questions without answers

“iambiguous”

True. We all think with different minds, do we not, based on our own life experiences? How can we move away from that? Things are not so clear cut, are they? We aren’t speaking of bare facts here. We’re speaking of how we as individuals view things.
But why does that have to be so hopeless unless you cannot live with questions without answers.

We can probably take more out of it than we ourselves actually put into it at times.
As for your last statement, I can agree with you. I can see your point. I’ve been here since 2008 I think.
Things don’t ever stay the same, do they?
Hmmm…I’ve never quite understood that saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Is that true?

Anything other then? Are you minimizing your feelings? Don’t we have a right to be disappointed in the way things have worked out?

Do you see the question: “How ought one to live” as one of those questions without answers?

I don’t know what Postmodern Beatnik is. But why were you banned for life? Kind of drastic, I think.
At least you still have gib here.

Sure, when I compare them to the threads of the past. But then what do you want to do about it?
All you can do try to do is to tip the scales in the other direction. Keep writing what you write. You do realize don’t you that others are also somewhat ridiculed for their kind of thinking?

What do you mean by “pumping up the volume” - some of the absurd threads and posts?
Did the greatest philosophers talk philosophy all of the time?

Can’t say for sure. People’s lives change. I realize that some of these “folks” have moved on because they were interested in more heavy real philosophical talk. Some have moved on and created their own forums.
We don’t all feel the same when it comes to “How ought one live his/her life” and the answer to that question can change depending on what direction one’s life goes and how their perspectives change.
Right there, doesn’t that kind of show that there is no “ought”?

So what are you saying here? That you are solely responsible for this exodus? lol
Even if that were the case, what would that say about those who left? Not that I believe that that is the case.
There are personal reasons why people leave. Some are psychological, some are about ego, some are about politics and the way in which a place is run…ad continuum.

Isn’t that true though in a sense? That doesn’t mean that we can’t find ways to fight that entropy.
For instance, if we have no energy? What to do? Defy that and get out and run - struggle and transcend. Energy begets energy.
So I do think that it is true in a sense, being mechanical, but we are also self-determined creatures.
We don’t need to make excuses for ourselves.

That’s right. It’s about facing certain realities, right, and realizing that not all people feel the same about things. We are not the Borg.
I’m not a philosopher per se but I love philosophy.
I think that philosophy continues to stand a chance as long as there are people who love it and who remain focused on questions such as “How ought one to live” and all of the other difficult questions. Let’s not forget about all of the books which are being written on philosophy.

.

Speaking in the realm in which there are no real proven facts, this is true.
But I remember that Carl Jung has said that truth is founded (?) within the concert of many voices. But I suppose that that can also be turned on its head and used as a means of destruction.
What I mean is that we can probably say that this is true and that is true (but cannot prove) based on many voices, many individuals, seeing and experiencing the same kind of subjective truth which others have. A common existential experience. If that made sense. I may not have expressed it well.

It may seem like a stupid question but does there only have to be a one-size-fits-all insofar as each individual’s life and purpose goes?
Aren’t we biting off more than we can chew when we put this into such a panoramic landscape as opposed to an individual’s little existential journey and the personal and meaningful questions which crop up through that person’s human experience?
Can we find some answers within the inter-connectedness of others with similar psychic experiences and those which are dissimilar?

Anyway, I often question and reflect on my own existence and reason for being and how determined and not I am…how much of a purpose I have and if I truly have one outside of the one which I’ve created for myself, et cetera.

Can we really determine whether or not there are “real” concrete answers for this? If there are, does this also make me more pre-determined or less pre-determined, if that even enters into the equation.

We may not find all the answers but I kind of think that diving into this human experience is all that we can do.
I don’t know how much of any of that made sense to you. lol

According to law, isn’t this premise something which would first have to proven?

But what if we decided to change your perspective and to see something else as being possible? Not so much of a pre-determined world but one in which the folds of that universe become more open and all-embracing of something New?
Could that alone be the beginning of a world changing? Could that “seeing” differently cause the world to unfold in an entirely different way, a far less determined one - giving us the power to transform it?
Seeing can work in both directions you know. How little we know.

Clearly, there are any number of things that, over the centuries, we have managed successfully to communicate to each other.
I mean, just look around. Are there not countless interactions [relationships] that we have demonstrated to be true for all of us? Obviously. After all, how on earth would we have managed to create the many, many extraordinary facets of our collective civilizations if there was not a common overlapping empirical reality “out in the world” able to be grasped objectively “in our heads”

By, among others, mathematicians and scientists.

The world of either/or.

But what of the world of is/ought? How many questions here are there without answers? Objective answers applicable to all.

