a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

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.

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

Okay, but my point is that those [non-objectivists] who oppose your own moral and political convictions make much the same claim. They have done all of the things that you have done but came to an entirely conflicting point of view.

Basically, what you are saying to me here is that while your values are not rooted in some essential truth [God, philosophy, science, ideology, nature etc.], you’re satisfied that you are prepared for an attack on them by others. To which I then point out that those who oppose you insist the same thing.

So then it really comes down to the extent to which you are willing to moderate, negotiate and compromise your moral values when push comes to shove and actual legislation must be enacted in the particular community in which you reside.

Is that a reasonable assumption to you?

Unlike me, you are satisfied that the political prejudices that you subscribe to [re abortion etc.] are “thought through” enough to effectively transcend the manner in which I construe “I” here as being inextricably down in the hole that I describe above.

At least [for me] “here and now”.

You can’t actually demonstrate [objectively, essentially, ontologically, teleologically etc.] why and how this is the case but as long as you are satisfied in your head that you doing the right thing you are comfortable with dividing the world up into “one of us” [the relatively good guys] and “one of them” [the relatively bad guys].

Just as those who oppose you are.

So basically then we are back to you being better able to accept that your “I” here is more in sync with “the right thing to do” than my “I”. Your “I” is prepared to take that existential leap to ably defending your own value judgments against others than my “I” is.

Hey, more power to you. If that works for you, great. It just doesn’t work for me.

I merely speculate that with regard to those who can make something like this work “for all practical purposes”, it revolves more around a psychological impetus. An understanding [more or less conscious] that in having something that does work, you are able to attain and then sustain a measure of subjunctive comfort and consolation that folks like me no longer have access to.

Clearly then, with respect to “I” out in the is/ought world, your own understanding of dasein here has not resulted in the level of fragmentation that my understanding has engendered. And, again, from my frame of mind, that is rooted far more in the expression “because of my experiences” than in anything that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists are able to concoct in the way of one or another deontological contraption.

On the other hand, one can shift the point of view here to the narcissists or the sociopaths or the nihilists who own and operate the global economy, and reconfigure morality into a contraption that revolves solely around “what’s in it for me” here and now.

Or one can imagine a context in which a new Ice Age was upon us and argue that we can’t do enough to warm up the planet.

All I can do here is to note how, with respect to conflicting goods, folks [all along the political spectrum] who are not objectivists can make much the same arguments. They simply argue that given their own experiences and the extent to which they have thought things through, they are better able to defend themselves against your point of view than you are able to defend yourself against theirs.

Iambiguous, I am thinking about what you said and will get back to you…

in other news, I am still working on Kant…

as I was growing up, my mom or my teacher would tell me things,
like “the stove is hot” and we would work out what was also hot…
flames, fire, sometimes food, hot days… these are all a version
of a category of hot… and when I ate ice cream, that was
called cold… and what else is cold, what else fits into the category of
cold… ice, snow, things from the fridge or freezer, water might be cold,
the outside might be cold, and then the catagory of hard things, the table,
the ground, the stove, the wall, a tree, a car, can all be listed as hard…
and soft things, cats, a pillow, water, a cushion, towels, sheets…
we have a multitude of catagories and some things fit into one or more catagory…

but we don’t need to claim that we are born with or have an innate categories
within us to understand the various object around us…the categories
that we have are simply categories we have learned since childhood…
we can even place people in those categories… we see a black person…
and because we have been raised with myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions, we might put that black person in a category of person,
male, tall, bearded, all categories that we can place a black person,
but because of being raised with prejudices, we can categorized a black
person as evil, or lazy or shiftless…… but there is nothing
from just looking at a person that can tell us anything about a black person…
we cannot tell by just looking at them if they are good or bad or lazy or
shiftless or anything……. we can spot the accidental traits that all people
have… being black or male or tall or bearded… but that only describes
someone… it doesn’t tell us about that person… on sight, we can only
categorize someone based on past categories…categories that have
been given to us by our childhood indoctrinations from family, school,
church, state, media……………the categories that Kant claims are innate
are not innate… they are the myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions
of our childhood indoctrinations…….if our understanding of categories can be
overcome, then they are not innate…… innate implies something that we cannot
change………innate implies aspects of us that cannot be changed like
height or puberty or death……. the categories if they are innate cannot
be changed…but, but we can change the nature of our categories…….
we can change by placing black people into a different category…
from our childhood indoctrinations of lazy, shiftless, poor, to an
overcoming of our understanding of the categories… to the point
where we don’t put people into certain categories, we see a person,
and we don’t see black or male or old or young…… we just see a person…
that is the removal of categories from how we understand things comes
from our overcoming the habits, myths, biases and prejudices of
our childhood indoctrinations………

