The problem is you’re making no points whatsoever. Noone knows what you’re talking about. You’re living entirely inside your tiny brain while thinking it’s others who do so.
You merely spam, accuse, provoke, doubt . . . that’s all I see.
I asked you once, twice, several times, many times, billions of times . . . what do you want me to do? You never bothered to explain.
Note to others:
It’s rather sad [if rather typical] that I am able to reduce folks who are actually able to make intelligent arguments about any number of things down to declamatory glop like this.
You know, if he’s one of them. 
There you go again. I ask you a question and you don’t care to answer it. And to remind you, I don’t have to interact with you at all. It is you who need me to. I am, in fact, doing you a favor. But what do you do? Nothing. You just spam. You don’t genuinely care about how others react to what you’re saying. You have no interest in interacting with people. You live entirely inside your tiny little head. All the while, of course, accusing others that they do so. That’s what narcissists do. They project what they fear they are guilty of onto others.
Again, I have no clue what you want me to do. All I see is an old man spamming other people’s topics with his own concerns.
You are a SPAMMER. That’s my impression of you.
Words and intentions do not matter. Actions and consequences do.
Over and over and over again you declare how interested in reality you are. But are you really? Everything that is outside of your declarations says otherwise. Maybe you need to increase the volume of your declarations so that everything else is squeezed out of our sight.
Over and over and over again you prove you have no interest in interacting with other people. Don’t tell us that you do. Show us that you do. You simply don’t. You merely think you do. You have “reasons” with which you try to defend yourself. To make yourself appear, to yourself first of all and then to others, that you’re someone who is honestly interested in reality.
What I see is an insecure old man who copes with his insecurities by telling himself all sorts of lies.
You’re too confident in your bullshit for someone declaring to be very humble.
And your pathetic understanding of human psyche . . . god! How horrible you are at psychoanalyzing other people. I would shoot myself to death if I were as retarded as you are.
How many emotions I must be stirring with my “huffing and puffing” and how many notes to imaginary others I must be inspiring.
You’re a living perfection. Forever innocent. Because you say so.
Biggy,
I think I’m going to make this my last response to you in this thread.
To sum up the point I’m trying to make to you (one of the points), it’s this: that you seem most certain in the moments when you ask your questions–when you grill people for answers to your dilemma, the one you feel they too must be ensnared by–you remain “stuck” here because this continues to seem to be the most reasonable position from which to argue and think. True, you aren’t making any claims–you’re just asking questions–but any proposal other than the dilemma you see yourself caught in is held suspect in your mind until it can be demonstrated to you that there is a way out of your dilemma (and presumably into the alternate proposal you hold suspect).
This is your default position. ^ Dasein. Your caught in a dilemma. How can you resolve the conundrum of being in a universe in which things could not have turned out differently?
It’s good to have a healthy dose of skepticism over one’s own views, but this is not unique to you. It’s not a license to say you don’t have a default position–as though your nihilism permits you to say you don’t believe in anything.
Just like the objectivist, we are all prone to this–to having a default position that seems the “most reasonable” to us. My point is that we will only ever see the “reasoning” in our position simply in virtue of having those positions, that they are the ones we fall back on to deliver answers to questions, justifications to charges. It’s the “going into” that makes the reasoning seem evident, the being in the midst of the experience (even if the experience is an abstract thought).
If you really wanted out of your dilemma, if you really wanted to see whether an alternate position holds any merit or not, you wouldn’t be challenging such alternate positions nearly as much as you do. When an alternate view is proposed to you, if you really want to grip the merits of that view, you would dive into it, believe in it (if only temporarily), for that is the only way to see the logic of such views.
My point has always ever been that you have to allow your mind to “go there”–to temporarily suspend its usual tricks, its usual defenses–to be open to that which, at present, may not all together be a reality to you, just an existential contraption. But this is what existential contraptions do: they give us realities to believe in. Your nihilism, your “dasein”, is no exception.
If you did this, if you “went there”, you would find (eventually) that you have become just as convinced of your new outlook as you currently feel you are of your nihilistic/dasein-based outlook. It would gradually seem obvious to you. You would look back at yourself now and say: what was I thinking?
