a new understanding of today, time and space.

You mean to tell me that virtually nobody has ever found a conclusion about this?

K: nope, there has been no conclusion in over 2500 years about the question of
being, of existence and, and to those who say, yes, there has been a conclusion,
I kindly ask them to tell me what that conclusion was, so I can note it in my
diary………

Kropotkin

OK, Iambigous, I am ready to tackle this issue

let us try this abortion issue…… from top to bottom, as best as I can…

you can create a list for the pro and cons of abortion…
for example, you can, medically save some women who need to have an abortion to
save their lives… and con is baby fetuses die…but a list of this sort
still has all the emotional baggage that we bring to the table…
no matter how much we try to be “rational”…

we can point out the religious arguments as a con
and we can point out the right of women to make their own choices involving
their bodies…as a pro…

but the bottom line becomes this, no matter where we lay the arguments,
they still are arguments of emotions and of biases and of habits and prejudices,
in other words, arguments based from a certain point of view and there is no
point of view where we can have some “higher” viewpoint that trumps any other
viewpoints…

so the question becomes, upon what means do we “judge” the entire abortion
from… what criteria should we use to “judge” this matter?

What arbitary and objectivist viewpoint should we use to “judge”
the case of abortion?

because no matter where we plant the flag of “this is the right viewpoint”
then we run into trouble, because how do we “know” that this viewpoint is the
right one? throught which “lens” or which ism or ideology shall we base our
view upon that is the “right” viewpoint…

Here we run into one of Kant’s old questions, how do I know?
the very means upon which we judge such things as abortion
or anything else is subjective………… it is not possible for me to ask
“objective” questions that even get me close to an answer about abortion
because the very questions we use to understand the matter are laced with
subjectivity…….so above when I said, let us create a list of pro and cons,
the very list itself is a biased, subjective list……. there is no way I can reach
an unbiased list about abortion because of the very bias that I have, that I
have had since childhood…………

on a personal note, my entire existence is based on the abortion issue……
when my mom was pregnant with me, she got German measles and
when a pregnant women gets German measles, whatever is developing
in the fetus gets affected… she was 4 months pregnant with me,
so the doctors, fearing the worse, suggested she get a “procedure” which
is a nice way of saying abortion……. she, for some reason,
said no and when I was born, I had all my body parts in the right places
and the doctors felt that was a major, major victory… everyone was expecting
me to come out severely damaged… just having a hearing loss was considered
to be a major victory…so my own personal story is where I was personally
affected by abortion or not, in my case………… and this is why I support abortion…
because my mom and family would have had to care and support me to the end of my
days had I been born damaged…… as it was with a hearing loss, it was quite
a grind during my childhood for which I still have a sister who is angry
about the attention devoted to me because of my constant round of doctors
and hearing tests all through my childhood… she still holds a grudge about it,
over 55 year ago…it is what it is…………………. I am a witness to the entire
abortion debate and my story influences my understanding, my subjectivity
to the abortion debate…………I cannot sort out my past with my beliefs about
abortion………I cannot, no matter how hard I try, try to be objective about
abortion… I just can’t be objective…………

and we all are witnesses to our past and that past influences our understanding
of matters like abortion…………………. so when you speak of dasein or competing
goods or political economy, it doesn’t matter to me because my story is different
and has nothing to do with dasein or competing goods… my story, my relationship
to abortions is too personal to compare to dasein or competing goods which to my
mind is to impersonal for something that has directly influenced my life…………

I don’t pretend to be a impartial or objective observer to abortions…
I am not…………

but my sole saving grace is this, I am aware of my bias toward abortions
so, when I make some statement about abortions, my past is always on
my mind and influences my judgement………….no matter how impartial or
objective I try to be………

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
OK, Iambigous, I am ready to tackle this issue

let us try this abortion issue…… from top to bottom, as best as I can…

you can create a list for the pro and cons of abortion…
for example, you can, medically save some women who need to have an abortion to
save their lives… and con is baby fetuses die…but a list of this sort
still has all the emotional baggage that we bring to the table…
no matter how much we try to be “rational”…

we can point out the religious arguments as a con
and we can point out the right of women to make their own choices involving
their bodies…as a pro…

but the bottom line becomes this, no matter where we lay the arguments,
they still are arguments of emotions and of biases and of habits and prejudices,
in other words, arguments based from a certain point of view and there is no
point of view where we can have some “higher” viewpoint that trumps any other
viewpoints…

so the question becomes, upon what means do we “judge” the entire abortion
from… what criteria should we use to “judge” this matter?

What arbitary and objectivist viewpoint should we use to “judge”
the case of abortion?

because no matter where we plant the flag of “this is the right viewpoint”
then we run into trouble, because how do we “know” that this viewpoint is the
right one? throught which “lens” or which ism or ideology shall we base our
view upon that is the “right” viewpoint…

Here we run into one of Kant’s old questions, how do I know?
the very means upon which we judge such things as abortion
or anything else is subjective………… it is not possible for me to ask
“objective” questions that even get me close to an answer about abortion
because the very questions we use to understand the matter are laced with
subjectivity…….so above when I said, let us create a list of pro and cons,
the very list itself is a biased, subjective list……. there is no way I can reach
an unbiased list about abortion because of the very bias that I have, that I
have had since childhood…………

on a personal note, my entire existence is based on the abortion issue……
when my mom was pregnant with me, she got German measles and
when a pregnant women gets German measles, whatever is developing
in the fetus gets affected… she was 4 months pregnant with me,
so the doctors, fearing the worse, suggested she get a “procedure” which
is a nice way of saying abortion……. she, for some reason,
said no and when I was born, I had all my body parts in the right places
and the doctors felt that was a major, major victory… everyone was expecting
me to come out severely damaged… just having a hearing loss was considered
to be a major victory…so my own personal story is where I was personally
affected by abortion or not, in my case………… and this is why I support abortion…
because my mom and family would have had to care and support me to the end of my
days had I been born damaged…… as it was with a hearing loss, it was quite
a grind during my childhood for which I still have a sister who is angry
about the attention devoted to me because of my constant round of doctors
and hearing tests all through my childhood… she still holds a grudge about it,
over 55 year ago…it is what it is…………………. I am a witness to the entire
abortion debate and my story influences my understanding, my subjectivity
to the abortion debate…………I cannot sort out my past with my beliefs about
abortion………I cannot, no matter how hard I try, try to be objective about
abortion… I just can’t be objective…………

and we all are witnesses to our past and that past influences our understanding
of matters like abortion…………………. so when you speak of dasein or competing
goods or political economy, it doesn’t matter to me because my story is different
and has nothing to do with dasein or competing goods… my story, my relationship
to abortions is too personal to compare to dasein or competing goods which to my
mind is to impersonal for something that has directly influenced my life…………

