Where did it go?

""The “hole” that I am in starts with three assumptions:

1] that had I lived my life differently, I may well have accumulated different preferences
2] that any one preference is no less able to be rationalized than any another
3] that ultimately what counts is who has the political power to enforce one set of values/behaviors over the others""

Re: 1 - lets reverse the setup of 1; “had I had different preferences, I’d have lived my life differently”.

I know the hole digs itself but this should get you out. If you want. Men love being in holes…

Preferences is where it all starts.

Ie had you not had a preference for oxygen you’d have been stillborn, and no opportunity to try and change your preferences.

Indeed, and in a wholly determined universe all revisions are only ever as they could have been. Including the revisions in my own moral trajectory from an objectivist to a nihilist.

But what I still construe is a gap between what we know about, say, the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction in the either/or world and the arguments in the is/ought world about whether or when or where they should be used.

Similarly, objective facts can be noted regarding the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. What then are the equivalent facts regarding the conflicting arguments over whether he ought to be confirmed?

I take my own existential leap here recognizing that it is embodied in a political prejudice rooted in dasein and conflicting goods and political power.

You take your own pragmatic leap but are [seemingly] less concerned with or by those factors.

“Scientific philosophy?” And how close is that to an ontological understanding of what needs to be known about the existence of existence itself?

What I am looking for instead is an argument aimed at narrowing the gap between revisions in the either/or world and revisions in the is/ought world. With regard to interactions in the either/or world, there’s a difference between wishing they were something else, and demanding that they ought to be.

This part:

This to me is just an attempt to suggest that with respect to either the either/or world or the is/ought world, there’s no getting around the possibility of or the potential for revision. Like if we go out far enough on the “reality” limb, the biological components embedded in the medical procedure used to perform an abortion may well be in sync [re revisions] with the moral arguments of those who are either for or against using it. Both equally open to revision.

Back again to the neat box that you put my neat box in. And me being considerably more fractured and fragmented in mine than you are in yours. So, in that sense, it might be argued that here and now your “I” actually “wins”. :wink:

As for your seeming obsession with my seeming obsession for “contraptions”, we just don’t think about “I” out in the world of conflicting goods in the same way. Maybe we can narrow the gap here, maybe not.

To wit:

All I can continue to recommend is that we bring these abstract “assessments”, “analyses”, “general descriptions” down out of the scholastic clouds and situate our understanding of “revisions” and “contraptions” in a context most here will be familiar with. You claim to have done so. Okay, but it didn’t take. So, try again.

Why don’t you and I and folks like Phyllo grapple with an issue like Communism. On another thread. Revisions abound here. Moral and political contraptions pop up all along the ideological spectrum.

Right?

But, then, after I note this re the assumptions embedded in my is/ought hole…

…it’s straight back up into the potential for holes that you see re the either/or world:

Yes, this may always be true. And that’s before we get to the “reality” embedded [for some] in Sim worlds, and in demonic dreams, and in solipsism; and in the many, many assumptions entangled in any number of “spiritual” or “enlightenment” philosophies.

What really can be entirely ruled out here?

But the bountiful revisions that seem particularly prone to bring about calamitous conflicts in our day to day interactions with others seem clearly [to me] to revolve around the assumptions that are made about the is/ought world.

It is here that the assumptions I make regarding the components of my moral philosophy and the assumptions you make regarding yours bring about a “sense of self” that result in a considerably more or a considerably less deconstructed “I”.

I’m merely grappling with and groping about for an understanding of your “I” here that might actually have an impact on how “I” have come to understand these relationships myself here and now.

You are the one [by and large] who seems intent on injecting “hostility” into the exchange. And I suspect it goes beyond polemics with you. And I have further suspicions regarding what might motivate you to make me the issue.

In fact the rest of your post here more or less revolves around what I construe to be a psycho-babble “analysis” of what makes me tick.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for your own rendition of this…

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.

A way for me to understand how, with regard to a value near and dear to you, you came to intertwine what you think and feel about it in a sequence of experiences and relationships that shaped and molded “I” here over the years.

Isn’t that really as close as I am ever likely to get to “noticing the concrete individual” that has become your very own “I” here and now?

This “contribution” speaks volumes regarding the extent to which you will bring the components of your own moral philosophy down to earth.

Choose a context. A set of conflicting value judgments. Note your own moral narrative in assessing the arguments.

Iambiguous said

I haven’t used any psychobabble, as you accuse me of below, but let’s lean into that criticism instead of away. Your behavior is unbelievably passive aggressive. Asking me to resolve conflicting goods, when it is clear I do not think they can be, given I don’t believe in objective morals and have repeatedly said. Repeating your same posts over and over when they are not relevent to the issue I am bringing up, as if they were relevent. Telling me repeatedly how I think, and why told this is not the case, with no evidence saying that from your perspective it is the case. Not seeming to understand that other people have goals and issues, so when they bring those up, you say that what they are saying does not solve your issue. IOW evaluating everything in terms of your needs, seemingly without understanding that other people exist.