But I don’t think you want that. I think you find some kind of comfort in being stuck in your dilemma. It’s working for you on some level, for some purpose. And it’s true that you may not be entirely happy, unfulfilled, you may still feel some angst over being caught in a world in which prong #2 situations abound everywhere, but this is the dead end in the maze I spoke of earlier (the analogy to human thought). You feel the passage way you have followed has gotten you closer to your goal, but you didn’t expect a wall to stand between you and it. Now you’re repeatedly butting your head against that wall, still trying to get to the exit from the maze. It may be right behind that wall–so close yet so far–but sooner or later, you have to come to grips with the fact that the right way to get to the exit, the only way, is to backtrack. That’s why I’m trying to tell you: go back! Yes, backtracking does hurt, it means repeating mistakes you thought you’d never have to commit again, it means delving back into things you don’t feel comfortable with, that you thought you could leave behind, things you don’t really believe in anymore. But like I said: if you really want it, you could easily believe in it again. Objectivism is the default mode of viewing the world, the way the brain naturally works. It takes effort to see the world in any other way, to stretch the brain far from its natural mode of thinking. Relinquish that effort, and your brain will fall back on whatever “truth” seems most objective to you. I doubt you’ll ever forget that, at the end of the day, it’s still an existential contraption, but you’ll find that it’s so much easier to just slip into that objectivist mode of thinking than to be fixated on the fact that it could be construed as an existential contraption. The latter will become just a fleeting thought that passes through your mind and won’t seriously disrupt the stability of your brain’s default “objectivist” outlook.
But I don’t think you’ll do that. I get the impression so far that the effort you put in to resisting your brain’s natural objectivist mode of thinking is worth it somehow, worth some goal you feel is still within reach, or perhaps worth it because it brings you some kind of comfort that you feel would be lost if you slipped back into an objectivist frame of mind. I think you feel comfortable in your dead end. Not fully satisfied, of course–it’s not the exit you long for–but to backtrack… that entails surrendering what little comfort you have left.
I’d like to offer you some advice:
1] you need to ask yourself why [as with folks like Satyr] you get all worked up like this in responding to my posts
2] you need to explore how this reaction might be intertwined in the possibility that my points may be applicable to you
Come on, if you really felt this way about my arguments you would have long since moved on. And you certainly wouldn’t let my own assumptions here get under your skin. And they really do, don’t they? Hell, I remember back in the day when I was an objectivist. These sort of arguments nettled me too.
It’s just that, unlike most objectivists, I finally succumbed to them. Now I am entangled in a dilemma that I am really, really trying to yank myself up out of.
Sure, you’re spent years constructing this monolithic narrative that allows you to imagine that you really do understand the world around us. Just as I did. And the last thing you want is for someone like me to yank you down into a dilemma of your own.
One revolving around the existential relationship between identity, values and power.
Right?
People (meaning everyone) get worked up because subjectivists are the biggest assholes on the planet!!!
They want no accountability…
And dude, you have no dilemma!!!
I too would like to offer you some rather serious advice.
You have a very poor understanding of psychology.
I have no idea what your assumptions are.
I am pretty sure that it did for you. But I am not you.
Again, you are projecting yourself because your primitive, very embarrassing, psychology is the only kind of psychology that is familiar to you.
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Certainly, you are not talking about me. You are talking about yourself. You are completely self-absorbed.
He thinks there is only one reason why people might be insecure. And this reason is basically the possibility that they might be wrong. In reality, however, there are many other possible reasons.
He’s motivated to question, to doubt, that which makes him insecure. He’s motivated to lie in order to cover up the uncomfortable facts. He has no interest in truth. He’s a liar, that’s what he is, and that’s precisely why he’s despised.
And Magnus, that’s objective 
For example, he’s the kind of person who will lie to you that there is something wrong with your behavior so as to paralyze you in your attempt to punish his behavior. He’s going to tell you that you are “losing it” or that you are “getting worked up” not because that’s what’s really going on but quite simply because it’s useful to him to think that such is true (because then it would be better for me to cease to be angry with him.) That’s the core of victim mentality. Maniputaing others by confusing them into thinking that what is better for you is also what is better for them.