I don’t pretend to be a impartial or objective observer to abortions…
I am not…………

but my sole saving grace is this, I am aware of my bias toward abortions
so, when I make some statement about abortions, my past is always on
my mind and influences my judgement………….no matter how impartial or
objective I try to be………"

K: ok, have spent the last day trying to understand my last post in terms
of how we understand things…I have been personally influenced by
the issue of abortion and no matter how hard I try, I cannot be impartial
or objective to that issue… my entire life is haunted by this issue…

but to try to force that into some arbitary and fixed examples like
dasein, competing goods or political ecoonomy seems to be rather foolish…
One can of course try to see life in terms of dasein, competing goods or
political economy, but frankly given my emotional context (context is just another
word for experience) given my context to abortion, I just don’t see
abortion in terms of such limiting words like dasein or competing goods or
political econonomy…those words fit when the context is a shallow one,
but when the connection is a deep one, then they don’t fit the situation at all…

ok, now let us expand our thinking… what if most people, most, people
have an emotional context to such words like abortion, as I do…
then trying to explore abortion via such limited means as dasein or
competing goods or political economy seems to me anyway, rather
a shallow attempt to understand abortion given the emotional
reaction to the word that we have…………

in other words, we react to the word abortion with an emotional context
and there is very little that will prevent us from doing so…… we cannot
be so rational and logical that we can suspend our emotional context to
the word abortion long enough to make rational, logical choices…

the emotional reaction to the word abortion overrides any attempt to
be rational/logical about abortion… we cannot see the idea of dasein
and competing goods or political economy as being a useful way to
understand abortion when we are full of the emotional context
that we have lived……………the attempt to view life via dasein,
or competing goods or political economy is doomed when faced with
such an emotional feelings that abortion brings up……………

I hope I have made sense on some level…I am not even sure
I understand it…….

although upon reflection, I can see how this explains the conservative
attitude toward rational, logical matters……… their emotions
override any rational/logical understanding of life or matters pertaining to
life…….their emotionalism overrides any rationalism or logical thought about
what is life………….ummmmm, more food for thought…….

Kropotkin

currently, I am fighting a bad shoulder, one that hurts even just being…
and typing is painful, so hang with me as I’ve taken a muscle relaxer to
tame this really bad pain………….

so, I’ve declared myself as a materialist… which is to say, I don’t
believe in god or any metaphysical notion that goes with the concept of god…

I’ve declared myself in opposition to millions, nay, say billions who declare
that we live in a metaphysical world…that we have a god among other
metaphysical notions…… but I think perhaps we should really understand
what metaphysical actually means…….

according to the “Metaphysical” article on the “Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy”, which I have read over 30 times in the last two weeks,
metaphysical means certain things…………that there is a classical definition
to metaphysical and a more modern one………

the classical definition to “metaphysical” is

  1. the nature of being.
  2. the first cause of things.
  3. things that do not change…….

now Kant added some stuff to this definition,
he added his famous phrase, “God, freedom, and immortality”
to also mean metaphysical…………
so the idea of metaphysics had expanded in modern times……
you can have free will and determinism, the question
of universals and particulars, substance: the topic of Spinoza,
“true propositions”, space/time, parts and wholes, causation,
the mental and the physical and the question of, is the world the
one we see or do we have mental representation of the world that
is radically different then the world actually is?

so, one can see that metaphysics as a topic, has grown substantially…
from those three little questions of Aristotle or Plato………….

now let us imagine that any question even denying metaphysics
is now considered a metaphysical question………
and that is in fact the state of metaphysical study, these days
denying god is considered a metaphysical question… even if one doesn’t
believe in metaphysical questions, raising the question of god or universals
or freedom is considered a metaphysical question… personally, I
don’t think so, but apparently I am in the very small minority…….

again, so we have questions of metaphysics, the nature of being,
or as certain people around here call it, Dasein, in German…
so to engage in the pursuit of Dasein is to pursue a metaphysical
question… the pursuit of being or existence………

now I have denied metaphysical questions such as god and immortality,
as I don’t need them in my pursuit of philosophy………

the question of freedom is a very important question,
but considered metaphysical…………

so let return to the classic definition of metaphysics,
the nature of being, first cause of things and things that do not change……

so, what is being? what is existence? people have been arguing over that since
humans can argue over that…… a long, long time and still there is no answer to
the question of being, to the question of existence…….

the second understanding of metaphysics, the first cause of things,
which is another way of saying god……. but I stand with the scientist
that first cause of things is the Big Bang theory………
and from those forces/laws comes the universe and the stars and the
planets and then life and then after a long while, us……………
you can plausibly create a story of the first cause of things without
engaging in god…… it is not hard…………

and the third understanding of metaphysics, things that do not change………
but the problem is everything changes, everything… even god…
read the old testament against the new testament and you will see a
far different god in the new testament vs the old testament…….
look about the world we live in, it is the very definition of change…
stars change and the planets change and the very universe seems to change…
it was born, created by the big bang and it will someday end, to have history, is to have
a beginning or ending and that is change………

so we cannot defend traditional metaphysics as constituted,
we do not understand being/existence and there is a logical/rational explanation
for the first cause and everything changes, you just have to give it enough time…

so perhaps in these modern metaphysical questions we can find some
grounds to linger and think about them…….

