Someone points out an error with it. (He/she points out a rational truth. It need not be “optimal”.)
You acknowledge that your argument was faulty and change it in future or you stop using it. (You become aware of the rational truth. You react appropriately.)
Instead, this is what happens:
You make an argument.
Someone points out an error with it.
You dismiss it as an existential contraption.
or
You claim not to understand the post.
or
You claim the post does not address your points.
or
You claim that the post confirms what you have been saying.
or
You ask for a specific context. (Even when the post referred to a specific context.)
or
You post your personal timeline. (Yet again)
or
You post your interests. (Yet again.)
Then you continue to use the same argument. Because there is never anything wrong with anything that you write. :-"
My purpose for being here is: I don’t know; it’s fun. (Not quite true as I have ulterior motives, but fulfilling those purposes that I’ve created for myself is fun).
I don’t know why it’s fun, but this is what I like to do. Why would I do something that I don’t like to do? The only way is if I had a purpose for this that led to fun on a more macro scale. Like, maybe I could learn some things to impress people and impressing people is fun. It seems hollow though, since people don’t care and learning is a lot of work. The more I know, the more likely I am to alienate myself from the herd anyway. Ignorance is bliss!
People ask why they should study philosophy and I say “you shouldn’t!” because if it’s fun, then what I think wouldn’t be of consequence anyway and if you have to ask, then apparently it’s not fun.
The concept of good and bad are foreign concepts to someone who doesn’t see things in terms of good and bad like UV light is a foreign concept to nonavian beings who can’t see the color ultra-orange.
Debating whether good and bad exist is a nonsensical debate since good and bad have to be presupposed to be true before consideration could be given to the notion of whether good and bad exist. So good and bad must be axiomized, taken on faith, in order to have the debate, which is silly.
Good and bad are nothing more than desires in relation to arbitrary goals: if goals are attained, then that’s good; if not, then that’s bad.
The nonexistence of good and bad is not an existential contraption anymore than the nonexistence of visual receptors and neurological architecture to see UV light is a contraption. Things that do not exist are not contraptions.
Fun is not a thing, but the absence of a thing (purpose).
Fun is not value judgements, but absence of judgement.
Much like presupposing good and bad in order to debate good and bad, we cannot presuppose purpose in order to debate purpose. You’re stuck on making a rule of no-rules, but that’s only because you’re considering the question from a top-down perspective, which is a presupposition of purpose. It’s teleology like asking what is the purpose of a butterfly having an “eye” on it’s wing, then saying because predators don’t eat them, as if it were designed to do just that, but that’s isn’t what happened. What happened was nature just did whatever (fun), with no purpose in mind, and some butterflies happened to survive.
If the whole thing were designed and everything had a purpose to fulfill, then there would be no purpose to it. Why watch a show that you know how it ends? There is no purpose to that. So the lack of purpose gives everything a purpose.
Yes, that is precisely my point. But if we look at your behavior, we see you treating his prioritization of fun as problematic AND YOU DO THIS BY SHOWING how it could be problematic. You use an argument which is a kind of appeal to the what most people would think are horrible consequences - in other words an appeal to what most people think is EVIL and this is ironic given you are a nihilist. But more importantly, you never show precisely how YOUR POSITION and behavior might lead to bad or evil consequences.
So you (as a rule!) make a disclaimer about yours, but you get into specific demonstrations and arguments about ALL OTHER POSITIONS you encounter. IOW you treat other people’s priorities differently, often using charged specific examples of the bad consequences they might or will lead to. You never show how your prioritization might lead to specific bad consequences. You treat your values very differently from other people’s values. All the while claiming you have no idea are so conflicted and fragmented. And yet the same values, for example compromise, negotiation and moderation keep coming up. Not others, despite your fragmentation. And demonstrate what bad consequences they might lead to.
A pro forma abstract disclaimer is not the same as what you did with fun, and with other people’s priorities. SAying: Of course I might be wrong. Of course my ideas are affected by Dasein. is not the same treatment you give to other ideas.