Yes, I tend more than you in our exchange the express hostility openly.

You can’t seem to understand the issue about revision in science, and that I am not saying that IS and OUGHT realms are the same. That one could, but you don’t, feel in a hole, given science’s revising around the self, minds, brains, time, determinism. Not the specific current conclusions, but that they have changed over time and have a good chance of changing again.

YOu come back to abortion, as if I am saying IS and OUGHT are the same in all ways, rather than the specific way I mention. I give up.

You may not be passive aggressive and this may not be another example of it. But the other options that I can think of are not particularly flattering either.

People get angry at you because they either cannot face a lack of objective morals or those of us who can face that, for whatever motivations you hint at above. It has nothing to do wiht the way your communicate or your own behavior.

I doubt you really do miss all the implicit psychobabble in how you think of everyone you encounter here and their motivations. That’s not psychobabble because you kept it short and in simpler words.

Speaking of things said repeatedly, I might remind you that I am not asking you [or anyone else] to “resolve” the quandary embedded in conflicting goods for me. Instead, I note how, when I am confronted with them, I – “I” – become fractured and fragmented.

How are others then either more or less so themselves? Or, instead, how do they demonstrate to me that they are in sync with “the real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”?

Out in the world that we live in. In a particular context.

I’m not telling them how to think, I’m explaining to them [re my abortion trajectory] the manner in which I have come to think about conflicting goods precipitating a considerably more deconstructed frame of mind.

Why one set of “goals” rather than another? And how are these goals less the embodiment of dasein and more a reasoned exploration into ethics given the tools of philosophy?

They will take their moral philosophy there or they won’t. And, if they insist that they already have, we can then squabble over whether we are talking about the same thing.

I don’t have any problem with that. I merely explore the extent to which it strikes me as a polemical bent [which I often pursue myself] or a hostility based on the assumption that they really do believe that, with respect to the existential juncture revolving around identity, value judgments and political power, my own argument is genuinely worthy of hostility.

That’s when I ask them [re my abortion trajectory] to bring their own arguments out into the world and embed them in a context most here will be familiar with.

My point about revision in science is that each revision gets us closer and closer to the objective truth [if there is one] or it doesn’t. The assumption being that there is an objective truth to be arrived at. But how does someone demonstrate that each revision in their moral argument regarding abortion gets us closer and closer to the whole objective truth here too [if there is one]?

And then in exploring how the is/ought world would not be the same in a wholly determined universe.

I come back to abortion awaiting your own existential trajectory. A description of how a particular accumulation of experiences and a particular accumulation of philosophical ideas, resulted in your own “I” here that appears [to me] considerably less fractured and fragmented than mine.

Again, what on earth does this mean? We need to take these assumptions out into the world of actual conflicting goods. How do we arrive at particular sets of motivation and intention?

Read this a couple of times: IT IS NOT YOUR ARGUMENT THAT IS WORTHY OR NOT OF HOSTILITY, IT IS YOUR BEHAVIOR THAT PISSSES ME OFF.

Notice the two differences from the way you are framing it:

  1. it is not your argument, it is your behavior
  2. it is not an objectivist reaction, implicit in the word ‘worthy’

I have made that clear time and again. How did I make this clear? By specifically referring to your behavior, in specfic examples, often quoted quite clearly which I then respond to. I do this in sequence in the thread where they happened. As concrete and clear as possible.

It means that you assume people get mad at you because of the philosophical questions you are asking and the philosophical position you present. It seems inconceivable to you that the things you do, here, the way you respond, that is, your behavior here, could be what pisses people off. Even when I specifically mention specific behavior here, you still write, even in this last post, you still assume that it has nothing to do with how you interact with people.

For someone yearning so hard to find out how one ought to live, it is ironic in the extreme that you cannot even conceive of the fact that HOW you interact might affect other people and piss them off.

And so, instead of noticing what I react to, as clearly laid out, you assume, again, we are afraid of your argument or whatever motivations you attribute to us, rather than actually reacting to the way you interact with us.

You keep telling me that I must have a contraption and that’s why I don’t react to non-ocbjectivism like you do.

You consistantly frame my reactions in objectivist language and viewpoints, as you do in this post.

For example asking how I know my actions and preferences are more rational than other people’s, when I have made it clear I don’t think like that. And then when I point this out, you can’t just admit you made a mistake lumping a request to me and Phyllo that really only could apply to Phyllo.

You keep repeating things I have clearly understood.

You keep finding ways to bring in your position, in the same wording, in contexts where it is not relevent.

These are things I have pointed out, with quotes, in threads, meaning in context. And in response to my pointing this out, you tend to repeat the very actions that I pointed out. And yet…

No, no. It’s really about ‘your argument.’

Personally, I think iambiguous is a psychopath.

