He wants confirmation that he did nothing wrong in his life, that he made no mistakes and that he could not have done anything in any other way. He wants to feel that he cannot be criticized by others and he need not criticize himself. That is what brings him peace.
It means choosing the morally correct side. Biggy is disillusioned to the fact that everyone who argues one side or another of a morally controversial subject has their own rendition of a “rational justification” for that side. Because of this, he has given up simply weighing the arguments of each side and coming to the most rational conclusion he can on that basis. Instead, he wants something beyond this, something above rational-sounding arguments. He wants something on the order of a mathematical proof that demonstrates which side is right and which side is wrong. ← He wants that to be the basis on which he decides which side to align himself with. He feels that anything less would be to risk being persuades by one’s own biases, one’s own leaps of logic, one’s own unconscious motives, etc.–you know, things that hold us back from being as strictly rational as we could be, things that prevent us from knowing that we’ve got it right rather than merely deceiving ourselves into thinking we’ve got it right.
I’m convince not only that such a bias-free, such a deception-free, rationality, or demonstration of proof, doesn’t exist, but is incoherent, for the only context in which such a rationality or demonstration of proof exist is in the moments when we try to construct our reasons and justification as a means of defending ourselves against our opposition. I’m convinced that there’s more to the reasons and justification we come up with in those moments than formal logic. I’m convinced that the emotion, the biases and prejudices, the unconscious motives, all have their own brand of “logic” with which they contribute to the reasons and justifications for this or that moral position, and accounts for the undeniable diversity on moral positions and arguments for them.
^ This is difficult for me to explain not only to Biggy but to anyone because it hinges on my theory of consciousness and meaning, on all subjective experience being rooted in its own unique brand of “justification”.
It appears to me that he has no idea what he wants. He cannot communicate it clearly. So it’s up to us to interpret it.
Perhaps he has already found what he’s looking for. Perhaps all he wants is to post what he’s been posting on these boards and absolutely nothing more than that.
A very bizarre form of behavior, I must say.
What is more likely is that he’s looking for universal and eternal agreement between people. Perhaps what’s happening is that he realized that this is an impossible goal and now he’s suffering due to his inability to give up on this impossible goal.
But he will never confirm this. In fact, he’s going to deny it by claiming that agreement is not what he’s after.
I guess he’s quite simply uncooperative. In general, people without, or with very poor self-consciousness, are uncooperative.
As such, as eyes wide open said earlier, it’s up to us to interpret him. We can’t rely on his self-knowledge . . . he doesn’t have one.
My current theory is that iambiguous is part of a secret NSA program allegedly called Singulauous.
Its goal is to create a singularity of wasted time which will eventually swallow up all thinking in the universe.
Well, what you just did is you replaced one vague phrase with another. So I have to ask, repeating myself in a sense, what does “the morally correct side” mean?
These words either mean something or they mean nothing. They refer to some events that can be experienced or they do not.
It’s not enough to simply regurgitate words and phrases. One must also understand them.
What kind of event, or a sequence of events, does he, I mean Biguous, want to bring about?
How do you experience being on “the morally correct side”?
That is the relevant question.
You didn’t answer that question.
Magnus,
I’m not sure how else to answer your question.
Whatever answer you require is going to require shuffling around words–that’s how one delivers answers or defines terms and phrases. How do you define X? Well, X = a, b, and c. ← You substitute “X” with “a, b, and c”. The key isn’t to reach for something above and beyond a different set of words; the idea is to find the right set of words that satisfies the questioners requirements. Sometimes the right set of words is more than just a another sentence, sometimes it’s a whole paragraph, sometimes several… the object is to put together some set of words whose effect is to trigger an idea in the questioner’s mind such that he says: “Oh, that idea. Now I understand.”
Obviously, my rephrasing above doesn’t trigger such an idea in your mind, so I’ll have to try something else (although at this point, it’s like taking shots in the dark). How 'bout this:
You come across a child wounded in the ditch. What’s the right thing to do: 1) leave the child to die, or 2) get the child to a hospital? Intuitively, most people would feel 2) is the morally correct thing to do. It’s not something that necessarily requires elaborate rational thought–it’s usually a gut feeling; furthermore, it’s not something that’s always right (ex. the child may grow up to be the next Hitler), but insofar as the feeling goes, it would probably seem to most people that 2) is the right choice.
Biggy is trying to find a method for determining which faction in a moral conflict is the one striving for what most people see (or feel) in the scenario above when they intuit 2) to be the morally right choice. That is to say, when most people intuit the “right thing to do” in the scenario above, they believe they are seeing (or feeling, or intuiting, or understanding) the correct moral choice to make–that is, that they are seeing reality, not just a personal preference. Biggy wants to be able to see that in any moral conflict–he wants to be able to determine what’s the “right thing to do”–which faction in a moral conflict is striving for it–and to be guaranteed that he’s seeing reality for what it is, not being deceived by his own prejudices and personal preferences–not just to feel that one side in the conflict is morally right, but to somehow know it.