You have a sense of The Good, it’s just, like many objectivists, consider it open to revision. A fragmented person does not keep repeating the same goods. A fragmented person would see the potential problems of negotiation and compromise also. And so on. A nihilist does not think there is a good, or something we ought to do. A nihilist does not have the ‘I think this is good’ contraption. But you do. A nihilist does not say, I think this is good, but it’s a contraption. The nihilist does not think this is good and that is bad. The nihilist obviously will have preferences, unless he or she is extremely depressed. But not notions of the good with disclaimers. You never seem to notice this contradiction between your behavior and your philosophy, even when it is pointed out using different approaches by different posters.
So then why do you do this with his fun prioritization as if it is obvious that this fun priortization could lead to bad consequences.
I don’t take any fucking leap. I do not add on all the problematic tasks and self-relations you add on. As explained elsewhere.
No, sorry, you are out in the clouds. I always refer to specific actions on your part, ones that are easy to document and find, since they are posted here. Specific interpersonal acts. At best most of your examples are universal (say, abortion) not dealing with specific cases and having nothing to do with any of us here. At worst you speak in the most abstract terms in paragraphs you have rewritten thousands of times.
Why don’t you actually come down to earth, tell us about a specific situation in your life where you encountered conflicting goods. Not in the newspaper, not out of your head, not with Trump and his opponents, but with you actually involved. I can’t remember you actually presenting a real life example, and yet you have the nerve to constantly accuse others of being abstract and not doing this. I know. I have and yet you keep asking me to do this as if I haven’t.
which, if it were true, would be the same as what you do as a rule. But it is not true since it had to do with a specific act, you critique of his fun idea, in a specific post. IOW a single example of a real life intereraction between you are another perosn here.
Sure, but I gave a specific example as described above. I could give others from interactions with me or Phyllo etc. But when you respond to these, and generally you do not, you simply restate your position, you call them abstract, when in fact they are much more concrete than your abortion issue.
I’ve done this. I wrote a specific case where I defended another man in a group. I described the conflicting values and how I coming from my preferences tried to affect change. It made absolutely no difference to you. You started talking about my leaps not long after that. At first somewhat dismissively, then it seems with almost an apology. But it did not make the slightest difference. SO STOP ASKING ME TO DO THIS. I did this, with a concrete situation, the day after it happened in my life. And stop telling me I make leaps. I make less leaps than you do. I do not make the leap that I somehow must come up with a rational argument that is also objectively true to convince the world of what the good is, if this is possible. I do notmake the leap that I can only act in the world in a wide set of contexts if I know what I ought to do. I do not make the leap that your entire project (which your own nihilism should make seem most likely futile) is something I must carry out.
You seem to think having wants and feeling things that lead to actions and choices requires leaps. Dogs manage without philosophies and leaps. Now, sure, I sometimes feel torn, sometimes I am confused, but it is only through abstract thinking that one, as a rule, cannot takes steps to make things more like one wants. To try at least. For you it is a leap, some mental contraption. But animals, lacking our vast array of mental gadgetry, manage to do this. Your hole is due to an excess of contraptions, not a lack of them. And just to repeat: of course, I get confused. Of course I can feel conflicted both about means and goals. But unlike you I do not think I must solve enormous epistemological and universal moral behavior issues to live my life. You have nearly killed the animal in you with all your contraptions.
Without this strangely moral looking huge project, I handle things much more as you like handle your shopping. I try to achieve what I want for myself and those I care about and for what I care about.
Amazing. Imabiguous: One can be hypocritical by acting in contradiction with one’s philosophy. You often say that objectivist run from you because you might upset the comfort and consolation offered by their objectivism. Look at what you wrote above. In the category of hypocrisy it did not, oddly, occur to you that hypocrisy is OFTEN, IN FACT USUALLY, brought up when someone’s behavior does not align with their philosophy. While expressing your incredulity you did not even consider this kind of hypocrisy. And this in a context where I was criticizing a specific communicative act in relation to Serendipper.
