one, my reaction is not. Therefore my thinking is not rational. Rationality here revolves entirely around the moral and political narrative/agenda of the objectivists. Their God, their ideology, their deoontological intellectual contraption, their assessment of nature.

When has it ever not been that way going back centuries and centuries now? At least I’m willing to acknowledge that my own narrative is no less an existential contraption in turn.

Most of us have been embedded in conflicts with others. Most of us have perspectives on the conflicts that we encounter “in the news”. And we have either come to the conclusion that the “answers”/“resolutions” can be known objectively or they can’t.

All I can do is react to the descriptions that objectivists provide of their own conflicted interactions…of their own assessments of the news. There are not switches and dials in my brain that I can adjust to acquire the most rational assessment. It just doesn’t work that way. Not in my head.

Thus, from my perspective:

But the manner in which I construe this is predicated on my current understanding of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. As this pertains to moral and political narratives/agendas out of sync.

What else is there here [for me] but to entertain the manner in which others construe these components pertinent to their own out of sync interactions with others.

It sounds like you’re asking someone to say a magic incantation which makes it through the defensive wall of your intellectual contraptions.

Only then, can you change.

Good luck with that.

Well, maybe not reduced down to an actual retort here, but certainly right around the corner from one.

Magic incantation? Right.

Or should we just chalk this one up to the mood you’re in? :wink:

If you don’t let down your defenses then the likelihood that an argument will have an impact on you is small.

Right now, you seem to reject all of what is written as “in that poster’s head” and “that poster’s intellectual contraption”. Can’t argue with that … every thought is in somebody’s head and everything is an intellectual contraption if you think that it is.

If you were open to the possibility that a post is applicable to you as well as “to him”, then you might make some headway.

Now your typical response to this suggestion is that “I am insisting that you accept what the other poster is saying”. No, I’m saying that you can make it your own. But you won’t do it, if you automatically reject it - if you are not open to it in the first place.

It reminds me of a common reaction to meditation. “I’m not going to do that, it sounds stupid”. “What’s the point of that?”. “That’s not going to do anything”. “I already know how to breathe”.

But if you try it, you’re surprised by the results. It turns out not to be that stupid after all.

But what on earth does it mean for someone to let down their defenses? And, in particular, in a context in which human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments?

Consider:

If someone like me defends the arguments of those who embrace the right of the fetus to be born, and then in turn defends the right of pregnant women to choose to abort the fetus, how on earth would he go about bringing those defenses down? In other words, he is drawn and quartered. He is hopelessly ambivalent. He is entangled in my dilemma.

What else is there but for him to go forth and consider the arguments of those who are not drawn and quartered here; those who are entangled in no dilemma at all. Instead, they are convinced that there is in fact an optimal, objective resolution to be had. You simply become “one of us”.

No, right now I go back to that distinction between what you are able to demonstrate as true for all rational men and women, and that which you are only able to demonstrate that you believe is true “in your head”.

The distinction that we are simply out of sync regarding.

What particular post regarding what particular existential context?

Some can offer me reasonable arguments that provide “headway” in the direction of bringing the baby to term; while others are able to offer me reasonable arguments that provide “headway” in the direction of abortion.

Yet even here I construe this as embedded in dasein — in the political prejudices that I have accumulated given the trajectory of my actual life.

This intellectual contraption:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

But: an intellectual contraption that is clearly entangled existentially in a particular set of experiences.

Again, given the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein this is ever and always the most important point:

[b]In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of [childhood indoctrination]. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.[/b]

The objectivists of course will readily tell you what they anchor “I” to. And that if others don’t do the same they will never become “one of us”.

Reactions like this just bring me back to me critique of “general descriptions”. Until the objectivists are willing to flesh out assessments of this sort by situating them out in a particular context that most will be familiar with, how will I really grasp the points they are trying to make.

Then you come back with, for example, your anti-Communism narrative and I point out how we are out of sync in thinking about such things as or as not “existential contraptions” rooted in certain assumptions about the nature of human morality.

The bottom line for you is that your mind is made up: others either share your anti-Communist point of view or…or what? Are they necessarily wrong if they don’t? Or, again, are you willing to concede that they can devise arguments based on differents sets of assumptions, embedded in different sets of circumstances in which it is capitalism instead that is inherently immoral.

Either/or, right?

As I said, good luck with that.

Well, maybe not reduced down to an actual retort here, but certainly right around the corner from one.

Or should we just chalk this one up to the mood you’re in? :wink:

[size=50]it worrked before, right? ; )[/size]