Kropotkin

so we have the three problems of metaphysics since Aristotle,
the nature of being, the first cause of things and things that do not change………

the first cause of things was assumed to be god, then the next question was
the nature of being and what was god’s being, and part of that creation
was also the soul, which is the traditional idea of things that do not
change……. so the entire question of metaphysics revolved around god
and his being and how he created something that did not change, our soul…

and if you understand philosophy from the time of Aristotle right down
to Descartes, you will see how these three questions are asked and resolved,
the question of god, his being and our soul… that could be the list of medieval
philosophy…

but I say, they are the wrong questions… but in saying so, it becomes a metaphysical
question or so they tell me… so no matter what I say, it become a metaphysical
question… rather deterministic of them, isn’t it?

so to return to the question, the question of the nature of being, the first
cause of things and things that do not change…

I believe we know of the first cause of things and everything changes and so we
don’t need to concern ourselves with that metaphysical proposition,
but this question of the nature of being, of existence…
we have turned this question from the nature of god’s being/existence
to the nature of man’s being/existence… who are we and what are our
possibilities, is a metaphysical qeustions and in all of our human existence,
we still haven’t been able to answer the question of our being, of our existence…
that suggest to me that that question might be the wrong question if we are unable
to answer a question that has existed since time began for man…

what would be the right question? how does my existence influence
the greater whole existence? perhaps, or perhaps a question might be,
to what end does my existence need to go?

or perhaps, what can I/we know? what ought I/we to do? what may I/we hope for?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin: so we have the three problems of metaphysics since Aristotle,
the nature of being, the first cause of things and things that do not change………

the first cause of things was assumed to be god, then the next question was
the nature of being and what was god’s being, and part of that creation
was also the soul, which is the traditional idea of things that do not
change……. so the entire question of metaphysics revolved around god
and his being and how he created something that did not change, our soul…

and if you understand philosophy from the time of Aristotle right down
to Descartes, you will see how these three questions are asked and resolved,
the question of god, his being and our soul… that could be the list of medieval
philosophy…

but I say, they are the wrong questions… but in saying so, it becomes a metaphysical
question or so they tell me… so no matter what I say, it become a metaphysical
question… rather deterministic of them, isn’t it?

so to return to the question, the question of the nature of being, the first
cause of things and things that do not change…

I believe we know of the first cause of things and everything changes and so we
don’t need to concern ourselves with that metaphysical proposition,
but this question of the nature of being, of existence…
we have turned this question from the nature of god’s being/existence
to the nature of man’s being/existence… who are we and what are our
possibilities, is a metaphysical qeustions and in all of our human existence,
we still haven’t been able to answer the question of our being, of our existence…
that suggest to me that that question might be the wrong question if we are unable
to answer a question that has existed since time began for man…

what would be the right question? how does my existence influence
the greater whole existence? perhaps, or perhaps a question might be,
to what end does my existence need to go?

or perhaps, what can I/we know? what ought I/we to do? what may I/we hope for?

K: so we have our three points of metaphysics, the nature of being, the first cause
of things and things that do not change…

so let us run it against Kant’s three questions… if we have the points of
metaphysics being the first cause of things being god and the nature of being
being god’s being and the things that do not change being our soul… then
the question of what can I/we know? becomes what can we know in light of
there being a god……. he knows everything and we can only know what he
has allowed us to know…

and the nature of being becomes what is god’s being and so we somehow
come to understand that… and in things that do not change, we must somehow
understand our soul……

but let us rephrase this, in a metaphysical world, what we know and what we do
and what we hope for, are all about this question of god…what is god and what
does he want us to do and what can I hope for, heaven………

it is pretty straight forward when you include a god into Kant’s questions,
but and this is important, Kant didn’t take the old school route of metaphysics…
he felt for reasons of his own, he was raised in a very religious background, pietist,
he felt that there was a god, and he didn’t put god in the category of things that we
know, because for him, we couldn’t know god, recall your Hume, but he put
god into the category of things we can hope for……and that is where god exists for
Kant…….in things I/we hope for…………

let us revisit Kant’s questions, what can I/we know?
we can know whatever our sense can tell us…
but Kropotkin, by way of Einstein’s theories, we can know
by pure reason, not experience, we can know the theory of relativity
and about black holes and how space/time are the same things,
and how matter and energy are the same thing, recall your formula
of E=mc2…… energy = matter……. and all of this from Einstein’s
formula gotten by pure reason…do you recall that Einstein did
thought experiments and via these thought experiments was he able
to work out the problems he had…… thought experiments………
thought experiments that need to conducted by experiences…….
one thought experiment was a man in a elevator… that wasn’t
pure reason, that was a man in an elevator… Einstein used practical
experience to discover his truths…………….and mathematics is not
pure reason, it is experienced carried to a degree…… even geometry,
which was used very early in history for the use of dealing with
length, area and volume…………

so we return to the next question, what are we to do?
if there is a god, then we must devote our time to what does
god need us to do… but if there is no god, then the question
of “what are we to do” changes…

are we to find happiness? are we to find the truth? are we meant
to discover the means to release suffering? then all sorts of questions
come front and center………….is it power and fame and money, is that
what we are to do?

remove god from the equation of “what we are to do”, and that changes into
possibilities…….we have all sorts of possibilities for “what are we to do”?

but “who are we” can answer the question of “what we are to do?”

for example, we are social creatures, we must exist with each other…
so part of the answer to “what are we to do” must involve others,
we must engage with others…and so we have narrowed it down a bit,
“what are we to do” must means, we must engage with others on some level.

and so if we have an understanding of who we are, we can then come closer to
answering the question, “what are we to do?”

so, what are we to do?

Kropotkin

so the last Kantian question is “what ought I hope for?”

so let us take this via the old metaphysics which was, I could
hope for god and heaven……… but let us remove god from this picture,
and now, “what can we hope for”? without the presence of god…….

for many years my goal/my hope, was to die without drooling…
it is the little things in life, I tell you…………

now, I have little hope…….and what there is, is basically to die in my sleep……
I have no hope for the future…but “what ought I hope for?”

I don’t know, I am old and the old know that the future is a series of
finding out the limitations of old age…

much of what I had hope for is gone, vanished because of “time” limiting
what I can anymore…….but a young person, they can hope for a lot more then I
can, because of the limits that old age has………….