And what of the questions that probe the very Reality of Existence itself. The very Existence of Reality itself. Questions like these: youtu.be/lnIlHQLAiTA

Bare facts are, of course, everywhere. But what are the bare facts when our behaviors come to clash over conflicted value judgments? How are answers derived here without taking into account the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

That’s the question I always probe here: How ought one to live?

Yes, another question that precipitates conflicting answers. But, from my perspective, “I” is everywhere here. There are fundamental components of human interaction [rooted in nature] that more or less stay the same. But: What exactly are they?

Well, aside from the obvious: the need to subsist, to sustain one’s existence itself. The part that swirls around our biological imperatives: food, water, clothing, shelter, reproduction, defense.

I’m situating my emotional reactions here in “I”, in dasein. We come into the world biologically hard wired able to be disappointed in the way particular things have worked out. But what of those who are not disappointed at all? What of those who embrace the changes here? What of those who helped to bring them about?

Is there a way then to calculate how much one ought to be disappointed by any particular change? Is there a way to calculate whether one ought to be disappointed by a particular change?

“I” don’t think so. But suppose there is? All I can do then is to come into venues like this and probe the arguments of those who have in fact come to a different conclusion.

Yep. And it’s right up there near the top. But there is a clear distinction to be made here between ought as it relates to behaviors that one needs to choose in order to accomplish some task, and ought as it relates to an examination of the task itself as either “good” or “bad”, “rational” or “irrational”, “moral” or “immoral”.

This guy:
forums.philosophyforums.com/memb … 12267.html

I was called a “troll” by him there for posting the same sort of stuff that I do here.

I suspect however that any number of folks there were becoming increasingly more perturbed by the same sort of thing that any number of “serious philosophers” here are perturbed by: my insistence that, with respect to the question “how ought one to live”, philosophy be brought “down to earth”.

You come into ILP and note that 90% of the new posts are from the same poster. And almost all of them are basically retorts, bullshitting, personal attacks and/or spam.

Unless of course I’m wrong. This is, after all, a subjective reaction.

No, but when they did choose to engage in a task or in an activity that revolved around the subject of philosophy, I would imagine that is mostly what they did.

And choosing to come into a venue called “I Love Philosophy” strikes me as qualifying in that same sense.

I can only note my own experiences in places like this over the years. Some folks think about philosophy in a way that brings them closer to the manner in which Will Durant described “the epistemologists”.

And the more effective I am in my attempts to bring discussions relating to identity, value judgments and political economy down out of the scholastic clouds, the more some will head in the other direction.

In fact I can recall my own reaction to the folks that accomplished the same thing with me. You never look at philosophy in quite the same way again.

The point though [mine] is that we will go to the grave never really knowing one way or the other. Or we can go to the grave thinking that what we do know “in our head” here and now is in fact what is true.

I suppose that questions of this sort are going to revolve by and large around just how close we are “here and now” to the abyss. We can probe the answer more “philosophically” when death still appears to be “down the road”. The closer we are to oblivion, however, the more preoccupied we become with the fact of it.

And, in particular, when we are atheists.

I certainly do agree that…

But: first and foremost that has to actually be an option. And each of us as individuals are going to be embedded in a particular context [set of circumstances] in which existentially we will be more or less optimistic about it from day to day to day.

But isn’t that the paradox and/or the conundrum? If everything that we think and feel and do is only as it every could have been, wouldn’t any attempt to prove that this is true merely be subsumed as well in the immutable laws of matter unfolding only as matter can unfold.

I will be the first to admit however that I am not thinking this all through correctly. But those who claim that they are will have to convince me of this. And how exactly would they go about doing that if this too is subsumed in whatever reality/existence can only have ever been?

Again, I am not really able to connect the dots here between these particular worlds and the world that I live in. Or, rather, the world that I think I live in.

How – empirically, phenomenally – could this be demonstrated?

I’m working on it. :mrgreen:

Sounds good. I’ll be looking for it.

Indeed, after going down into the gutter with Satyr over at KT, it’s always a pleasant experience to come back here and engage in actual civilized and substantive exchanges. :smiley:

iambiguous,

Yes, language is wonderful, is it not?

Yes, this is what I meant by similar experiences which are a part of all humans - that inter-disconnectedness of thought and feeling.

We grasp these realities objectively, unless we question everything we see, because we all observe them continuously with our senses with our consciousness and have named them. We sometimes observe a rainbow. A shared experience. The scientist among others of course can explain it.

There is the collective unconscious which I greatly intuit.