what is the value of categories? it helps us orientate ourselves to
people, objects, things, places, events, time and space………

by placing people, objects, things, places, we can react to those
things in an “appropriate” manner… we don’t respond the exact
same way to people… I don’t respond to an police officer the same
way I respond to my friends or to my wife…………
and by having categories, we can react to the things we encounter
in an appropriate fashion…but we can account for categories without
having to falsely claiming that our categories are innate……

as Kant said, we do have an active and engaging mind/brain…
that actively seeks to understand thing, people, places, objects,
events… that is not in dispute… our mind is not passive and just
waits for our senses to send us material, nope, we engage our senses
to bring us perceptions that we use then by the categories already established
by our childhood indoctrinations and by experiences, to place those perceptions,
into the appropriate categories…

Kropotkin

See, there ya have it. Without no natual bond between wanting to actually learn and provide wisdom works wonders. I love seeing a lot of philosophers gain reason when out of truthful proofs they reached a conclusion so to explain to fellow peers or the youth. Expression coherent translation among lost languages must be put first in a Philosophers mind-state.

Formidable philosophy is more easily obtained by leveling yourselves, from merely just experiencing life’s wonders, life’s tragedies, struggles, celebrations, life’s comedies, (life’s pragmatism). It’s ALL to be described and translated in such a form for us all to approach what degree of distinction anybody was trying to account, or explain, describe, or tell us in existence. We’ll have found long lands of streams of information more indistinguishable than what reality we may face here in life, in so far reachable prospects of unknown knowledge not easily expressed to us. That of the after-life. Deliverance from convoluted streams of information! It’ll have all been explained though, that’s I tend to not give life my all cause it’s already nerfed. Although this world had needed some type of clear-cut-clarification in order for humans to tell themselves apart, knowing apart from this ‘oh I didn’t know’. That’
s Philsophy! Having not known something and opinionated some evidence later to confirm such beliefs. From whatever it is they ‘think’ they thought.

Actualization and Pragmatism were the most righteous philosophy. I’ll be the first to vouch for this. ME! Pneumatic-Coma! (Metron) (Little Lee Majors) (J.E.T.) (Bear) ME!

2001

4 planes flew across the sky
they were weapons in disguised
3 hit their mark, one in a field
more then just people died that day

in 2001, America had a vision
of equality and justice for all
with malice toward none
and a yearning to be free

2018

Lock her up, lock her up
that is American justice now
of equality, cornerstone of yesteryear
only exists for “true” patriots
of certain ideals and look

2003

the war to end all wars
it began with lies about WMD’S
and uranium tubes
the war continues on today, but why?

2018

the words of Christ, a tale of hypocrisy
we are Christians because we believe
the sermon on the mount and the good Samaritan
forgotten under the shadow of 4 planes
we must protect ourselves, no matter the cost
the words of Christ, love thy Neighbor,
no longer applies because of one Tuesday morning

2018

from that day, comes deplorables
and fake news and democracy decay
a small price to pay for security
to slay liberty before she reawakens
we must stay afraid, claims the fearful ones

2001

Tuesday morn,we awoke brave, Tuesday night, slept afraid
and the road from there to here is littered with
the patriot act, stand your ground and 11-8-16
acts of fear from one morning in September…….

2018

Oh, America, for how long shall we
live with fear and hypocrisy?
when do we stop being afraid?
when does the war to end all wars, end
and when does the war on democracy end?
how many Tuesdays must pass before we
find a new vision of justice and equality?

Kropotkin

Peter if You do really believe , there is nothing to believe. The light always defeats darkness.

Why? Well if it wouldn’t be that way, light would never show out of The dark.

Exactly. Good and bad are existential contraptions rooted in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts. Then “philosophy” was invented. Attempts were made to “think this through”. To derive [using both the tools of deduction and induction] assessments that were said to be more or less rational than other assessments.

But: what are the limits of logic here? what are the limits of what can in fact be known epistemologically?

In other words, from my frame of mind, they are made up words given the existential variables that revolve around the actual lives of those who chose to define them to mean different [often conflciting] things in different contexts understood in different ways.

Consequently, the point [my point] isn’t to assess whether Trump is or is not a great leader, but to assess the actual lives of those who argue one way rather than another. Either we can in fact know that in fact Trump is a great leader, or such assessments are rooted more in the manner in which I construe the components of my own argument above.