Kropotkin

I also had my blacker then black period and I am at the stage discovering that the answer to this matter with the limitation of time hinges on hidden variables. And unless You want to sink into the vestiges of time via. metaphysical and quasi mystical byways; a persistent attitude toward change may help to clarify.

In particular two aspects of change which enter into such an inquiry may lay in two conceptual fixations, the basis of ideation(Valery)

The first and foremost is the deontological concern of ‘I’ the beginning of which is the age old question of who that ‘I’ is. The two thousand year hiatus between the posing of be True to Yourself’ through knowing Yourself, and the post facto attempt to connect that with the idea of.what time really is, would , in my opinion roughly trace this hidden connection

Kropotkin, do You feel that such an attempt., could elucidate and extend the limits within the concept of death?

Yes, each individual has his or her own list. But my point is that these lists are the embodiment of dasein more so than a frame of mind that can be defended [morally, politically, theologically, scientifically, naturally and/or philosophically] as the most reasonable and virtuous point of view.

And to be human is always to intertwine both cognition and emotion [embedded in the primitive components of our brain] in our reactions to conflicting goods. The point [mine] being that the arguments of both sides are reasonable given a set of assumptions that the other side is not able to make go away. At least not completely.

For example:

Others however point to religious arguments as a pro. Why? Because they genuinely believe that a God, the God, my God does exist. And in aborting their unborn baby many insist the women are choosing for a brand new life as well.

Again, different sets of assumptions.

Still, there is if you believe that God exists. And, if you don’t, there still may be. Rooted instead in one or another deontological intellectual contraption [philosophically], or ideology [politically] or genetically [in nature].

Yes, but then, in turn, I add this: how is the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here relevant when we focus in on any one particular individual’s judgment.

That’s the ironic part. Moral and political judgments are deemed by me to be subjective/subjunctive existential contraptions. But those who embrace them as though the world really could be divided up between “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys] often act as though their own judgments are not arbitrary at all. They come to espouse their own narratives/agendas as objectivists.

And that’s when I suggest that they are intent here on embodying a psychological contraption that allows them to sustain some measure of comfort and consolation by embedding “I” in the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.

One or another rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

Only I admit right from the start that this can be no more than my own intellectual contaption. Something that seems reasonable to me “in my head” here and now…but something that may well reconfigure into something else given new experiences, relationships and access to new information and knowledge.

I just speculate in turn that this may well be true for everyone else.

Still, there are facts embedded in each context in which abortion becomes an issue. Biological facts about the devolopment of the unborn in the uterus. Empirical facts regarding the circumstances of the unwanted pregnancy. Consequential facts that can be ascertained if in choosing abortion others [including the legal system] react in an actual manner.

There are many things that we can know objectively. But can any particular individual know for certain how to judge abortion as a moral and political issue?

Everyone has their own “personal story” in regard to the circumstances surrounding their own birth. But that’s my point.

I don’t think that is true for the individaul. Not if he or she chooses to interact with others socially, politically and economically.

If [when] they stumble into a context in which the issue of abortion is front and center, their reaction [in my view] will be embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here. That they insist it will not be doesn’t make the actual life that they have lived go away. The sequence of experiences, relationships and ideas they came to embody existentially did in fact predispose them toward one rather than another set of moral and political prejudices.

And if they find themselves on one side of the pregnancy rather than another, the other side’s arguments just don’t vanish into thin air. And eventually what will count is the extent to which one side has the power to enforce one set of behaviors rather than another.

How is this not the case with you?

But [from my point of view] what your “I” here wishes to sustain is the conviction [or what I deem to be the rationalization] that your frame of mind regarding abortion is still somehow more reflective of “the right thing to do” when the issue precipitates conflict.

Otherwise you have to admit that had your life been very different you might well have been predisposed to argue for just the opposite political narrative/agenda.

And your current arguments don’t make the points that the other side raise go away.

You just somehow manage to crumple all of it up into a political conviction that allows you to sustain more rather than less psychological comfort and consolation than someone like me. Just as I have managed to think myself down into the hole I’m in, you have managed to think your way up out of it.

And that may well be as far as we will be able to go here. Unless one of us has a “breakthrough” moment and manages to nudge the other more in his own direction.

Fair enough.

But then there’s the future. You can’t know [anymore than I can] what new experiences, relationships, ideas etc., might come along and reconfigure “I” in another direction.

“I” [mine yours theirs] remains this “existential contraption” from the cradle to the grave.

Unless, of course, there is a God.

Or: Unless, of course, someone comes along able to convince us [re philosophy, ideology, science or nature] that there is in fact a frame of mind regarding issues like abortion that all rational and virtuous men and women are in fact obligated to share.

Then it becomes the extent to which this is actually able to be demonstrated.

Peter Kropotkin: so the last Kantian question is “what ought I hope for?”

so let us take this via the old metaphysics which was, I could
hope for god and heaven……… but let us remove god from this picture,
and now, “what can we hope for”? without the presence of god…….

for many years my goal/my hope, was to die without drooling…
it is the little things in life, I tell you…………

now, I have little hope…….and what there is, is basically to die in my sleep……
I have no hope for the future…but “what ought I hope for?”

I don’t know, I am old and the old know that the future is a series of
finding out the limitations of old age…

much of what I had hope for is gone, vanished because of “time” limiting
what I can anymore…….but a young person, they can hope for a lot more then I
can, because of the limits that old age has…………."

Meno: I also had my blacker then black period and I am at the stage discovering that the answer to this matter with the limitation of time hinges on hidden variables. And unless You want to sink into the vestiges of time via. metaphysical and quasi mystical byways; a persistent attitude toward change may help to clarify.