[b]According to Carl Jung, each person not only has their own unique unconscious mind, but also shares some elements of unconsciousness with all other people. He called this shared unconscious, the collective unconscious. Jung suggested that there are archetypes (images and memories of important human experiences) that are passed down from generation to generation. These archetypes can be common designs, shapes, colors, and figures seen over and over again throughout time.

alleydog.com/glossary/defini … nconscious
[/b]

You mean the scientific world? That’s not even a world of either/or is it?
How can it be since so much is still unexplainable.
Either/or to me is like black and white. It kind of ends further exploration and discovery, no?

Probably billions, maybe even more than the stars. They just keep cropping up. I don’t mean to cause you any angst. :wink:
:wink: Philosophy, science, religion, whatever will never be a done deal. We may never reach conclusions to things. Once we’ve reached them, it seems to open up more questions.

But then again, many question do have answers but they are based on our own subjectivity. I think that all we can do is first try to experience them within us, study them, reflect on them, to see how “real” and valid these answers seem to be. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, is there?
The world is complicated and much of it is still so unseen/undiscovered. Humanity is complicated. We don’t even begin to know ourselves at times so how can questions be so clear-cut? But don’t you think that we can explain them in some satisfactory way?

Are there actually “bare facts” in this regard? Maybe human “factors” which we have to examine in order to come to terms with conflicted value judgments.
Wouldn’t it all come down to what we eventually have to see as the greater good?
We have to pick and choose.
But maybe you’re speaking of CVJs with more than one person - between people or a group of people.
I really don’t see any easy answer - whether one is speaking of the abortion issue or whether to terminate, to pull the plug, on someone in a hospital in a coma for years, et cetera.
Hopefully, it would all come down to that which did the least amount of harm - but how to determine that since we cannot foresee the future of our actions - though there are some which we can foresee if we think hard enough.

Ought is a strange word, don’t you think. It kind of imposes a certain kind of mandate on behavior but I might be wrong here.
Ought here might simply mean a higher way to live which does little harm but perhaps it doesn’t even mean that.
“Ought” might mean as an example the decision to not have bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima because of the innocent lives, non-military lives there because having done that, many many many military lives would have been spared sometime in the future.

Aside from that, I can imagine that you must have asked yourself the above question countless times in your lifetime "How ought I to live?
The answer changes too doesn’t it depending on where we are “at” in our lives in the present moments, the situation and circumstances? Life is flux and we are not hopefully let’s say 10 years later who we were ten years previously.
I know this is not too philosophical a discussion, is it? lol

How do You answer the question: “How ought I to live” with regard to the above?

I’m not quite sure how to express this but is the “I” the main thing about dasein?
We experience ourselves according to our life experiences beginning with the journey from childhood in relation to those we meet and with the world around us.
Wouldn’t we all experience our dasein differently?

Doesn’t this have more to do with how we have been affected and effected through everything which has touched our lives.
I’m having difficulty with this because I do not have it down pat just exactly what is meant by dasein. Can you kind of put it in a nutshell for me. …dasein according to iambiguous?

I’m not sure if there is since ought is kind of a subjective term, no?
I suppose we can though by using reason and logic, which doesn’t have much to do with emotions. If we’re honest with ourselves and want to maintain balance within our minds, we use our intelligence and consciousness to find an honest and more valid way of thinking.

But we all have different ways of either responding to something or reacting to it. Some of us have been born with a more optimistic attitude and others with a more pessimistic one. Some can detach easier and some not - some are like a dog with a bone.

But isn’t that what it’s all about? Discussing differences and trying to come closer to some kind of mutual agreement and shared perspective?

What do YOU mean here by “brought down to earth”?

I can’t say for sure if it’s 90% and I don’t really think that it is “almost all of them” but there is a lot of that. It sometimes bothers me.

Well, I did say “greatest” philosophers. There is a lot of nonsense which goes on here, which I also add to at times :blush:.
I think that part of the problem is not so much intelligence. Many here have such vast knowledge (the more I read, the more I realize how little I have) but I think that the issue is the mind set, the degree of self control, impulse control and balance and personalities of the people. This is also a social watering hole. I can’t say much since I rarely start a thread but some of the threads are absolutely absurd and pure nonsense. That’s my opinion. Perhaps also many of these people are not so much philosophers within their hearts and minds but just have so much knowledge, if that made any sense.

Perhaps what we can ever have is “what is true for us, ourselves, individually”.
If we live our lives trying to be guided by that signpost, that beacon “How ought I to live” in a conscientious, compassionate, empathetic and rational way, balancing all of those things, and remain firm and true to it, what kind of regrets could we possibly have on our deathbeds?

If that were the case and the way that I thought, then I’m not sure how worthwhile I would think of my life. Who would want to be a puppet?
I would still have to act as if that were not the case.

