Worthwhile: Sufficiently valuable or important to be worth one’s time, effort, or interest.
What Ecmandu has tried to argue is that nobody has anything original to say, because there are an infinite number of souls who have expressed an infinite number of things throughout time. I don't think this is true, but it's not necessary to refute that to refute Ecmandu's point. What we're here to discuss whether or not Ecmandu has anything [i]worthwhile[/i] to contribute to philosophy, not anything [i]original[/i], and it should be obvious that something can be worthwhile without being original. When Aristotle gave us his form of logic, teaching this to the human race was absolutely worthwhile, even if some alien species millions of light years away already knew about it. Or to put it more in keeping with the definition above, Aristotle's logic is absolutely worthwhile to learn even if some alien species far away already knows about it, if [i]you only have access to Aristotle[/i]. This is easily seen through personal example. If you wish to study medicine, is Gray's Anatomy a worthwhile text to read? Of course it is. The fact that other people have already read it, or that there might be some other book on Alpha Centauri (or even on Earth) that includes the same information simply has nothing to do with it. If Gray's Anatomy was poorly written, poorly researched, or just plain wrong about things compared to some other resource accessible to the same people, it may not be worthwhile then, but Ecmandu has not even attempted to show such a thing about his own contributions.
Contribute:
1: to give (something, such as money, goods, or time) to help a person, group, cause, or organization
2: to help to cause something to happen
3: to write (something, such as a story, poem, or essay) for a magazine
Again, there is nothing about originality here. Bringing the works of philosophy that you did not write yourself to some isolated tribe that has never been exposed to them, is no doubt a contribution. Is is a contibution to philosophy insofar as it spreads the knowledge of philosophy to places where it did not previously exist.
In order for Ecmandu to show that he has nothing worthwhile to say about philosophy, he must show not just that someone, somewhere in the cosmos has thought of his ideas, he must show that nobody interested in philosophy will benefit from hearing what he has to say- perhaps because his ideas are sufficiently terrible that hearing them spreads confusion and ignorance, or perhaps because they are so simplistic and derivative that the common man gains nothing from hearing them. This is what "Worthwhile to philosophy" means- originality on the cosmic stage has little to do with it. In order for him to show he has nothing worthwhile to contribute to philosophy, he must refute statements like this:
Claims of his great, profound, and unique accomplishments which anybody reading this thread has no doubt seen him make multiple times all over the forums. That his great accomplishments are merely unique [i]to humanity[/i] doesn't make them not worthwhile. Simply put, one cannot maintain statments like the above while also maintaining that one has nothing worthwhile to contribute to philosophy.
Ecmandu’s second point is that everybody is a fool relative to somebody else. He accepts my definition of ‘fool’ as “a mentally deficient person, an idiot”. ‘Deficiency’ isn’t philosophical jargon with a specialized definition, so let us once again check the definition:
1: lacking in some necessary quality or element
2: not up to a normal standard or complement : defective
Emphasis added.
I propose that merely lacking infinite knowledge in the way we all lack it is not sufficient for mental deficiency. In order for Ecmandu to show that he is mentally deficient, he must show that he has a lacking that brings him below what one would expect of a typical person, a mental lack that hinders his everyday function in a way that others aren’t subject to. He must have a mental disorder or impairment that hinders his functioning below that of standard. It should be obvious that if we were to prove that if Isaac Newton were the second smartest human being that ever lived, he would not be mentally deficient according to the above definitions just because there is somebody even smarter than he.
Similarly, idiot is defined as such:
1 : a person affected with extreme mental retardation
2 : a foolish or stupid person
I think it would be too hard at this point for Ecmandu to prove that he is extremely mentally retarded (though he is certainly welcome to try). So let’s be gracious and look at definition 2. Foolish is redundant, that’s covered above. Stupid is all we really have to go on. Here again we find nothing like what Ecmandu has argued:
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: not intelligent : having or showing a lack of ability to learn and understand things
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: not sensible or logical
Clearly, showing that somewhere in the universe there are beings who know things that you don’t know, or showing that you are unable to count to infinity, is not sufficient to show stupidity.