K: that is the problem, among others, is there are no more “hidden variables”…once you hit a certain
age everything is pretty much cut and dried…I suppose in one way, I am mourning the
loss of youth and even in my case, middle age……….as Alexander once said, “I have no
more worlds to conquer”… I have no desire to travel down some metaphysical or
mystic road to find some lost innocence… it is gone, along with most of my hair……

M: In particular two aspects of change which enter into such an inquiry may lay in two conceptual fixations, the basis of ideation(Valery)
The first and foremost is the deontological concern of ‘I’ the beginning of which is the age old question of who that ‘I’ is. The two thousand year hiatus between the posing of be True to Yourself’ through knowing Yourself, and the post facto attempt to connect that with the idea of.what time really is, would , in my opinion roughly trace this hidden connection

K: to be “true to oneself” really ask two questions, first, what is “truth”?
and what is “oneself”?.. I don’t know the answer to either…………
time is a lot like pornography, we can’t describe it, but we know it when
we see it…having lived inside of time (and space) for 59 years, I still
can’t tell you what space/time is or isn’t or was or will be………to tell you the
truth, it was a lot easier when I was young because I had certainty that I
“knew” the truth… I knew what time/space was because I had the certainty
of youth… I no longer have that luxury…it is another thing about being old,
you are wrong so often that it becomes a pleasant surprise when you are right…
and being wrong so often, makes one, rather gunshy……a cautious old person
is simply someone who has learned that lesson too many times…….

M: Kropotkin, do You feel that such an attempt., could elucidate and extend the
limits within the concept of death?

K: even death has its baggage… the Christians praise it and glorify it and
devotely wish for it… that is one of the problems with christianty, it makes
death the goal, not life… for the point to the christian is to reach god and the
only way that happens is by death…and so the sooner, the better thinks the
christian…today, death is an ism, an ideology, a prejudice…instead of what
it really is, just another step along the path of life…like puberty or menopause…
I cannot stop death anymore then I can stop puberty or menopause or growing old…
the person I am today, is in part, a reaction to the events or experiences
of my life…I must, in some fashion, respond to the event we call old age
and the event we call death…

my response is the response of the old, we say, fuck it…

we aren’t afraid of it and we don’t look forward to it, we simply wait
for our final stop on the train of life… for we have no choice in the matter…
and that day will come far sooner for me then it will for you…

and I am hoping my final words will be this, “lets get this shit over with”

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin: you can create a list for the pro and cons of abortion…
for example, you can, medically save some women who need to have an abortion to
save their lives… and con is baby fetuses die…but a list of this sort
still has all the emotional baggage that we bring to the table…
no matter how much we try to be “rational”…"

I: Yes, each individual has his or her own list. But my point is that these lists are the embodiment of dasein more so than a frame of mind that can be defended [morally, politically, theologically, scientifically, naturally and/or philosophically] as the most reasonable and virtuous point of view.
And to be human is always to intertwine both cognition and emotion [embedded in the primitive components of our brain] in our reactions to conflicting goods. The point [mine] being that the arguments of both sides are reasonable given a set of assumptions that the other side is not able to make go away. At least not completely.

K: I don’t defend my point of view, POV, as being the “most reasonable and virtuous POV”
I simply state it is my view…bonus points if you agree, but it doesn’t matter to me if
do or do not agree with me…… I have passed, long ago, the time where it matters to me
that someone must agree with me… my POV is simply my POV… it doesn’t demand
agreement or even to be right, it is simply my POV… and given my overcoming my
own childhood biases and myths and prejudices as Nietzsche insist, I defend it, not
because it is virtuous or reasonable, simply because I have taken the time to
run my beliefs though the fire, I have as Nietzsche said,

“not to have the courage of my convictions,
but for the courage for an attack upon my convictions”

I have spent years attacking my convictions… the few convictions I have, are simply
convictions that have survived the attacks…it is not about being right or wrong or
reasonable or virtuous, those convictions are simply the ones that made it through my
attacks upon them…

I: For example:

Peter Kropotkin: “we can point out the religious arguments as a con
and we can point out the right of women to make their own choices involving
their bodies…as a pro…”

I: Others however point to religious arguments as a pro. Why? Because they genuinely believe that a God, the God, my God does exist. And in aborting their unborn baby many insist the women are choosing for a brand new life as well.

K: some can believe that god exists… I don’t subscribe to that point of view.
it doesn’t make me right or wrong, or them right or wrong… it is simply a POV…
and yes, a different set of assumptions…
I : Again, different sets of assumptions.

Peter Kropotkin: but the bottom line becomes this, no matter where we lay the arguments,
they still are arguments of emotions and of biases and of habits and prejudices,
in other words, arguments based from a certain point of view and there is no
point of view where we can have some “higher” viewpoint that trumps any other
viewpoints…

I: Still, there is if you believe that God exists. And, if you don’t, there still may be. Rooted instead in one or another deontological intellectual contraption [philosophically], or ideology [politically] or genetically [in nature].

K: but my point is simple, they can believe in god, I for one won’t stop them…
it is just my POV, just as belief in god is a POV…

Peter Kropotkin: so the question becomes, upon what means do we “judge” the entire abortion
from… what criteria should we use to “judge” this matter?

I: Yes, but then, in turn, I add this: how is the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here relevant when we focus in on any one particular individual’s judgment.

K: I cannot speak for or against for that matter, any particular POV… it is their POV
and they have to live with that POV… I don’t judge “any one particular individual judgement”
at most, I can say, in my POV this is…………… it doesn’t mean I am right or wrong,
or they are right or wrong… it just means, have at it……. I don’t agree………
because of my experience, I feel that POV is simply mistaken…
from your experience, your POV it is not mistaken and the correct one…

I can try to shift the discussion to the damage one beliefs have, like global warming…
you may say, global warming is just “fake news” but like shouting fire in a theater,
it will cause damage to other people… global warming has been “scientifically”
shown to be correct………… it isn’t about being virtuous or morally correct……
it isn’t a value like justice…… global warming stands as a “scientific fact”,
a theory, just like gravity or evolution… does that mean gravity or evolution
is a certainty? not at all… it is just the best available theory for the facts we have…
and facts, as we all know, are changeable… what is best theory today, maybe
gone tomorrow… that is the beauty of science… a whole lot of trash gets
taken out…but science like politics and I, has its own set of assumptions…………
its own POV…….

Peter Kropotkin: What arbitary and objectivist viewpoint should we use to “judge”
the case of abortion? "

I: That’s the ironic part. Moral and political judgments are deemed by me to be subjective/subjunctive existential contraptions. But those who embrace them as though the world really could be divided up between “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys] often act as though their own judgments are not arbitrary at all. They come to espouse their own narratives/agendas as objectivists.
And that’s when I suggest that they are intent here on embodying a psychological contraption that allows them to sustain some measure of comfort and consolation by embedding “I” in the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.