Perhaps we sometimes feel that “it is only as it ever could have been” because when it comes to the really important decisions of our lives, the ethical and moral ones, the ones which can really effect our lives and those of others, any decision for that matter, we don’t really take the time to think things out, to see all possible ways to go, to evaluate all options, to question “what will this bring me eventually” - somewhere down the line, we believe that it was really out of our hands. Why? because we allowed it to go out of our hands because instead of grappling with the questions and our behavior, we took an easier and quicker way out.
Perhaps we cannot be completely self-determined but we can still determine the outcome of our lives and come away with knowing that we do have some control, that we are not puppets of some puppeteer, and that it is not all written in the stars. We have reason, we have consciousness. We are not bowls of jello jiggling in the universe. lol

Are you a nihilist or are you an existentialist? :laughing:
How do we change another’s mind? I suppose that one would have to start from the point of there being other possibilities to consider - no matter how things looked. That’s a feeble answer I know.
I know, it does seem to be a conundrum.

Of course this is the part that lends itself to the sort of complexity that the conscious mind may never fully grasp. This is the part where the id and ego and the superego become entangled in the very stuff that is embedded in the evolution of life itself.

In other words, how on earth is any particular one of us able to untangle it sufficiently enough to speculate on the very nature of Reality and Existence itself?

Let alone provide answers to questions that revolve around the existential relationship between identity, value judgments and political economy.

True. But for all practical purposes as it relates to our day to day interactions with others, mathematics, the physical laws of nature and the logical rules of language, suffice [for me] to allow us to make a reasonably clear distinction between the either/or world and the world of is/ought.

Not to worry. For two reasons in particular:

1] I recognize that my own narrative here is just another subjective/subjunctive contraption that may well be wrong
2] once you come to believe that questions of this sort don’t have answers that are applicable to all, this increases your own options considerably. Why? Because your behaviors are not tied [re your “conscience”] to “doing the right thing”.

On the other hand…

Here I just tumble over and over and over again into my dilemma. What might seem “satisfactory” to me here and now is no less a particular frame of mind entangled existentially in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. Most folks however manage to convince themselves that when they feel that their own behaviors are “satisfactory” they are “for all practical purposes” close enough to having done the “right thing”.

That simply does not work for me. However hard it is to actually explain to others.

There is an “ought” attached to means and an “ought” attached to ends. Once you have managed to convince yourself of a particular end [it’s the right thing to do] then you just calulate what you ought to do in order to achieve it. That then precipitates titantic arguments about which particular ends justify which particular means. But at least most are certain of the ends involved.

That’s just not an option for me. Well, “here and now”.

On the contrary, this has more or less become the center of the universe for me now philosophically. And, over and again, in my discussions with one or another objectivist, this is where I bring the discussion. From my frame of mind, what does it mean to take philosophy “seriously” if, eventually, the “analysis” is not integrated into our actual interactions with others?

To me, analytic philosophy is basically just words talking about words. Words defining and defending other words. And, sure, it’s important to define and defend one or another epistemological framework. I certainly agree with that. After all, what can we know for certain? But to never take these ponderous scholastic contraptions down out of the ivory tower? Nope, not in exchanges with me.

“Whatever works”. And with all of the ambiguity and uncertainty that this entails.

Again, there are those things that all of us are hard-wired to think and to feel and to do as a result of the evolution of life on earth itself. There is the empirical world around us. Here “I” is more or less interchangable historically and culturally. My “I” – “I” rooted in dasein – revolves instead around the world of is/ought. Around customs and mores and rituals and laws. Around those behaviors that tend to either be prescribed or proscribed in any particular community.

For example, there is what we can know to be a fact about the Trump administration here in America; and then there is the manner in which we react to those facts.

I make the attempt to do that here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

But it really comes down to the distinction that I always make between that which we believe to be true [or claim to know as true] “in our heads” and that which we are able in turn to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe.

In other words…

Yes, but those who wish to reconfigure ILP back to the time when what they construe to be more “serious philosophy” was the rule have their “reason and logic” and those who actually like it more the way it is now have their own. And both sides can insist that they are being honest in their assessment.

The “problem” from my own frame of mind is that Only Humean can moderate the philosophy forum such that the trolling and the retorting and the huffing and puffing and the bullshitting is kept to a minimum. At least in the philosophy forum.

But if that sort of thing more or less proliferates everywhere else at ILP, the folks who do take philosophy more seriously will eventually move on. And they have, right? The von rivers, fausts, Morenos, zinnats, etc.

On the other hand, who is to say what the proper “balance” here must be?

That, with respect to the relationship between personal identity, value judgments and political power, any analysis accummulated by those who probe ethics philosophically must be integrated existentially into the world that we live in – a world in which conflicts over the relationship between “I” and “evil” and “politics” are everywhere.