Is it possible that for emotional reasons you avoid really noticing what I am saying. You often criticize the objectivists by saying that they run from you for emotional reasons. Well, I think that has to be the case here with you. I know you will say, yes, this is possible. But can you actually look at and see what you are running from, why you often to not notice things? Why you keep asking for me to give a concrete example in the world of conflicting goods what I do. Even though I have done this. You say below that you honestly do not understand. I believe you. I don’t think you are fucking with me. I think there are things you do not want to look at. I don’t know for sure this is based on fear. That seems most likley. But I do know that as a rule you just do not notice certain things.
I believe you. You cannot see what might be problematic even if Phyllo and I place specific concrete examples right in front of you. I did it again in this post. I have done this many times. Most of the time you are not willing to even look at your own behavior. I mention it and you repeat your general position on dasein conflicting values, without ever responding to the critique of specfiic instances of your behavior that are hypocritical int he context of your nihilism. Other times when a specific act is pointed out you say that you have also said your conclusions are existential contraptions. But when it is pointed out that you relate differently to the existential contraptions of others, you do not respond or repeat your general position. When you conclude that something is good, you cannot seem to notice that you are no longer a nihilist, since for you an objectivist is only someone who believes their values are 100% correct. But this is not the case. A nihilist cannot draw a conclusion about the good, even a tentative one. He does no believe the good exists. And this was pointed out as a specific instance, an act in your posting. A down to earth example, first pointed out by Phyllo, where you obviously and clearly think that comprimise and negotiation are good. When it is pointed out this is a contradiction, you say that it may be a contraption on your part. Fine, but you are no longer a nihilist if you draw conclusions about what is good. You just open to revision. Scientists are objectivists about scientific knowledge, but they consider ALL conclusions open to revision, it is part and parcel with scientific epistemology.
And yes, the above includes abstract language, but I am also referring to specific concrete cases involved your interaction with specific people here, as I did in the first example at the beginning of this post. I HAVE ALSO DONE WHAT SINCE DOING IT YOU HAVE CONTINUED TO ASK ME TO DO OVER AND OVER given a specific example of how I navigate the world of conflicting goods.
YET OVER AND AND OVER YOU ASK ME TO DO THIS as if I haven’t.
YET OVER AND OVER YOU ACCUSE ME OF BEING ABSTRACT when over and over I build posts around specific concrete examples involving you here interacting with other people, which is much more concrete than your abortion issue.
I think the fascination with all this and I’ll have to check with Phyllo for his take
is that you are obviously intelligent but cannot see the nose on your face even when I hold up a mirror.
I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am.
In any particular community of human beings, wants and needs come into conflict. As a consequence, there are always going to be instances in which what you want to do becomes entangled in that which others insist you ought to do. Why? Because if you do what you want to do [for “fun” or not] it can piss the others off. So, folkways, mores, laws – rules of behavior – are established to sustain the least dsyfunctional set of interactions. Or [perhaps] to sustain what some insist are the must “just” interactions.
Predicated either on one or another variation of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.
My point then is only to suggest that these rules of behavior are largely social constructs rooted in history, culture, and individual experiences. Rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
As opposed to one or another religious, ideological, deontological or natural assessment of the is/ought world.
Maybe, but Jack’s answer is still embedded in dasein out in a world where some are able to rationalize torturing animals while others insist that it is necessarily immoral to do so.
Okay, Mr. Philosopher, settle this for us.
On the other hand, what does this really have to do with the point that I’m making? Rules of behavior are either existential contraptions [more rather than less] or are derived from one or another assessment of moral obligation derived from one or another philosophical argument. Kant et al.
Or, sure, it might all be derived from a God, the God, my God.
As for “fun” here, something in particular is deemed to be fun by a particular individual in a particular context. She tells us why this is fun to her and we react. And this in my view revolves more around “I” as an existential contraption; rather than the “real me” said to be in sync with the “right way” to have fun.
You can’t prove it. Exactly. We simply do not know where the idea of human autonomy fits [wholly] into whatever it is that is “behind” the existence of existence itself.
But if human consciouness is but more matter inherently in sync with the mechanistic rules of matter, who is to say what is possible or impossible here?
Then [for me] back to this:
I have these absolutely extraordinary dreams in which whole worlds play out in my head. All manufactured by my brain even though “in the dream” I seem as real as I do during the hours that I am awake.