Precisely! And it is the entire crux of Biggy’s dilemma. Biggy doesn’t even know what event or sequences of events would count as an objective demonstration of the morally right choice. He simply asks objectivists to present one if they can. He doesn’t accept any answer that could conceivably be construed as yet another arbitrary outcome of dasein. But then I for one am at a loss to understand what else such an objective demonstration of the morally right choice would look like. That’s what we’re struggling with in this thread. How does one accept such a demonstration without being able to construe is as, in Biggy’s words, an “existential contraption”?
I can answer what the experience of being on “the morally correct side” is–it’s the same as the experience of intuiting the morally correct choice in the scenario above (with the child in the ditch)–only Biggy wants more than just an intuitive experience–he wants something that proves even beyond experience that such an intuition is correct. But I don’t know how he can get beyond experience, especially when it comes to morality.
Quite astute.
That is true. What I am looking for is the right set of words that will help me identify the exact event, or the sequence of events, that you’re speaking of when you say “choosing the morally correct side”.
But in the case that you do not understand what these words mean, no amount of elaboration on your part will help me identify what you mean – because you mean nothing.
And this is what I suspect. You are using Biggy’s words without understanding them. Biggy is using other people’s words without understanding them. These other people are using other people’s words without understanding them. And so on.
In social systems with centralized authority, I might be able to trace the origin of these words and then determine whether they mean anything at all, but in social systems with decentralized authority, such as the ones we have today, I will end up running in circles, each person referring me to some other person, and then only if they are honest enough to admit they are using other people’s words.
That question simply asks what would you do in such a situation. Additionally, it might also be asking what do you want others to do in such a situation.
As such, there is no guarantee that people will come to agreement. They may or may not agree. If they don’t, each one will have their own answer to the question.
Is that what “the morally correct side” means?
I don’t think so.
If you want others to do something, then you must have a clear idea of what you want them to do. Otherwise, you cannot say it is YOU who want them to do something. And even if we ignore this, and assume that it is YOU who wants them to do something, then you wouldn’t be able to measure whether they did what you supposedly wanted them to do or not.
In other words, if you’re asking others to demonstrate that their side is “the morally correct side” then you must know what this means otherwise you won’t be able to measure their performance.
It’s akin to people asking for proof of God without knowing what that entails (because they don’t understand what the word “God” means.)
They are simply asking to be manipulated – to be “swept off by their feet”.
I understand what this means. Your “intuiting the morally correct choice” would be my “doing what you’re most comfortable with”.
However, I will disagree this is what these people mean by “the morally correct side”. As you say, Biggy wants more than this, which is to say, something else, but without ever bothering to define what that is.
He’s skipping an important step: he has to define what he’s asking others to prove. And because this is not his word, this means he has to try to understand how others are using it.
As long as spouts the dasein stuff, he is king of the mountain - unassailable. Only his thoughts about everything are right for him. He can accept or reject any argument on the basis of any whim. Total control.
I’m sure that he enjoys sitting in bed and passing judgement on the arguments :
“No.”
“You have not convinced me.”
“You have not demonstrated it to me.”
“Try again.”
And as long as he does it, people keep coming back and talking to him. If he was ever convinced by an argument, then the conversations might end and then what would he do.
He’s got a sweet situation here. 
No, my point is that it is unreasonable to argue that the Republicans in the Senate did not use the “nuclear option” to put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
This is either in fact true or it is in fact false.
My point further is that whether the nuclear option was reasonable here is rooted in the manner in which I construe the meaning of political economy rooted in conflicted goods rooted [largely] in dasein. And that there does not appear to be a way in which mere mortals can demonstrate that this is either in fact true or in fact false.
I certainly cannot. I acknowledge over and again that this is but one more existential contraption. No less so than yours.
Again, assuming of course that men and women have the capacity to make decisions like this with some measure of autonomy.
What the moral/political objectivists assume is that just as we can distinguish between rational and irrational with respect to the fact of the Gorsuch nomination and confirmation, we can, in turn, distinguish between fact and fiction with respect to the question “ought he have been nominated and confirmed”?
Go ahead, ask them.
Okay, choose a behavior in which actual flesh and blood human beings have [historically, culturally] been at odds, and note for us what it means to “improve” ones behavior.
Again…
1] What does it mean to be reasonable when someone asks you, “is Donald Trump the president of the United States”?
2] What does it mean to reasonable when someone asks you, “is Donald Trump’s presidency [so far] a success?”
For someone who understands me so well why do you always misunderstand me even more?
You know, with respect to all that prong #2 stuff.
You know, assuming some measure of autonomy. 
Why did you bring up the subject of free-will versus determinism then?
You often do. I assume it’s because you think that if there is no free-will, understood as the ability to change past decisions, then there can be no distinction between reasonable and unreasonable.
Because I know he has no interest in philosophy, I know he won’t be tackling this question, so this question is meant for other people trying to interpret his behavior.
No, my point is this: What does it mean to speak of “just mindful matter”? Mindful matter is this absolutely extraordinary – astounding – thing. It is the first matter [going back billions of year] that we suspect is able to ponder itself as matter existing in a universe that may or may not be propelled by immutable material laws. And, if it is propelled by the very same immutable laws that propel mindless matter, what then does that mean?