Yes, that sums it all up rather well. Yet even in feeling that your life would not be worthwhile is something that you could not not have felt.

Clearly, those who fancy themselves as “masters of the universe” don’t want to belive their great accomplishments are “beyond my control”. On the other hand, it would be rather comforting for those who consider their lives to more or less be in the toilet to think, “yes, it is all beyond my control”.

My only point is that one way or the other it all appears to really be “beyond good and evil”.

Or perhaps we will never know. What I always come back to though is this: how on earth would I be able to determine beyond all doubt that I am typing these words of my own free will?

But that just brings me back to this:

Zorba: Why do the young die, why does anyone die, tell me.
Basil: I don’t know.
Zorba: What’s the use of all your damn books? If they don’t tell you that, what the hell do they tell you?
Basil: They tell me about the agony of men who can’t answer questions like yours.

Yes. :wink:

Given a particular context, we either can demonstrate that what we believe about it is more reasonable than what another believes about it or we can’t.

What else is there?

Again, I am working on it. :mrgreen:

Got your PM.

I’m looking forward to continuing our exchange. Among other things, it allows me to probe my own assumptions given the differing assumptions of others.

I don’t doubt that my own conclusions here are entangled in the assumptions that I make regarding the conclusions of others. And I don’t exclude my own point of view from my own point of view. It is clearly an existential contraption in the manner in which I have come to understand that in the world of is/ought.

I probably shouldn’t be posting in this forum. Just this morning I made a personal vow to post only in Gib’s OP “Why God is inherently right” … and here I am breaking my vow within minutes of making it.

Enough small talk …

I’m assuming the people who read and post here have not read something I posted in Gib’s OP the other day.

The silence is deafening in terms of response from that OP … maybe casting my net on the other side of the boat will be better. :slight_smile:

Noosphere is a relatively new word … yet … by no means a new concept. The concept is as old as the hills … I can’t begin to guess when it may have first entered human consciousness.

Augustine stumbled on it 1,600 years ago yet seems he chose not to pursue it … seems humanity wasn’t ready for it during his time on earth.

[/b]

Vernadsky, LeRoy, and Teilhard … in proposing the notion of Noosphere, put a tiny bit of meat on the ancient skeletal bones.

A tiny group of intellectuals/scholars have recently been attempting to put more ‘flesh’ on these ancient skeletal bones. duaneelgin.com/wp-content/upload … usness.pdf

What’s your question Tom? Yes, I’m tagging along from Gibois’ thread to here.

WD … I have no questions.

I shared questions that St Augustine asked himself 1,600 years ago. Theologians, philosophers and ILP members participating in this OP are asking essentially some of the same questions today … they may or may not be aware of St Augustine who is held in high regard both as a philosopher and theologian.

I don’t know of anyone who is aware of the STUNNING parallels between what I quoted from St Augustine and what is gaining momentum today among a tiny group of intellectuals/scholars.

To the readers of my posts here …

My arrogance has revealed it’s ugly ‘face’ … yet again!

I want people to ‘see’ what I ‘see’ and I’m in a hurry to get there.

I apologize … please forgive me.

We all obviously want people to “see” what we see or we wouldn’t be posting in here. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that.

Some of us are more in a hurry to get there and some are less in a hurry to get there. It nice to savor some things. It’s nice to allow some things to stew a bit. All kinds of flavors come out that way.

But why are you in a hurry to get there? Is it arrogance or simply impatience to move things along? Can that also be arrogance? :-k Perhaps not. Arrogance might only enter in when one cares little for what the other posts.

You are forgiven. Go in peace and more slowly. :evilfun:

iambiguous,

But we do that as a community, don’t we? The world of science, philosophy, psychology - I daresay even religion when it’s based on right reason and the search for truth, not fantasy. But maybe I’m wrong insofar as religion goes,.
Haven’t scientists always attempted to untangle the nature of reality and existence, bit by bit, each standing on the shoulders of those who came before?
It’s a very large task and the way I look at it, there can never be an end to it. But consider the progress we have made.

We also do this by trying to learn about who we are, exploring our selves individually and our psyches, what makes us “tick” , what our relationships to others consist of and how we relate to others.

It’s all a process. We turn on the light by discussion. How can one size fit all when we all come from different “places” but don’t we get closer to the truth when we begin to see shared ethical and moral values, and when we’re able to see the validity and right reason when it comes to some ethical and moral decisions - for instance the abortion issue? When it comes to human beings, can there actually be one absolute truth or can there only be a meeting of the minds, mutual agreement on what is considered to be valid and just reasonable?