QM is a world that we have just barely begun to explore. Or are you speculating that a 1,000 years from know we will understand it in the same way?
What’s that got to do with the illusion of purpose in a wholly determined universe? The mystery is still the nature of human consciousness itself. Surely, the most extraordinary matter so far. Then the part about God and sim worlds and solipsism and the multiverse.
What always boggles my mind here is how folks can actually say – believe – things like this: as though they did have access to all that would need to be known about the universe in order to fully explain it.
Yours [like mine] is still largely a “world of words”. As you noted above, you can’t “prove” any of it. So, lets just stick to the part about how, ontologically and teleologically, it is still largely all a “mystery” to us.
Though, by all means, we can have “fun” speculating about it. After all, it is all inherently fascinating. Or, sure, we can assign a purpose to it. Like mine: connecting the dots between what the universe is and how we ought to behave in it.
Assumming this is something that we can do “freely”.
And as Rush noted above even not to choose is a choice. Only Rush was construed by many to be advocates of Ayn Rand. And with her each individual was free to think about everything in exactly the same manner that she did. The objective individual as it were.
Then ask yourself: which part of my life is this most applicable to?
As for flipping coins and Monty Hall and PHDs and Marilyn vos Savant, all of these interactions either unfolded with some measure of human autonomy, or “free will” here is merely an illusion embedded in the mechanical fact that all of it was only ever going to or able to unfold exactly as it did.
But I have no way of knowing if this exchange itself is not just more dominos toppling over onto each other. Dominos set up by God? Dominois set up by whatever brought into existence – out of nothing at all? – everything that there is?
Even feelings of “futility” – or Vish – may just be another manifestation of the beating heart.
Nothing. But my point is still the same: the extent to which what one posits is able to be demonstrated as that which all rational men and women are obligated to posit in turn.
And then the extent to which positing itself is or is not autonomous. Or, instead, autonomic. Like the beating heart.
More words defining and defending more words. What God? In what particular universe? Impacting the things that I do in what particular way?
The claim and the proof going around and around in circles. Like the dog chasing its tail.
Same with all the other claims. Worlds consisting entirely of words yanked out of your head.
And here they revolve basically around relationships in the either/or world. Whereas from my frame of mind things like dasein and conflicting goods are relevant more in the is/ought world.
But: In a wholly determined universe this distinction in and of itself is just another illusion.
That our reactions to Communism are largely existential contraptions rooted subjectively and subjunctively in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
Makes an argument like you do in order to “demonstrate” the errors in it.
I acknowledge that my argument is just another existential contraption rooted in the components of my own moral philosophy: nihilism in a No God world. But that others are able to provide me with what they construe to be objective facts/truths that may or may not prompt me to change my mind.
That may or may not happen. It depends on what they actually post about Communism. And the extent to which they are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to think as they do about it.
No, I point out that I was once a Communist myself. I once believed that “scientific socialism” was the most rational explanation for the evolution of political economy on planet earth. I measured other reactions to it ever and always from atop my objectivist perch.
Then all that began to crumble out from under me.
I came to embrace the components of moral nihilism. But I certainly do not argue that my “I” – “here and now” – offers arguments that never have anything wrong with them. That’s your own existential rendition of me.
Meanwhile you sustain a considerably less fractured and fragmented sense of identity. And out in a world in which there is considerably more comfort and consolation to be had in believing in an objective morality that is more or less linked to one or another God.
Defending concepts of good and bad is one thing, demonstrating that actual behaviors are either good or bad another thing altogether.
However nonsensical or silly the debate might be, there is no getting around rules of behavior in any particular human community.
And here others are either in the hole that “I” am in, or they are able to rationalize the choices that they make as in sync with the real me in sync with the right thing to do.
Then noting their particular font of choice.
But not entirely arbitrary. Instead, “I” is rooted for each individual in being “thrown” out into a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. Then being indoictrinated as a child to embody one particular sense of reality rather then another. And then accumulaing a particular set of experiences in a world awash in contingency, chance and change. All the way to the grave.
Again, you would have to bring this down to earth. Biological architecture is one thing, the architecture of value judgments another thing altogether.