I wouldn’t word it that way, but sure.
Here’s the deal with him:
He’s terrified of being judged
He’s trying to get lots of friends because he’s terrified of making hard decisions
And if you’re telling him that this dilemma doesn’t exist at all, he’ll just tell you that you don’t understand him and call you a little kid …
He’s extremely insecure, you’re correct about this
Okay then, we’re stuck. How about a game of checkers instead? Or, if we include ecmandu, tic tac toe.
How about a game of Magnus hitting you in your head until you bleed to death, what do you think, I think it’s more fun, don’t you think?
Note to others:
Have we finally resolved this?
Who are these particular others, Biggy?
Who are you talking to?
Or are you talking to yourself?
The others? Oh, I just make them up as I go along. On some threads, it even includes you. 
It’s a very weak strategy. It requires far more intelligence than most of these people have. If you ask a Christian to prove to you that God exists, he’s not going to come to a realization that he cannot do so. Instead, he will simply give you what he thinks is a proof.
A better approach would be to ask them to define their words in order to prove that they know what they are talking about.
Note that Biggy does not understand the purpose of definitions. He looks down upon them as being merely inside your head. Not descriptions of reality that can be more or less accurate but just words without any reference point in the real.
I don’t think Biggy’s question is rhetorical. I don’t think he understands that the idea of “what is true independently of anyone’s opinion” is without a reference point in reality.
No, he’s a fence sitter. He can’t decide.
He can’t decide between reality and fantasy. He doesn’t like reality. He wants to believe in a fantasy. The problem is he no longer can.
Sorry to see you go. But we did manage to sustain a discussion here that is all too infrequent of late at ILP: an actual exchange of substantive opinion. And in the philosophy forum no less.
Before the Kids more or less took over, it wasn’t always like this.
1] If what you say here is true then I am back to this: that, in a wholly determined universe, I could never have not been the way that I am. My “certainty” then is merely another domino toppling over in my brain.
2] To the extent that my dilemma is not a reasonable frame of mind, others are invited to note the manner in which it is not applicable to them in their own conflicted interactions with others.
They will either go there or they will not. And, if they do, I will either grasp their point or I will not. That’s simply how these exchanges work here.
Right?
But I repeat myself: All I can do is to note the narratives of others that are at odds with my own; and then to weigh them as either more or less reasonable than the manner in which I have come to think about these relationships myself here and now.
Seriously, what else is there in a venue like this? The only alternative would seem to be this:
1] the belief that there is in fact an optimal manner in which to assess my dilemma
2] that I am refusing to grasp it…or I am unable to grasp it
Indeed, the same thing could be said of the manner in which you convey the nature of prong #1 interactions. You think as you do about “consciousness” [here and now] and others either share your assumptions about it or they do not. From your frame of mind it is the optimal assessment; but you have not been able to convey it such that the philosophy community [even here] embraces it in turn.
It’s not the “standard model” among philosophers. Anymore than my own narrative is.
More to the point though [mine] in a universe where human interactions are embedded in some measure of “free will”, dasein [as I understand it] is applicable only pertaining to conflicting value judgments and the manner in “I” is largely subjective in the is/ought world. Dasein would not be applicable regarding the preponderence of human interactions that are embedded instead in the either/or world.
Yes, and I have had any number of additional “default positions” in the past: Christianity, Unitarianism, Objectivism, Marxism, feminism, Trotskyism, Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy, liberalism, Existentialism…nihilism.
But I recognize this: given that I live in a world of contingency, chance and change, there is always the possibility that through new experiences, new relationships, new sources of information and knowledge etc., the part of “I” embodied in dasein is ever problematic – an existential contraption – from the cradle to the grave.
It’s just when I suggest “the same with you” to the moral objectivists that the more contentious reactions are leveled at me.
My nihilism is embedded in the is/ought world. In the either/or world there are any number of things that we can believe to be true for all of us: mathematics, the laws of nature, the rules of logic, the extant empirical world.
And I am more than willing to concede that someday I may well look back on this frame of mind and ponder, “what was I thinking?”
Indeed, it is the objectivists who embed their own moral and political narratives in one or other psychological rendition of this:
[b]1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.