K: judgements are created by our responses to the world or to any given ism or
ideology… I don’t paint one as a good guy or bad guy because they subscribe to
a different point of view…my judgements are as arbitrary as the next guy…
the difference is, I know my judgments are arbitrary……….but do I equate those judgements
with those convictions I have attacked? no, judgement and convictions aren’t necessarily
the same thing… they can be, but they don’t have to be…………is my “I” in sync with
“doing the right thing”? I don’t make that connection… I try to do the right thing
not because it is in sync with myself, but because it is the “right thing”…
but how, how do I know it is the “right thing”? certainly not by “a priori”
thinking but by experience……… pure reason will not get me to a place of knowing
the “right thing”, only by experience and my experiences are different then yours,
so my understanding the “right thing” is different then you…my POV because of
experience is different than yours……… not right or wrong, just different…….

I will end this here due to the fact it is really, really late, 3:00 in the morning…
and I am tired……

Kropotkin

God may be slightly more then a pedantic attempt to describe an existential contraption and I believe it may be demonstrated successfully in relation to an orthogenesis of relying on a successful anti-reduction from nihilism to mere existence.

Coherently possible even at least as well, as much , as a demonstration of intuitive grasps on reality may have some bearing. Otherwise, a relative reality based on strict transpersonal, tranaactional abyss forever hauntingly will stare You in the eye, unto eternity.

If that were the case, the whole jungle fight of reality could not have gone to second place from the beginning.

to continue where I left off last night…….

iambiguous: That’s the ironic part. Moral and political judgments are deemed by me to be subjective/subjunctive existential contraptions. But those who embrace them as though the world really could be divided up between “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys] often act as though their own judgments are not arbitrary at all. They come to espouse their own narratives/agendas as objectivists.

K: I had to look up subjunctive: subjunctive: is a grammatical mood (that is, a way of
speaking that allows people to express their attitude toward what they are saying)
it is found in many different languages… Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used
to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion,
obligation or action that have not yet occurred… the subjunctive is an irrealis mood,
(one that does not refer directly to what is necessarily real)

good guy, bad guy… the exact same argument can be made for the exact same person
doing the exactly same thing… good/bad are simply made up words depending on
whether we approve of what they are doing or don’t approve…your traitor is my
freedom fighter…….and who is right? as far as I can tell, history is written by
the winners…if IQ45 side wins, they get to write what a great leader he was, a
great man and if the side opposing him wins, they get to write what a traitor he
was and the worst president in American history and what is IQ45 doing? the exact
same thing and both sides judge his actions, the exact same actions, differently
depending on where you stand on the political fence…and I am not saying that my side
the side opposing IQ45 is right or wrong, I am saying from where my POV is, he is wrong,
it says nothing about the other side, it simply says, from my POV, he is wrong…
there is no objective POV here… it is all subjective… from both sides

I: And that’s when I suggest that they are intent here on embodying a psychological contraption that allows them to sustain some measure of comfort and consolation by embedding “I” in the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.
One or another rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
Only I admit right from the start that this can be no more than my own intellectual contaption. Something that seems reasonable to me “in my head” here and now…but something that may well reconfigure into something else given new experiences, relationships and access to new information and knowledge.
I just speculate in turn that this may well be true for everyone else.

K: perhaps I will get mugged today by an immigrant and I change my mind
about illegal immigration… it has been said that a conservative is a liberal who
has been mugged……………

Peter Kropotkin: Here we run into one of Kant’s old questions, how do I know?
the very means upon which we judge such things as abortion
or anything else is subjective………… it is not possible for me to ask
“objective” questions that even get me close to an answer about abortion
because the very questions we use to understand the matter are laced with
subjectivity…….so above when I said, let us create a list of pro and cons,
the very list itself is a biased, subjective list……. there is no way I can reach
an unbiased list about abortion because of the very bias that I have, that I
have had since childhood…………

I: Still, there are facts embedded in each context in which abortion becomes an issue. Biological facts about the devolopment of the unborn in the uterus. Empirical facts regarding the circumstances of the unwanted pregnancy. Consequential facts that can be ascertained if in choosing abortion others [including the legal system] react in an actual manner.

K: or one can simply be a conservative and hold on to my position regardless of the facts
because of my emotional investment in my position…for many people, facts means less
then the idea of faith… faith is more important then any facts…there is a god… regardless
of the facts one might present, that is faith above facts… and many people, far too many,
put faith/belief as more important then any facts… that is the true definition of a
conservative… putting faith above facts…………my ideas about abortion comes from
my life… my experience……… my life is a witness to this/my idea of abortion…….
I have no facts to support my position… just a life, mine…….

I am a liberal… I believe in facts and I believe in following facts………
I don’t put faith above facts… but I cannot escape the realities of my life…
the emotional reality…and because of the emotional reality of my life,
I must, must defend a woman’s right of choice… her body, her choice……
one may think that my defense of freedom begins here… we have choice as
to what one may do with one’s body… what you do in the privacy of your house
is your problem, not mine… as long as it is consensual and over 18, rock on……
let your freak flag fly…until it interferes with my space… and the show is over…
and I believe in letting my freak flag fly until it interferes with your space and
then the show is over…….

you have an abortion, that fact doesn’t interfere with me in any way, shape or form…
rock on……… for a wide variety of reasons, I believe abortion should be legal……
but I do so knowing full well, that your reasons for not allowing abortions are equally
valid…for you………. but in the end, as a principle, freedom of choice is the bedrock
of my understanding of the universe……… but freedom is not unlimited, it has its limits…
one might argue in abortion, that the fetus has no choice… the choice is made for the
fetus and thus making abortion wrong… I was not given a choice either… quite
often, we don’t have a choice… I didn’t choose to get old and I didn’t choose to
go through puberty and I sure the hell am not choosing to die… but I have no choice…
I have no freedom or say in the matter………………one might say, but that is arbitrary…
yep, yes it is…

I: There are many things that we can know objectively. But can any particular individual know for certain how to judge abortion as a moral and political issue?
Everyone has their own “personal story” in regard to the circumstances surrounding their own birth. But that’s my point.