Or, rather, they are intertwined in a particular sequence of genes and memes understood from a particular point of view but able to be evaluated only subjectively and subjunctively.
That’s not actually an acknowledgement of anything. It simply restates and reinforces your idea that you’re right based on your assumptions and experiences and others are right based on their assumptions and experiences.
It can be summed up as : “I’m always right. I’m never wrong.”
And it also means : “I don’t care what you think or say. Nothing to do with me.”
It’s interesting that you don’t say that our reactions are entirely existential contraptions.
That’s probably because you recognize that biology determines some of our reactions. That would be the objective aspect of morality and ethics. Which is why similar morality and themes occur throughout the world.
One never actually gets around to discussing it.
It gets lost in “optimum”, “obligations”, “demonstrations”, “dasein” and “existential contraptions”.
How could I? There is clearly a historical record containing any number of historical facts relating to historical events like the rise of Communism or fascism. My focus is always on how we react to those facts from within a particular set of assumptions attached to a particular set of moral and political prejudices.
Or, in your case, religious prejudices?
Or why stop there? One could argue that biological imperatives are rooted in a wholly determined universe.
Or one could argue as Satyr’s clique/claque does over at KT, that they and only they have come to grasp the one true nature of these biological imperatives. As, for example, they relate to such things as gender and race and sexual orientation and being Jewish.
Fun is what any particular individual in any particular context says that they feel while behaving in a particular manner or in experiencing something in a particular way.
Then there are the reactions of others to this.
They may or may not be able to imagine describing this behavior or experience as a “fun” thing to do. They may note that this person’s idea of fun is at the expense of another person who is experiencing anything but fun.
Fun: “enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.”
We come into the world hard-wired biologically to embody this mental, emotional, psychological and/or physical sensation in reacting to the world around us. Whether you want to call it a “thing” or “the absense of a thing.” And whether it is embedded in a set of value judgments or not.
A “purpose” too is always understood in a particular context that is understood in a particular way. What do we tell others when they ask us why we are doing what we do? When they ask for the reason or the purpose behind it? And here dasein is marbled through and through our answers. Just as “conflicting goods” are when my purpose for doing something results in a set of behaviors that others construe to be bad.
Are some purposes inherently/essentially/necessarily more rational than others? Are they in turn inherently/essentially/necessarily more virtuous than others?
Says who? Based on what set of assumption regarding human interactions?
The purpose of things like the eye on the butterfly wing is embedded in the either/or world. Unless of course it can be demonstrated that God exists and intended it to be that way. It’s all embedded in random mutations. And we have no way in which to determine if teleology plays a part in this or not. In Nature.
At least to the best of my knowledge.
But what of the reaction of those of our own species to others who go out and capture butterflies, kill them, and then mount them in a display case? And then when asked why they do this, they say, “it’s fun”.
There would appear to be no purpose in a No God world. Purpose [to me] implies a conscious mind aiming to do one thing rather than another for one reason rather than another. Imagine for example that the human species here on earth are the only species of animal in the entire universe able to think and to talk about purpose in this way. Then next month the really big one – asteroid, comet, super nova, gamma ray burst etc – takes out all human life on earth.
What then of “purpose” in a universe in which there are no conscious minds [self-conscious minds] around to discuss and debate it?
Can fun or purpose even exist in a mindless universe?
I can only repeat myself by noting that my own argument here is just another existential contraption.
And in acknowledging that I still don’t grasp what you construe to be so important in your reaction to that.
I am a nihilist “here and now”. Meaning that there and then [in the past] I was not a nihilist. I was an objectivist instead. Meaning that there and then [in the future] I may be something else altogether. Thus the manner in which fun is understood and prioritized by me is ever and always subject to change given new experiences etc.
Evil is believed to exist by some. Okay, let them demonstrate that what they construe to be Evil [or fun for that matter] does in fact exist objectively.
With you though, I struggle to grasp how your own “I” out in the is/ought world is less deconstructed than mine. Given that you reject Good and Evil yourself.
My position here is going to be reacted to by those who either do or do not believe that objective morality does in fact exist amidst human interactions. In a God world, sure, that makes sense to me. But in a No God world?