What does it mean to be “responsible” for something in a wholly determined universe? What does it mean to speak of “obligation” in a wholly determined universe?
Yes, this may well be that important point I keep missing. But if I can only define “choice” here as I was ever going to define it, then that either is or is not in sync with the laws of nature.
That’s why I always focus the beam here on conflicts in which a “consensus” [the irresistible force in one community] makes contact with another “consensus” [the immovable object in another community].
Take for example the practice of clitorectomies. How do we determine objectively whether this practice is or is not in sync with that which all intelligent men and women are obligated to either embrace or eschew. How do we derive the essential argument that unequivocally transcends historical, cultural and experiential context?
But my point is that “is/ought” in a determined universe is but the illusion of “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad”. Imagine for example [in a multiverse], entities somehow detached from our own determined suniverse. One observes that some of us choose to eat chickens while others choose not to. But then the other quickly points out that this was never, ever able to be any other way.
All I can return to then is this: I am just not “getting” your point here.
Still, either way it was never going to be anything other than what, ontologically, per the laws of nature, it was always propelled/compelled to be.
And that is when we probe the extent to which there is a teleological element – which most call God – “behind” it. That’s when we reach the part where a real choice is being made – in the sense that another actual choice was able to be made instead.
Or so it seems to me.
This makes sense to you. But it makes sense to you only because there was never any possibility that it would not make sense to you. So, what does it mean for another to suggest that it is fallacious and delusional when there was never any possibility in turn that they would not say this?
What does that actually mean “in reality”?
Then we understand the meaning of “stuck” in different ways. My meaning revolves around a universe in which I was never, ever going to not be stuck in it. All I can then imagine is this universe unfolding in such a way that “in my head” I come to think/believe that I am not stuck in it. But even that is only as it ever could have been.
So, actually being “stuck” in a universe is just another frame of mind that matter has propelled me to ponder in different — but no less determined – ways.
But how is this perceived diversity – in either sense – any less entangled in what it/they was/were only ever going to be?
From my frame of mind, what I am doing [in a wholly determined universe] is disengaging from one point of view and then engaging another point of view while recognizing that I must recognize that both moments are ever in sync with the only way they ever could have been.
What, in a wholly determined universe, does it mean – really mean – to start and to stop anything?
And if I know you’re right [here and now] then I could never have known anything other than that.
Even if, down the road, the lightbulb goes off, and I finally “get” you, it is only because I was never going to not get you.
Look, we can go into great “technical” depth here regarding what “philosophically” it means to “make the right decision”.
In other words, taking into account human sense perception and cognition. Taking into account nature and nurture. Taking into account the tools of logic and epistemology. Taking into account the role of language. Taking into account the speculations of ethicists down through the ages.
But sooner or later we have to take our conclusions about that out into the world and plug them into an actual context in which what we choose to do comes into conflict with what others choose to do instead.
And, thus, generate actual consequences which others will react to in terms of a particular set of customs and folkways and mores and laws. All of which are embedded out in a particular world rooted in a particular historical and cultural context.
Really, how difficult is it to understand the distinction between [b][u]discussing[/u][/b] choices here in a philosophy venue and [b]making[/b] choices out in a world where the consequences of what we do choose can be, among other things, profoundly problematic, precarious and [even] perilous.
It’s sad when I am able to reduce you down to this sort of Satyrean retort.
Or, sure, I can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just poking me here with the irony stick.
Ironically, I may be describing your motivation perfectly … and you don’t even realize it.
Admittedly, this is the part that gets particularly tricky: What do I want?
And, more to the point, to what extent can I ever really know this?
For example, given the manner in which I construe the meaning of “I” here. The part embedded in nature and in nurture. The part embedded in a particular sequence of experiences over many, many years. The parts embedded in the subconscious and the unconscious mind.
Though [I think] if I had really “given up” I wouldn’t be wasting my time exploring the renditions of others. After all, there are plenty of other more gratifying [sure-fire] ways in which to wait for godot — music, film, feasting, imbibing.
And then there is the part where I am really, really curious to know if anyone actually can yank me up from my dilemma. In other words, before I drag them down into it instead.
But that of course is just my own rendition of this:
I still have no clear idea how “for all practical purposes” this might actually be useful. Pertaining to, among other things, human social, political and economic interactions.
If you come on a philosophy board in order to ask us to demonstrate that our decisions are “the right decisions” only to get a negative response in the form of “we don’t know what you want us to do” isn’t it natural, provided you still want us to do whatever you want us to do, to help us, and thus get closer to achieving your goal, by explaining in more detail what you want us to do?
I have absolutely no idea what you want me to do. As far as I am concerned, you are merely bombarding me with words.
He craves external stimulation. Instead of being in control of the environment, he wants to be controlled by the environment. But in a positive, i.e. pleasant, way. He wants someone to come along and to “take his breath away”. In plain terms, to be impressed. Because he’s impressionable. The only problem is he’s old and the old drugs no longer work on him. He needs something stronger.