K: no, there are not many things we can “know objectively”… in fact, there is very little we
can know objectively……….for there is no “objective POV”…Descartes is famous for
declaring all we can know “objectively” is “cogito ergo sum”………I think therefor I am……
and from one POV he is right, and from another POV he is wrong…………personally,
I think he is wrong…….but then, I never did like questions about certainty…
being certain is way, way, way overrated…the fact is, we can never be certain
about anything, including our own death………… and I am ok with that………
I like a little chaos in my life… it seems to match the universe which is certainly
filled with chaos and uncertainty…….

Peter Kropotkin: we all are witnesses to our past and that past influences our understanding
of matters like abortion…………………. so when you speak of dasein or competing
goods or political economy, it doesn’t matter to me because my story is different
and has nothing to do with dasein or competing goods… my story, my relationship
to abortions is too personal to compare to dasein or competing goods which to my
mind is to impersonal for something that has directly influenced my life…………"

I: I don’t think that is true for the individaul. Not if he or she chooses to interact with others socially, politically and economically.
If [when] they stumble into a context in which the issue of abortion is front and center, their reaction [in my view] will be embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here. That they insist it will not be doesn’t make the actual life that they have lived go away. The sequence of experiences, relationships and ideas they came to embody existentially did in fact predispose them toward one rather than another set of moral and political prejudices.

K: you say tomato, I say tahmato……

I: And if they find themselves on one side of the pregnancy rather than another, the other side’s arguments just don’t vanish into thin air. And eventually what will count is the extent to which one side has the power to enforce one set of behaviors rather than another.
How is this not the case with you?

K: I cannot nor should I force my set of behavior on anyone… and they shouldn’t force
their set of behavior on me………… one of my objections to faith based politics…
it is continuously trying to force me into behavior that works for them, not for me…
I must have the freedom to do my thing, be it “sinful” or not… and I give you the same
expectation… I must not force you into behavior that doesn’t work for you……
as long as you leave me alone, I will leave you alone… until one of us,
interferes with the space of the other and then all bets are off…
I am not saying, don’t smoke ciggies, I am saying I don’t want to breathe that crap…
keep it away from me………… don’t interfere with my space…… and ciggies smoke does
interfere with my ability to breathe and thus verboten… which means I also cannot smoke
in your space…a local city has one of the toughest cigarettes laws in the country…
you can’t even smoke in an private apartment or condo… the smoke of cigarettes
doesn’t just stay in the apartment or condo, it does expand into other spaces, my space
and thus under the right to maintain my health, I agree with this law…if the cigarette
smoke were to just remain in your apartment or condo, I would disagree with this law…
BTW, cigarette smoke really, really bothers me… I can’t breathe and have physical
problems when around cigarette smoke…… which is weird given how much time
I spent in bars around cigarette smoke…….now from a cigarette smokers POV, I
am being very unreasonable and Nazi like……. depends on your POV, doesn’t it?

Peter Kropotkin: I don’t pretend to be a impartial or objective observer to abortions…
I am not…………"

I: But [from my point of view] what your “I” here wishes to sustain is the conviction [or what I deem to be the rationalization] that your frame of mind regarding abortion is still somehow more reflective of “the right thing to do” when the issue precipitates conflict.
Otherwise you have to admit that had your life been very different you might well have been predisposed to argue for just the opposite political narrative/agenda.
And your current arguments don’t make the points that the other side raise go away.

K: my currents arguments aren’t meant to make the other side go away, they won’t
and I don’t expect them to…experiences make the convictions, not convictions make
the experience…… because of my experiences, I have certain convictions/beliefs…
in another life or different life, I could have easily a different set of convictions…
I never claimed otherwise… my experiences have lead me to my convictions/beliefs
and different experiences can lead one to different convictions/beliefs…and still
the other side won’t go away and I don’t expect the other side to go away…

I: You just somehow manage to crumple all of it up into a political conviction that allows you to sustain more rather than less psychological comfort and consolation than someone like me. Just as I have managed to think myself down into the hole I’m in, you have managed to think your way up out of it.
And that may well be as far as we will be able to go here. Unless one of us has a “breakthrough” moment and manages to nudge the other more in his own direction.

K: I don’t believe that my convictions are “set in stone”… experiences can and very well might
change them… at the moment, I am in the process of rethinking my political convictions…
a change in how I view political matters…my POV as it were in regards to political matters…
there was no “breakthrough” per se, just a reaction to current events………

Peter Kropotkin: but my sole saving grace is this, I am aware of my bias toward abortions
so, when I make some statement about abortions, my past is always on
my mind and influences my judgement………….no matter how impartial or
objective I try to be………"

I: Fair enough.
But then there’s the future. You can’t know [anymore than I can] what new experiences, relationships, ideas etc., might come along and reconfigure “I” in another direction.

K: yep, but I don’t worry about or think about that… I just exist in the moment…

I: “I” [mine yours theirs] remains this “existential contraption” from the cradle to the grave.
Unless, of course, there is a God.

K: from cradle to grave, I continuously change and adapt to new idea’s and
experiences… my “existential contraption” changes, sometimes hourly…
I don’t sweat that part too much… I am not afraid of change or of experiences
that might change my “existential contraption”… a POV is supposed to change
to adapt to the ever changing conditions of life… to every change in the environment,
I must change and adapt… if you don’t, you are a dinosaur and you know what
happened to the dinosaurs, right?