There’s a saying in psychology, “not every narcissist is a psychopath, but every psychopath is a narcissist”

Just a question if you know, is Abusive Narcissist Disorder the same as psychopathy?

If you mean a mental disorder, perhaps that would depend on someone’s own perception.

mindcology.com/narcissist/so-wh … tic-abuse/

I would say so. If it is a diagnosis and it is, I think that psychiatrists and psychologists would think of it as a mental disorder.

Comes close to sounding somewhat like a psychopath.

The worst kind of puppeteers. I call them vampires since they like to suck the very life’s blood, spiritually and physically (in a sense) out of their victims.
The best thing to do is to RUN FROM THEM, just as fast and as far as one can.

My behavior here is the same as yours. I create posts. I read and react to the posts of others.

Piling words in a particular order in order to explore the question, “how ought one to live”? More or less existentially.

I’m proposing one possible answer to that question and that revolves around my own rendition of moral nihilism. And this has always basically been what my behavior has been here.

Then you come back with stuff like this:

Words piled up in a particular order, true, but nowhere near as “concreate and clear” as I make the attempt myself here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

We just don’t approach the question in the same way at all. Or, rather, it seems that way to me.

Indeed, you just give us more of the same:

I become the argument and you commense to huff and to puff to others about the manner in which I insist that arguments of this sort must be taken out into the world of actual conflicting goods construed from the perspective of “I” as an existential contraption.

Again, you and I and Phyllo and any others interested in these fundamentally important human relationships, need to focus in on a particular context. Note the components of our own moral philosophies as we react to conflicting behaviors that revolve around conflicting goods that revolve around conflicting points of view.

After all, what in particular does it mean here to speak of arguments as being more or less rational? Or more or less virtuous?

Alright, debate me then. You’re trolling this stuff every second you choose not to debate me in the debate section.

Well that’s one way to get him to debate you, but citing trolling to get him to is a misuse of the word, and therefore slanderous.

Actually it’s not , he is being slanderous by saying that nobody on these boards is arguing the meaning of saying something is more or less virtuous, when he damn well knows that I do it in all my replies to him. That’s also called trolling. He knows for a fact that he’s lying, he’s doing it to incite, just like he does with his winks and dancing bananas every time I make an argument he can’t refute, which is also used to incite. He is by the most serious definition … trolling, not interested in rational discourse

Read his quote, I gave the meaning… he knows if I win the debate (and he knows that I will win it), that he has no rational reason to continue his posting history from then on in a way that he’s comfortable getting lots of attention for.

He just winked at me (psychopathic behavior), not rational discourse

Read above post as well.

I have a soft spot for Christians. Anyway naturally kids who believe in fairy tales are going to be bullied by the stronger kids of the playground. Its just natural.

I would have no problem with Christians if they were just some kind of crazy minority. The problem I have is when they don’t separate Church and State, and try to legisLate. I have no problem with churches, I just have problem with churches telling me what to do by using police pig proxies. I think most of the people who attack Christians mainly feel resentful and oppressed by the pig proxies. So attacking Christians online is more of a defensive maneuver.

We both know what he is. His narcissism is beyond even narcissist’s levels. Because noone would in their right mind would bump their own topic to the point of 640 pages and no replies. A regular narcissist would give up bumping their own topic and try to find validation some other way. But if he’s happy at least let him be. I don’t really think iambiguous deserves to suffer or have a bad life. If he is a happy person, I say just let him be and let sleeping dogs lie. You know he will never admit losing in a debate.

I would say your description is more closely fitting of modern females than it is of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Anti-socialism is usually a male thing anyway. Anti-social people can barely tolerate people long enough to even use them as puppets. Using people as puppets is the female skillset, a woman’s job. As much as I would love to run from the toxic women who proliferate our society, my loins do not permit me to run from the cure.

From my frame of mind, he is just one of the many, many Kids that pop up here over and again.

You know, whatever that means.

But for the life of me, I’m unable to decide if the stuff that he posts here reflect things that he really does believe are true, or if the whole effort is just an exercise in irony: a device used to expose as gibberish the sort of things that other Kids post here.

Or, sure, maybe his points are brilliant. And the problem here is my inability to grasp this.

And, indeed, anyone here able to convey to me why the points that he raises might in fact be just the antidote I’m looking for in order to yank myself up out of my hole…I’m all ears.

Otherwise I’ll continue to react to him as this weird guy who says a lot of strange things that I for one am not able to relate to the world of actual flesh and blood human interactions.

But, by all means, that’s just me. Others here seem able to actually engage his posts as though he was not that sort at all. In other words, they take him seriously. I’m just not able to.

Yet.

duplicate post. although it did bear repeating perhaps.

MagsJ,

QED, look how iambiguous treats me!

That’s his response to this:

viewtopic.php?p=2710288#p2710288

Iambiguous is trying to play dumb here, he knows EXACTLY what my post there means…!!!