Here, in my view, other people’s priorities are no less existential contraptions than my own. And it is the gap between the manner in which I construe the implications of these existential fabrications/contraptions [re “I”] out in the is/ought world and the manner in which your own pragmatic contraptions are construed to work for you that most interest me.
After all, with the objectivists the implications embedded in moral certainty for “I” is obvious.
My own priorities regarding an issue like abortion revolve around a pro-choice point of view. But I recognize that as just a political prejudice rooted in the life that I have lived. And my position clearly leads to what others consture to be bad or evil consequences for the dead baby.
But somehow “pragmatism” enables you to fit “I” here into a slot that leaves you feeling considerably less ambivalent.
But then [alas] you seem compelled instead to go on and on and on up in the clouds of abstraction:
What values expressed in what context from what moral vantage point? Why one set of priorities rather than another?
Yes, as a matter of fact, you do. But only given the manner in which I construe a moral value embraced by someone who does not believe in objective morality. You just call it being “pragmatic” instead.
What you “add” to the discussion [in my view] are the reasons that you feel this way about abortion rather than that way. Which I then root in dasein in a manner in which you don’t. But that still doesn’t clear up [for me] how your pragmatism here is able to hold your own “I” together more firmly than moral nihilism does mine.
Which I then suspect is but another manifestation of dasein.
Here I return time and time again to one of zinnat’s “groots”:
1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
This example because it marks that crucial turning point in my life when I came to abandon objective morality. And because this sequence became more and more the template for all of my subsequent encounters with conflicting goods.
This experience became the first shovel of dirt to be excavated from my “hole”.
And “pragmatism” doesn’t work for me as it works for you because my frame of mind when embodying “moderation, negotiation and compromise” is no less an existential contraption.
In other words, in reacting to this I didn’t share your own assessment above. I did not confirm that your defense of this man is more reasonable than my own reaction to him. If it had made a difference to me then I would be in sync with your own point of view.
Yes, I get this all the time from the objectivists. I’m just unable to grasp it from someone who shares my own assumptions about objective morality. That in all likelihood it does not exist in a No God world.
But let’s move on to another context. A conflicting good that generates headlines “in the news”. One in which most here will have a point of view that is either objectivist, pragmatic or rooted in moral nihilism.
You choose it.
In the interim though it’s back up into the clouds:
Note an example of this pertaining to a set of conflicting goods likely to be familiar to most of us here. How are you confused? How are you conflicted? How do you come to embody a particular moral and political narrative such that you appear [to me] to be considerably less fractured and fragmented?
This “project” that you imagine me undertaking is mostly in your head. I spend a few hours a day in philosophy forums. And even then a lot of my time revolves around my “signature” threads here at ILP. The rest of the day I am doing other things – listening to music, watching movies, tuning in to the televsion programs I like, listening to the occasional NPR broadcast, following the news.
And to the extent that you approach conflicting goods as you would “going shopping” is admittedly the sort of pragmatism that is brand spanking new to me. I can’t even imagine it myself. Given that the consequences embedded in conflicting goods is often horrific to any number of men and women.
As for objectivists “running from me”, that too seems to be something that you have concocted in your head about me. Common sense tells us that in believing in objective morality, one must believe in turn that there is a “real me” able to be in sync with “the right thing to do”. And it is from this frame of mind that [psychologically] one is able to feel comforted and consoled. And thus to the extent that my own frame of mind is able to deconstruct that frame of mind is the extent to which any number of objectivists are going to react to me has they often do here. Some even resorting to what I call “huffing and puffing”, retorting, making me the issue.
Even in your own posts here the sarcasm is evident. And that’s right around the corner from contempt. So, why do I bring this out in you? Or are you also a polemicist at heart?
Or, perhaps, you are just inclined to be “smug” in these exchanges “by nature”?
Smugness is certainly something that I can project in turn. But I am about as far removed from being truly smug as one can be from down in the hole that I am in. I am no longer able to feel any degree of certainty regarding my own value judgments. My “I” here really is “in pieces”. And the abyss [nothingness] is right around the corner. I am only left with my “distractions” as I wait patiently [though sometimes impatiently] for godot.