I may have spoken too soon about what I said above. I don’t really like to make absolutist statements. There are areas which are either or.

I am interested in an example which you would give me between the either/or world and the world of is/ought.

I think that you’re looking for the holy grail, Iambiguous. :evilfun:
I changed my answer a bit to the above question. It isn’t that there aren’t answers as much as there are different perspectives different kinds of subjective thought. Maybe that’s obvious but I say it anyway. :mrgreen:
I may be wrong but would is/ought deal more with those moral/ethical questions?

Not necessarily wrong but just one of many. If it has validity, I don’t think it’s wrong. Why are there many different kinds of fish in the sea? lol Not a very good analogy maybe.

:-k I’m not sure I grasp what you’re saying here. Can you elaborate a bit more and/or give me an example? Your statement kind of raises a red flag for me but since I’m not really sure what you’re speaking about, I’ll wait for you to explain.

I don’t think that that is necessarily a bad thing. You might tend to be more cautious since you realize just how much ambiguity there appears to be in the world.

But isn’t it true that we can only take a thing so far? We have taken the time to think things out, to weigh all the pros and cons, to see what consequences may come from going this way or that way, and when that bell goes off in our heads - a “yes”, we simply take that best path and then just let go. We are only human and we cannot foresee all the consequences. Random things happen but again we weigh all things conscientiously and then take the plunge.

By ought, do you mean what is necessary to do, what you must do, what you see fit to do? lol I guess that’ll do it.

You asked the question: “How ought I to live”. Are you speaking of ethical questions here? That’s what I thought at first but now I’m not sure after having read the above. Are you speaking of anything that a person might desire to do, any path he may take to further his life?
Explain this to me a little further.

Sometimes people may enter into “how ought I to live” and how their lives might be affected? Of course, in the final analysis, we make our decisions and someone may always be hurt, not because we did a hurtful thing in reaching for our own stars, but because certain people would choose to keep us on their terms and not ours. If any of that made sense. There is often some kind of conflicted goods involved.

I hope that you realize that I was not referring above to the thread per se but to the non philosophical ways in which I respond. I’m not a scholar. 8-[
As to your last statement, I share your viewpoint.

Perhaps one could also use the word “brainstorming” here. Do you think that that fits?
It’s the things which CAN NEVER be known for certain which are vital perhaps because that is where conflicted goods and ethical issues enter in. Perhaps one can really reach THE TRUTH OF IT but we (all of us) may reach some little truths of it.

With regard to how I ought to live, I thought you might bring others into the equation. In an ideal world, our existence would also include the needs of others, no? and how to protect our natural resources for future generations.

So, we would all experience dasein differently though - but then again, insofar as you are using the world, many others might share the same
experience or outlook or …I’m groping for a word here that isn’t coming through.

With much skepticism and caution. I listened to his address last night, the whole hour and a half. I thought it went rather well for him - he wasn’t his usual “self” but for me it is easy for anyone to say what they want and what they will do but I also think that it is much ego for him. I think that he was kind of performing and trying to “win” over his opponents. I had the impression that he felt that all of this was going to be easy. There is so much of a process there - can he be that naive or is it just plain hubris? I may be wrong but I also had the sense that certain things had been set up also, kind of manipulation to smooth out ruffled feathers but I didn’t feel it was based on honesty and real commitment. But maybe I am wrong. Certain things just didn’t make sense based on previous remarks he made. I’m a skeptic.

It’s probably just me but I’m having difficulty seeing much of a distinction here. Can you shed more light on the above

Perhaps both sides need to stand back and take another look. Maybe a happy medium between both but I lean much more to how things were in the past. At the same time, things do have to evolve in a way…things always have a way of evolving, devolving is maybe a better word but I see no problem with a community of ILP who is friendly and kind of a social watering hole but within reason. Like the work break - then back to the real and important things. There are far too many non sensible threads on this forum. What comes to me is that if we are not part of the solution we are part of the problem. In other words, don’t even respond to the nonsense though at times that is difficult.

Oh, I would say that those with reasonable minds who more or less maintain balance in here, those who are able to see the difference between too much absurdity and inaneness ~~ and a little social frolicking which might be the icing on the cake in a philosophy forum. But that’s just my thinking and not necessarily “right”.

Things are not always right or wrong ~~ just more right than wrong and visa versa.
See, there is just so much ambiguity in the world. But isn’t it fun to try to plow through it?

I watched a movie the other night which brought home the question to me: "How ought I (or one) to live? It’s called Never Let Me Go. It was about children who were created to be genetically-engineered organ donors to serve their Originals, the ones which they were “cloned” after. It reminded me of nazi Germany.