And anyway, all of these terms are relative. We would not call the smartest dog on earth a 'stupid fool' because it cannot grasp Wittgenstein. When a rat runs a maze in record time, we don't call the rat mentally deficient because it can't 'count all the counting numbers'. Ecmandu reguarly refers to himself as a super genius with unique mental capabilities. As anybody who has followed him knows, to HIM, he is the rat running the maze in record time. He is the smartest dog on Earth. One simply cannot maintain that while claiming to be an idiot as well.
In short, no argument of the form “Ecmandu is an idiot because everybody is an idiot” will work- idiocy is value judgment clearly comparing like to like. Ecmandu must show that he is an idiot among men. To show that he has nothing worthwhile to contribute to philosophy, he must show that those interested in philosophy have nothing worthwhile to gain by reading his words. He has not done this.
More importantly, he’s never going to do this. If there’s one thing Ecmandu believes more strongly than anything else, one thing he defends above all else, it is his own competency. Any argument coming from him about his own foolishness and lack of worthwhile contribution is going to be disingeuous- he will try to argue that according to some technicality of language everybody counts as some sort of ‘fool’ or that according to some twisted definition of ‘contrbution’, contributions are impossible in an infinite universe. In other words, he’ll ignore or dodge a common sense understanding of the actual claim at stake. I will do no such thing- I will show, in plain English, using agreed-upon terminology, the truth of my position. Why? Because I actually believe it and am not trying to mislead anybody.
Is Ecmandu a Fool?
Here’s what we know about him:
He has an 8th-grade reading comphrension level at best. *
He has no knowledge of technical terminology in philosophy, science, religion, or other fields he claims expertise in. *
He resorts to hideously bad, juvenile, or transparently misleading tactics whenever shown to be wrong about the most trivial of matters. *
He can operate a computer well enough to post on ILP.
He can create YouTube videos.
Now, what can we say about the three asterisked points above? Notably, they can be faked. Who among you hasn’t read Ecmandu’s words and thought “There’s no way anybody could be this stupid/irrational/crazy, he must be a troll.” I submit this instinct is a reasonable one. Now, maybe he’s a troll and maybe he isn’t, but the odds are high enough that we have to concede claims about his idiocy are inconclusive, and indeed unprovable thanks to the anonymous nature of the internet. His ability to use a computer can’t be faked (or he wouldn’t be here), his ability to make a YouTube video must be sincere, or there would be no such video. This puts his intelligence at, minimally, somewhat below average for an adult, but not doesn’t establish foolishness. He could always be faking his more foolish moments, and the harder he works to prove himself a fool, the more skeptical we must become of his sincerity. So I say it is just as likely that he is a troll of average or just-below average intellect, than that he’s a true fool.
Does Ecmandu Have anything worthwhile to contribute to Philosophy?
Ecmandu has been seen arguing that positions must be true without knowing what those positions are. He has been seen making claims about sophisticated philosophical concepts (soundness, deduction, infinity, theism, etc.) while not knowing what they mean or the basics of what they entail. He has been seen defending his positions through references to his own magical powers, contacts in the spirit world, or unshown conversations with secret experts he will not name. He regularly changes the subject whenever a conversation isn't going his way, seems to delibrately mis-interpret other people's words, cites studies without reading their actual conclusions, and on and on and on.
Ecmandu has something very worthwhile to contribute to philosophy- [i]an object lesson in how not to do it.[/i]
I've recieved private messages from people confiding in me that they see something of themselves in Ecmandu - when they were young, or under the influence, or otherwise at their worst, they behaved a bit like him. Perhaps not as badly, or as robustly terrible as Ecmandu, but enough so that they felt shame, and sought to improve themselves such that others wouldn't think of themselves as 'being that guy'. This is important. Edcuation through providing a negative example is a well known tool, both intentional and unintentional. In other academic persuits- science, engineering, art, war, you name it- we learn great lessons through the astounding failures and vice of others. Ecmandu is no different. I submit that people reading his words, seeing his behavior over a long span of time might be edified. They might be led to see the true importance of rational argument, civil discourse, falsifiable statements, good-faith debate, coherence of expression, attentive and charitable reading of opposing views, by seeing the travesty that results when these things are absent, as one witnesses in a typical conversation with Ecmandu.
Therefore, it cannot be established that Ecmandu is a fool, and he does indeed have something worthwhile to contribute to philosophy.
Note: My definitions are taken from merriam-webster.com/