Then back again to this part:
Note to others:
Link me to instances where he actually does bring this discussion out into the world of conflicting goods. Instead, in my view, he merely argues that he has done so repeatedly. Then he goes on and on and on in psycho-babble mode explaining me to myself and others. I become the issue.
I would really appreciate it if others here will link me to all of the many specific contexts in which he claims to have brought his “pragmatism” down to earth.
In particular those revolving around conflicting goods that pop up over and over and over again out in the world that we live in.
How does a “pragmatist” argue one way or the other about issues like abortion or gender roles or gun control or animal rights or homosexuality?
As a moral nihilist, I am always down in the hole that “I” have broached here. How then is that different from what KT professes here? That’s the part that most intrigues me. He doesn’t believe in objective morality but his own brand of relativism [situational ethics]leaves his own “I” considerably more intact.
You missed KT’s point. He did “invite you inside his head” when he was challenged. He did describe how he “engaged”.
Your assessment of KT’s position and your reaction to the man’s point of view is not the issue. Being “in sync” with KT’s point of view is not the issue.
The issue is how the conflict was approached and resolved. That’s what you actually asked for in the first place.
Instead you turn it into a case of “taking sides”.
Absolutely not what I meant. Not in the slightest. Not at all, never said that, never expected that.
Really rude.
You kept asking. I showed you what I did in a concrete situation. Of course it did not resolve conflicting goods. Of course it did not convince everyone. I don’t think such arguments exist. I don’t think there are objective values. I don’t think that even if there were and I knew them I would have the skill to convince everyone.
What I meant by saying nothing happened is, that you kept demanding that I do this, and so I did.
Then you kept asking me to do it, after I did, as if I hadn’t. As if I was afraid or doing it would reveal something I couldn’t deal with.
But the truth is I don’t believe in objective values. I shared an example of how I handle conflicts. I handle them pragmatically, to the best of my abilities and energy and the priorities of the day. I know that I cannot eliminate all conflicts and have no magic wands. My giving a concrete example did not drive me down into a hole. My not being able to convince you or everyone does not drive me down into a hole. I do not expect to be able to do this. I do not hold myself responsible for doing that.
Of course like anyone I wish I could make it better for what I care about. Of course I would like it if more people agreed with me. But I have neither of your two extremely rigorous contraptions: that I must find the argument that convinces everyone, that I cannot act in the world and try to make things the way I prefer, unless I am sure I will never change.
You went on and on about how I should give an example. I did. I did it honestly as the non-objectivist I am.
It didn’t even register on you that I had done it.
And now your interpretation of my reaction to your really rude disinterest in my carrying out a task you requested, is to say I expected you to be convinced that you should react the same way.
SEriously, do you read what I write?
I don’t want to have another outburst of cursing.
You so, so desperately want my not suffering the way you are to be caused by some kind of objectivism or contraption that you project all sorts of things on me and my posts, and then also can’t even remember when I have done things or what my beliefs which I have repeated are. Or so it seems. It seems like you want to have me in a box. For reasons: there, I don’t have to worry about him not being in my hole, he’s X, and that is not disturbing. Someone who is X and not in a hole is not disturbing.
But I am not X. So stop projecting it on me. There are more possibilities, it seems, then you consider. Maybe that makes you uneasy, so you have to have me in a box you feel comfortable about. Who knows?
No, the issue for me is always this: How with respect to conflicting value judgments in a No God world construed to be lacking in objective morality, he is able to “resolve” such conflicting assessments and not feel fractured and fragmented as I – “i” – am.
I try to make this distinction clear over and over again with him. He offers an explanation and it does not resonate with me. So the problem [from his frame of mind] obviously becomes me. I’m not truly understanding the point that he is making. Why? Because I am not really trying too. Or my thinking is just not as sophisticated as his is.
Just as with you and Communism: if only I would make a more concerted effort to understand it as you do, the conflicting goods would melt away for me too.
Anyway, once he notes the manner in which his views on an issue like abortion are embedded in the sort of trajectory I provide above, we will have something more concrete to exchange moral philosophies regarding.
Of course with you there’s also that part about God, isn’t there?