I: Or: Unless, of course, someone comes along able to convince us [re philosophy, ideology, science or nature] that there is in fact a frame of mind regarding issues like abortion that all rational and virtuous men and women are in fact obligated to share.
Then it becomes the extent to which this is actually able to be demonstrated.
[/quote]
K: my POV is that the universe is uncertain, chaotic, during Zen where mountains
are dancing and the sea is boiling and churning and the rivers overflow their banks…
there is no place where I can set my POV and say, this is absolutely certainty…
no, there is no such place, no such certainty, no set POV…
all is in flux and changing and always must I adapt and change to match
the ever changing universe… or said another way… the theory relativity as understood
by Einstein deals with two moving objects, I have my own theory of relativity…
we have two moving object, me and the universe…and we both are constantly moving
in reaction to the other… in a moving universe, one cannot have a set, constant
POV… only a moving POV can change and adapt to an everchanging universe…
and so, what is right and correct today, maybe wrong tomorrow… I must change
and adapt to match that everchanging universe…

Kropotkin

my problem is not with having
an “existential contraption”, no…

my problem is how we get our “existential contraption”

I maintain that we have POV as adults that aren’t really
appropriate because they are POV from the indoctrinations of childhood…

we have become adults without, without having an adult POV………
we use the indoctrinations of our childhood, the biases, myths, prejudices
and superstitions of childhood to dictate our adult understanding of
the universe…….that is my problem… we haven’t overcome our
childhood indoctrinations and we take these childhood indoctrinations
as gospel and the “truth” when in fact, they were quite appropriate
and useful as children, but as adults, they are harmful and even
dangerous………so it is not the “existential contraptions” per se that
I object to, it is the fact that our “existential contraptions”
we use today, are in fact, leftovers from childhood… never updated
or changed to meet the new conditions we find ourselves in as adults……

or as Nietzsche said,

“it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions,
you must have the courage for an attack upon your convictions”

and those convictions we attack, they are the childhood indoctrinations, we suffer
as children……….our convictions must match our situation in life… and
being held hostage by childhood indoctrinations, is not matching the convictions
with our situation in life………

it is quite appropriate to have childhood beliefs like god and santa clause
and the easter bunny as children… but, but not appropriate as an adult
to hold these childhood beliefs…………… we must adapt our beliefs to our
age in life…….and our current situation in life…….at one time, I swore a
blood oath with a friend to never get married and at age 12, that was
an appropriate oath to make…….but not as an adult, and especially after
being married as I have been married, for 22 years…and with the same woman
for 27 years……………

so how do we get our “existential contraption” is just as important to me,
in fact, more important then what the “existential contraption” is…

I can accept the fact that, each of us, has “existential contraptions” that
we hold dear, but are they from childhood, as indoctrinations of childhood
or, or are our “existential contraptions” based on a “reevaluation of values”
as Nietzsche called it… an attack upon our convictions……

for one is given to us and the other, we have found through the fire of life……

and it makes a difference which it is……. are your “existential contraptions”
simply indoctrinations from childhood or are they an honest “reevaluation of values”…

I cannot answer that question…… only dear reader, you can……

Kropotkin

:angelic-red:

That type of thinking shouldn’t be frowned upon or really combated in way, shape, or form.

Although, it’s more encouraging when you fight knowledge with knowledge on these forums. Displacement of knowledge gets misconstrued all too many times, far too often. But it’s like this ya know, shape philosophy into common ground for providing what you need answered and what you feel others need to know and have be applied for all to understand concisely. I learned the dictionary about age 10 found out there were more variety in the world. Even dictionaries held up in certain Museums.

Getting what you need out if critical but may not always be what;'s important. Find time to displace knowledge and learn logic all together. That’s Philosophy.

I just see these topics as discombobulated is all. A little disorganized yeah. And no magj no challenges have been issued. I don’t think.

:-k

:confusion-scratchheadyellow:

What was this about?

Meno: God may be slightly more then a pedantic attempt to describe an existential contraption and I believe it may be demonstrated successfully in relation to an orthogenesis of relying on a successful anti-reduction from nihilism to mere existence.
Coherently possible even at least as well, as much , as a demonstration of intuitive grasps on reality may have some bearing. Otherwise, a relative reality based on strict transpersonal, tranaactional abyss forever hauntingly will stare You in the eye, unto eternity.
If that were the case, the whole jungle fight of reality could not have gone to second place from the beginning.

K: as usual, I fail to understand your point… if you could be so kind as to make it clear for us
very slow folks…

Kropotkin

Peter, I appreciate Your comments tl feelingn having no enemies either , nor do i feel over the top in aspects of having better descriptions of thought.
Its maybe that my approach to philosophy is more on line with obscure modern French philosophers with whom have been carried away a long time ago .(Sartre included)

I too am into practical philosophy and will try to translate from that point of view. I’m no Nietzsche, but look what misunderstanding got him :
a total misapplication of what he was trying to say, in addition to landing him in less then fortunate ending situations.

For my part , I honestly need to work on my equilibrium as well, before coming to some kind of unity of consciousness.

Meno, we all need to work on something……
I am no different…… philosophy is just one way to work out
our issues……. what is my relationship to myself? what is my relationship
to the “state”? and then we need to work out what is this thing we call “myself”
and what is this thing called the “state”? it is asking questions about our questions…
and then asking, are these the right questions to be asking? can
we be asking better questions and about what?

philosophy is kinda like a murder mystery without the murder…
a who done it, type of thing… we have a society, who done it…
we have relationships with our fellow man, what does that even mean?
who exactly murdered god… if we are to believe Nietzsche…….

in the past, if people held a belief in the existence of god, and we don’t now,
what happened, who done it………………

what beliefs should we hold? what values are important?
why are facts, science and values, philosophy?

if Americans at one time held certain values but they do
not anymore, why and who done it?

if we look at life honestly, we will see that we have far more
questions then we have answers… who done it and why?

Is Hume right? is Kant right? is Jesus right? is Muhammad right?
is Smith right? were the founding fathers right? was Marx right?

who done it and what does it mean for us and why?

all important questions… but answers the questions that pierce your heart,
that keep you up at night, that you dream about…………………

find your own questions and then answer them… it doesn’t matter
if anyone else even understands those questions or answers for that matter…

last night when in bed waiting for my wife, I was thinking about what space
is made of and what is time made of… my wife asked me, what I was thinking
about and for a change, I actually told her… and she scoffed, kissed me, and rolled
over to go to sleep… I laid there for hours, thinking, what is space made of?

space bends and folds and ripples, so it is made of something, what is that something?

no one else knows or cares about what space is made of, but I do……
and that is one of my questions………….so regardless of what anyone else
thinks, I wonder about space and time and what they are made of………

find your questions……… who done it…

Kropotkin