These poor children were bred and manipulated and brainwashed into believing only one thing - it was their duty after growing up to one day sacrifice their selves through a number of operations - through giving their organs. They were raised to believe/to know this and that at some point there would be that last “donation” which would end their lives. I began to question how these adults could possibly not run away, not want to be free, not realize what was being done to them. Of course, it dawned on me that it was embedded in their brains and their minds that this was to be their journey - how could they respond or react otherwise?. A few, who were more aware even if unconsciously, wanted to postpone the inevitable by “receiving” deferrals. In other words, two people in love might be able to wait a while before going throught the organ donations but that was all a hoax. Anyway – it made me realize (though I already realize) just how inhumane and callous we can be as humans.

These children were nothing more than cattle to these adults who lied to them.
I suppose that they felt that since they were “clones” they were not entitled to be free and to live happy productive lives. They saw nothing of the beauty and what was real about them ~ they were just tools to be used.The Originals evidently had the money to “clone” their selves. No one seemed to see these children and later adults as “individuals in their own right”. They were just forms of slaves to be used when it was called for.
The movie broke my heart and made me so angry. It was science fiction but then again who knows how far science without compassion, ethics and restraints can go?

After all was said and done, I asked myself the question: Under what set of circumstances might I do what these originals did? Would I be capable of doing the same thing in order to survive, to perpetuate my life and perhaps the life of my children? Can I really know what I would be capable of doing under certain circumstances if I had the opportunity? I left the question unanswered because sadly can I really answer that question though I might want to believe that I would be incapable of it? Even thinking about it at this moment, the tears are rolling down my face.
The question: “How ought I to live” doesn’t necessarily give all the answers especially when it comes to issues of the quality of life ~~ and death, those hardcore questions. I can’t imagine myself to ever be a nazi pig but in moments and situations which go way beyond any norm which we can imagine ~~ how would I choose to live?
Just another ambiguous question.

There are those who feel that they are totally responsible for their being self-determined and those who take the futile, pessimistic attitude of having no autonomy at all.

That’s how I would sum the movie I saw. At the same time, there has to be some code by which we live, some way in which we could and would see the true horizon beyond good and evil. Peering through that ambiguity to make sense of what would cause the least harm and the greatest amount of good. We all have different answers to that.

That’s profound. It brings me back to Rilke’s beautiful words:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

That gives us the incentive and courage to continue on living, not just despite it all, but because of it all. After all, isn’t that all we have?

Arc … your thoughtful post covers a lot of ground … my intuitive reaction seems to nudge me towards one of the questions you raised …

Here are the thoughts/memories that pop into my consciousness … in no particular order

  1. I was born that way … it’s a large part of “who I am”. I ran away from home the first time after grade 11 … more permanently after grade 12 … my escape was facilitated by my acceptance into the Royal Military College (St Jean Quebec) … I had truly hit a jackpot … I could get paid while getting my university education … being a member of a family of 10 … other prospects weren’t so good. I survived the first year … too much “yes sir” … “no sir” … “three bags full sir” . I set a record in my year at military college … the most “circles” for a first year student. A “circle” was once around the parade square at 6:00 AM or so … a form of punishment. My record may still be holding.

  2. I never returned to university full time. I completed the CMA(Accounting) program by correspondence only because I was refused a job on the basis “no ticket … no ride” ergo … to get on the bus/train/aircraft one must first buy a ticket.

  3. Reflecting on this … seems my character fit the “times” I was born into. Few would deny that our world has been … and continues to be … in a particular/unusual hurry to get somewhere in the past 65 years.

  4. My current age … 66 … if I am to ‘see’ the fruits of my labour … yes another form of arrogance … it must happen soon.

  5. My family situation … I long to be reconciled with my children … grand children … siblings and so on … IMO … my only hope is to achieve some respect for what I’ve spent the past 25 years doing … you mentioned it … I’ve been searching for the Holy Grail.

I remind myself every day of the counsel you provided …

Sometimes the “peace” and “slowly” lasts an hour … sometimes a day … sometimes a week … and so on. Inevitably something happens and I’m thrown back into the turbulence of life. The most pleasant memories I have of “peace” and “slowly” are the 4,000+ kilometres of the Camino Santiago I walked along … mostly alone.

:laughing: Very cute Arc. If you dislike the educator aspect of your soul, which was solidified in your above post, what would you rather it be called?

tom wrote

Alone?

Not completely true … my “walking stick” accompanied me … details about my walking stick are posted here …

pilgrimtom.weebly.com/my-walking-stick.html

But what doesn’t change here is this:

The gap that still does exist between all of the things that we speculate about on all of the threads created here and the manner in which the conclusions arrived at either do or do not fit into the very ontological nature of existence itself.