[/b]
My point on this thread is that to the extent determinism is true is the extent to which the manner in which we construe “good” and “evil” in the is/ought world is just an illusion. There is no actual good and evil in the manner in which we have come to think of that as “autonomous human beings”; only the way in which things can only ever have been.
But how exactly would we go about demonstrating that [one way or the other] beyond all doubt?
What “on earth” does this mean though? Do or do not folks on both sides of any particular moral and political conflict have narratives that they construe to be the most [or the only] rational frame of mind?
Or can you note a particular conflict [one of your own] in which there actually is an argument that can be demonstrated to be the most or the only rational frame of mind.
And what of the sociopath who argues that, sans God, the most or the only reasonable point of view is that morality revolves around their own self-gratification? How do philosophers – ethicists – demonstrate that this argument is necessarily without merit?
Again, bring this assessment down to earth. Choose a particular context in which human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments. Come back into the exchange and defend your own reaction to those who dispute your own value judgments embedded in your own behaviors.
[b][Note to others:
I acknowledge time and again how my own assessment of dasein is no less an existential contraption. That in fact I may well be wrong. And, thus, all I can do [here] is to broach my own frame of mind, ask others to critique it and then ask them to bring their own moral narrative out into the world of actual human behaviors – their own for example – in conflict with others. ][/b]
With you it all gets tangled up further in the manner in which you construe the nature of consciousness itself. And my problem with that is this: I have no real understanding of how “for all practical purposes” you do intertwine the Prong # 1 and Prong #2 components of human interaction out in the “real world”. And in particular when your own values come into conflict with others.
It’s as much a blur here with you as it has been with James Saint and RM/AO, or Jacob and VO.
I have no illusions about ever really grasping the nature of my own psychological intentions and motivations. So, sure, you may well be right here.
All I know is how much I miss the days when as an objectivist myself I was in turn able to convince myself that we lived in a world of Right and Wrong, of Good and Evil, of Justice and Injustice. First with God, then with one or another political ideology.
Now I am hopelessly drawn and quartered, hopelessly fractured and fragmented, hopelessly tugged in conflicting directions.
So, no, I am far, far, far from feeling “comfortable in my dead end”. Especially now that I am running out of time and the narrative shifts to the things I become preoccupied with here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929
From my frame of this is all embedded in an intellectual contraption that you have managed to think yourself into believing. How it actually “works” for you out in the world of conflicting human behaviors – your own – is just not something I really have a clear understanding of. How in any particular context do you manage to just let your brain “will fall back on whatever ‘truth’ seems most objective to you.”
I’d have to be with you when a conflict with another actually broke out. You’d have to walk me through what was unfolding in your brain as the conflict either was or was not resolved.
We’d have to explore the actual assumptions [then behaviors] being defended by both sides; and then figure out how the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy was less applicable to you.
In other words, what on earth do you mean by “[the] brain’s natural objectivist mode of thinking” when it is not just an intellectual contraption being explained and defended here.
How is it intertwined in your interactions with others?
The definition of abortion: “the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.”
Is the meaning of this word not in fact “true by definition”? And is it not in fact true for all of us?
Shift gears…
Abortion is immoral.
Define these words and tell us if they are in fact true.
Abortion is moral.
Define these words and tell us if they are in fact true.
Here we tend to come upon two species of objectivists:
1] those who argue these words can be understood objectively and then applied universally to all abortions
2] those who argue these words can be understood objectively but are apllicable only to each particular abortion in each particular context
That’s the distinction I always come back to regarding the utility of definitions in philosophical exchanges that revolve around conflicting value judgments.
I can’t decide because I have not come upon an argument of late able to convince me that a particular abortion in a particular context is [b]either[/b] good/right [b]or[/b] evil/wrong. I don’t argue that this can’t be known only that I am not able to know this myself here and now.
The objectivists then argue not only that this can be known but that you either know what they know about it or you are wrong.
Then right and wrong are defined religiously or ideologically or deontologically.
Note to others:
Allow me please to “define” [or to make a distinction between] reality and fantasy here: Whatever he says it is.
Go ahead, ask him. 