My own [and of late only] interest in philiosophy revolves almost entirely around the extent to which its tools are applicable when confronting the question, āhow ought one to live?ā
And, in particular, in what I construe to be an essentially absurd and meaningless world. A No God world that culminates in oblivion for each of us one by one.
Either abstract arguments ā or its cousin, āgeneral descriptionsā ā will go there or they will not.
James would never take RM/AO and/or the Real God there. Or, rather, not in a manner that we could both agree on.
Itās basically the difference between describing human interactions as they do in fact unfold from day to day, and assessing whether they ought to have unfolded in some other way instead. In order to be in sync with what is deemed to be rational or virtuous behavior.
Itās the difference between Donald Trump shutting down the Mueller investigation [he either does or he does not] and arguing that, if it is shut down, it was the right thing to do.
I really donāt grasp how others fail to see this rather clear distinction. One can be demonstrated to be true for all of us [sans sim worlds, solipsism, cartesean demons etc.] and the other is tangled in sets of political prejudices rooted in what I construe to be an existential interaction of human identity, value judgments and political power: out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.
Either RM/AO and the Real God are applicable here or they are not.
I will be paying the site fees over the next couple of weeks that is why the account is suspended. I have big plans for that forum and site and will be upgrading to a much faster server. I will post on ILP when it is back up and running.
A single philosopher is no longer able to change the world in my opinion but the world needs to change. The world needs to change because there is very little anyone of us can do about the direction that technology is taking and the social impact that these technologies are taking. But in numbers the world is at least able to brace itself for future events and steer the direction in which future directions on top of this future direction will go. An oblivion can be avoided.
I will personally take abstract arguments and its cousin general descriptions there. You are correct about James never taking RM:AO there - but even he says that the rules must change to fit the situation.
This is something that I can relate to - by how you have put it here and I think it is a good way. Starting with current events and near future events is a great way to test philosophical theories in near real-time and making analysis of near past events(ie what was the better way) is at least useful for the time being(potentially the next 20 - 50 years).
RM:AO would require some work to fit such a scheme.
In no substantive way am I able to connect the dots here between what I construe to be one more general description of human interaction and a particular change imagined in the future involving conflicting goods we are all likely to be familiar with.
Itās just one more scholastic contraption re RM/AO, VO, or prismatics āprogressive behaviorsā narrative.
And how on earth in the absense of Godās immortality and salvation is the obliteration of each and every individual āIā accomplished?
For me, with respect to each moral/political issue in which there are conflicting valuations, it comes down to this:
I agree. And now apparently James is either no longer around to pursue that work or he has come to understand that it cannot actually be accomplished.
Still, there are plenty of other moral and political objectivists around who continue to make the claims.
During the last four years I was translating Jamesā work into German. I went through thousands of his posts on ILP, Humanarchy and other forums, trying to summarize it all, including RM:AO Physics and the analogies to Psychology and Sociology, in order to arrange a book out of it. James patiently answered all my questions, we had a permanent PM-contact. Last autumn the first draft of the book was finished and James agreed to reread the English version. Being very critical with his wording, he said it would take some time for him to correct it all, and it would be the best if he withdraws for a while. I still hope that this is the reason why he is not around, but half a year is a long time and our contact abruptly stopped in January.
I decided to wait until July, and then bring this project forward by myself. I suppose this is what I have to do now. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the year. My plan is to get it published first in German, then in English as well. Iāll let you know.
You were on Humanarchy? Cool.
I still have the forum file for that, with all the posts.
Went through some trouble putting it on a new site but couldnāt get it to work.
There was no contact between me and James since January 2018. Using the material that was available to me, partially rewritten by James, I compiled and published the book myself.
) that this may be a bit premature unless you know for a fact that James has died. Do you?