Thus someone like James S. Saint can insist that regarding the “physics of psychology”, this…

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=192555

…reflects what is true.

My point though is always to make that crucial distinction between what he believes here “in his head” to be true and what he can actually demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe “in their heads” in turn.

So, does he? Or, for that matter, do I myself in regard to my own contributions here?

Yes, but to what extent is the philosopher then able to transcend the parts rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy? In other words, in order to arrive at a frame of mind said to reflect the optimal or the only rational understanding of human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments. And that is the part I zero in on.

With respect to issues like abortion there are any number of questions in which there clearly are answers. And the answers are apllicable to all of us. Again, the world of either/or.

But when we actually bring speculation like this down to earth and assess its applicibility/relevance to an issue like abortion, we soon bump into all of the conflicting renditions of what it means to “turn on the light”, to get “closer to the truth”, to share “valid and right reasons”.

That’s why I always advocate democracy and the rule of law [moderation, negotiation, comnpromise] over might makes right or right makes might. But that doesn’t make this…

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

…go away. So I come to places like ILP in order to explore the narratives of those who profess not to be entangled in it.

It [u][b]should[/u][/b] raise a red flag! It basically revolves around the assumption that in a Godless universe human behaviors are “beyond good and evil”. Or, as someone once suggested, that, in the absence of God, all things are permitted. Why? Because all things can be rationalized.

And then there is the mentality of the sociopath. He starts with the assumption that in a Godless universe morality revolves solely around self-gratification.

All behaviors are then permitted providing that you don’t get caught doing something that others don’t approve of. And provided that if you are caught you are willing and able to endure the consequences – the punishments of those who do not subscribe to this frame of mind.

Or the nihilistic agenda of those who own and operate the global economy today. Doesn’t it basically revolve around 1] show me the money 2] what’s in it for me and 3] I’ve got mine, Jack.

Yes, but folks all along the political spectrum come to different – conflicting – conclusions regarding the part where the bell goes off. And the part where they find the right path.

Then what? Again, the option [as I see it] is generally a very, very complex intertwining of might makes right, right makes might and democracy.

Ought to because it is the right [moral, ethical] thing to do.

Thus:

Okay, I’ll try. On other threads, mr reasonable and I would go back and forth about this very distinction.

He is convinced that playing the stock market is something that he ought to do because in playing the stock market it affords him the opportunity to live a particular lifestyle. Once that is settled “in his head” he can then focus on what he ought to do in order to be successful at it.

But others argue that playing the stock market is something which ethical men and women ought not to do. Why? Because it is linked to the capitalist political economy which they have come to conclude is an exploitative system that must be overthrown and replaced with something else. Socialism for example.

Very different “oughts”, right?

Take capital punishment.

Suppose you believe that Texas has executed more prisoners in recent years than any other state in the union. Is this true? Well, you can google it: mic.com/articles/51647/kimberly … .M4ODSzJ9U

And if you suspect that this is all [or mostly] fabricated there are any number of sources in the criminal justice system that you can go to in order to get the facts. And, given this, I’d suggest that all rational men and women are obligated to believe it.

But suppose you believe that capital punishment is wrong. That it is immoral and not reflective of a civilized people.

How would you go about demonstrating that all rational human beings are obligated to believe that it’s true?

Here you bump into this: deathpenalty.procon.org/view.res … eID=002000

Both sides accumulate particular political prejudices that, from my point of view, are largely rooted in dasein. They come to embody conflicting goods such that both sets of arguments can be deemed reasonable – given an initial set of assumptions.

Thus both sides make arguments that the arguments of the other side can’t and don’t and won’t make go away.

Finally, what counts out in the real world is which side has the actual power to enforce a particular moral/political agenda.

I saw that movie too. In fact, I included my own reaction to it in my film thread:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=179469&p=2366290&hilit=Mark+Romanek#p2366290

And, yes, most of us will react to it disapprovingly. Just as most of us will react to Nazi Germany disapprovingly. I know that I do. But I also have no illusions that this reaction is anything other than an existential contraption. There are, after all, many, many others who would not react disapprovingly at all.

Thus how would the philosophers go about constructing an argument able to demonstrate that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to react to either context in The Right Way?

My own reaction to “codes of behavior” is, first of all, to note all of the different renditions that have appeared over the centuries. And then to note that “serious philosophers” have yet to actually sink their analytic assessments into these conflicting and contradictory rituals, customs, folkways, mores, laws etc., in order to yank out a frame of mind that is able to be demonstrated as the optimal point of view.

And those that tried [like Kant] ever and always alluded to one or another transcendent moral font. Which most called God. Or “the Gods”.

Organs don’t come much more major than the heart.