So, for me a “POV” is just another existential contraption. It may not be derived from what is argued to be an essential or objective or necessary truth, but those who embrace one or another set of political prejudices often react to those who oppose them as though “for all practical purposes” it was.

And this in my view is embedded in the fact that political discourse often revolves around actual policies that precipitate actual consequences that precipitate actual human pain and suffering. The philosophers can sustain their discussions about ethics up in the scholastic clouds. But the stuff “in the news” that the rest of us absorb is often considerably more gut-wrenching.

It then comes down to the extent to which actual facts about Trump can be accumulated so that the reactions to him either do or do not take into account the facts that are shown to exist.

If for example it turns out it can be proven that Trump did in fact collude with Putin to rig the 2016 election, many of his supporters no doubt will rationalize that such that Trump is still no less the great leader. As long as he sustains policies that appeal to them, those ends warrant almost any means.

The crucial point here for me though is delineated in three parts:

1] there is what I think and feel is true…what I think and feel I know: here and now
2] there is a world bursting at the seams with contingency chance and change
3] there are all the new experiences, new relationships and new sources of information/knowledge that will propel me into a particular future: there and then

So, to what extent can I assess “I” here as that which is true for all of us? What objective facts about myself can be accumulated?

In other words, in the either/or world. But: how does all of that change for “I” in the is/ought world.

I have my subjective narrative regarding this, you have yours. We can only grapple with attempts to subsume our respective points of view in that which contains the most facts able to be demonstrated. About Trump, about abortion, about any and all additional value judgments in conflict.

The tricky thing though [for me] is in taking this sort of “general description” of human interactions out into a particular context out into a particular world in which attempts are made to assess both movtivation and intention as any particular individual chooses one set of behaviors rather than another.

Here “I” have managed to think my own “self” into a fractured and fragmented abyss.

You [and other non-objectivists I have come to know over the years] have managed to anchor “I” here on more solid ground. Thus what you have come to construe [re abortion] “as a principle… freedom of choice is the bedrock of my understanding of the universe” is just another existential contraption to me. Those on the other side focus more on the fact that in exercising her own freedom of choice the pregnant women obliterates any possibility of choice for the unborn inside her. Then many on the pro-choice side rationalize that by convincing themselves that a zygote, an embryo and an early stage fetus is not really a human baby at all. Or, if it’s a late stage fetus, they might argue that the physical or mental health of the pregnant women takes precedence over the baby.

But: which is it really? What is in fact true here?

Yes, there is always that. Sim worlds, demonic dreams, sollipsism, mental illness, drugs, hallucinations, dreams. Then the part about before we were born and after we die. What is the real reality?

But I’m willing [and able] to take that leap to the evolution of life on earth begetting human sexuality begetting unwanted pregnancies begetting abortions begetting reactions to abortion. From my frame of mind there are tons and tons of facts to be mined here.

Though, sure, I can’t demonstrate that this is true…ontologically?

But “in reality” we have no choice but to either prescribe or proscribe certain behaviors in any given community. What are laws [or, say, shunning] but the enforcement of particular moral narratives?

We often punish those for doing things that in their own mind they should not be punished for. Like, for example, drug laws.

There is no getting around rewards and punishments. But why this reward or that punishment for this or that behavior? How are these narratives not embedded in the components of my own frame of mind? Here, I’m down in the hole. Others are not. Is it then even possible to bridge the commincation gaps between us? Maybe. Maybe not. But even if this is accomplished in my view it doesn’t establish anything other than just another existential contraption. One that revolves here and now around a particular consensus.

It sure does. And, as with the abortion conflict, arguments can be made that parents who smoke and have children are inflicting these carcinogens on them. Should parents then be forbidden to smoke around their children. And if they refuse to stop should the children be taken from them?

So, you basically think as I do, but have somehow managed to stitch together an existential “I” that is [subjectively] not as fractured and fragmented as my own.

And here I presume that this will [in all likelihood] be explained by our different sets of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge. “Realities” that we have accumulated over the course of actually living our lives. And it may be that, given this, we will only be able to go so far in explaining our own frame of mind here to each other.

In other words when I argue that…

…this may or may not be a reasonable assumption on my part. We may or may not be successful in bridging the gaps here much further.

But I think we both recognize that while there may well be an “objective truth” here that all rational men and women are obligated to subscribe to, we respect each other’s attempts to grapple with a world in which [we suspect] there may well not be.