Something Instead of Nothing

I am of the belief [here and now] that “generally speaking” mathematics, the laws of nature, empirical facts and the logical rules of human language, provide us with answers that seem clearly to be either right or wrong. Objectively.

But: In a No God world even this can be questioned if we go far enough out on the ontological limb: sim worlds, demonic dreams, solipsism…

Then going back to gap between what we think we know about existence here and now and all that can be known about it.

As for our identities, there are any number of demonstrable facts that we can provide for others. Things that are in fact true about us. And doctors can examine us to determine the parts that are true “naturally”, biologically.

This thread however focuses more on the extent that, in a world in which something rather than nothing seems to be the case, our thoughts and feelings about this something are truly our own, freely, autonomously.

No, an ambivalent person would seem more likely to grapple with the ambivalence itself. In particular someone like me. Why? Because clearly my thinking is at odds with the preponderence of others.

All I can do then is to explore the significance of that. Though, sure, there is not much chance that I will be able to persuade folks like you from thinking what you will about my motivation and intention.
[b]
After all, you are someone who seems to believe in God and objective morality. What if I am able to persuade you not to? And here on this thread I am questioning your very capacity to pursue these relationships autonomously. It’s the part about seeing “I” as an existential contraption in the is/ought world that seems most disturbing to you. Well, what if even this “I” is just a mechanical contraption in a wholly determined universe.

In other words, one way to look at our exchanges, is that you have much to lose in being unable to anchor “I” as you do here and now. Whereas as “I” have so much to gain if I can jettison the hole and the nothingness that is oblivion and the dominoes that may well be toppling over in my head at this very moment.[/b]

No, I’ve convinced myself that here and now I don’t know if, in regard to any of my wants and needs, they are truly my own autonomous choices.

Making them my fucking wants and needs doesn’t change that.

Isn’t that the whole point of moral and political objectivism? Or of those philosophical objectivists here convinced that how they grasp the relationship between the human brain and the human mind has in fact been demonstrated to be the right answer for all rational men and women? Why? Because they have, first and foremost, convinced themselves of it!

With you it’s Communism, with them it’s the understanding of existence itself!!

Okay, note a context. Note behaviors in conflict. Note your own distinction between rational and irrational interaction.

Then note the manner in which you are convinced that these interactions are truly autonomous.

You keep refering to “rational human beings” but you never establish what that actually means. Given your philosophy, it seems unlikely that you can make a distinction between rational and irrational.

Now you want me to do it for you. #-o

Here we go again…

1] first you seem willing to exchange substantive posts regarding one or another philosophical issue
2] then over time something analogous to contempt seems to creep into your posts…I become the issue
3] then you abandon the exchange – actually responding to the points I raised above – for a “retort” like this one
4] then you steer clear of me altogether until the next “round”

Or, rather, so it seems to me.

As for the part about “rational human beings”, my aim is always to zero in on an actual contexts in which behaviors come into conflict. And then to explore the extent to which any particular behavior might be called rational or irrational. And then in exploring how that might be demonstrated beyond “general description” arguments embedded in intellectual contraptions.

On this thread however the focus is on autonomy itself. Are these exchanges the embodiment of autonomous human beings able to freely choose one set of words rather than another? Or, instead, is it merely a manifestation of a seeming “psychological freedom” that we think we have, but that, given the assunmption that mind is brain and brain is just more matter, we really don’t.

And in how that might be demonstated one way or the other once and for all.

Would you guys settle on the legal definition ?

This hypothetical person referred to as the reasonable/prudent man exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct that society requires of its members for the protection of their own and of others’ interests.

For one thing, you repeat yourself. It’s like I’m reading the same things over and over. If I try to shift to something new, then you either don’t understand, or you ignore it completely or you ignore it by shifting to something you prefer to talk about.

And then there is the fact that you don’t seem to remember anything that I have written. I wrote several times about my ideas of self which seem to be completely lost on you. What you remember seems to be mostly a stereotype person - not me. This is particularly evident when you bring up my ‘supposed’ thoughts about God, religion and communism.

It feels like you have known me for a week instead of the years that I have been posting.

Yeah, after a while I get enough of it.

If you can’t distinguish good and bad in general (or in a context), then how can you possibly distinguish rational and irrational in general (or in a context)???

Really. Seriously. This is fundamental.

Think about what you are asking.

You can’t explore it because you have no basis for deciding what is rational and what is irrational. There is no way to get off the starting line.
:confusion-shrug:

Sure. One can start there.

But will he?

You’re only reiterating the implications of a deterministic world. Everything from the smallest event to the most complex are only as they ever could have been.

But consider that our species forms low resolution mental models of the world and the mechanics that propel one event into the next, and that this allows us to imagine alternative outcomes of past events and predicting outcomes of some future events.

That is not to say they ever could have been different… but our ability to imagine it being different if only we had done x instead of y, is how we might adjust our behavior and navigate the world.

Even if every thought or action we ever have or take is predetermined, it does not change the process by which they arrived…

It is parts of this process we might take ownership of and the results of those parts that we could call “choice”

These were certainly my experiences: 1)

Right: Repetition if it applies or not. And as if one has not understood what is repeated.

Right: does not really notice his discussion partners.

And when you get irritated, he interprets this as his discussion partner feels threatened. Not once can he consider that it might be for the reasons given. He certainly leaves open that his interpretation might be incorrect, but cannot manage to actually consider ANY OTHER INTERPRETATION for why others get angry. And despite his own philosophy he will happily tell someone else what they believe and what their minds are like. Through the mists of dasein he only finds one thing, every time.

Oh, thank God my time with this is over.

Meanwhile, lets remember that the forum is not an proxy referendum on Imbigious, but on a forum on Something Instead of Nothing.

Where he becomes of interest, ( to me, at least) is, his referentiality descending further then an existential nihilism. This holding is perceived by the ontological reduction(eidectic)- leveling out below the dualistic: either/or , pre-ontic phase of phenomenology, wherein existence is currently analyzed and treated.

That sounds high fallutin’ but what it implies is that the cognitive faculties are dealing on the level of residual and part (cut) dissemblances rather then with current accepted familiar language structures, which have by now have ‘leapt’ to the basic core of meaning.

This ‘leaping’ has to occur, in order to fill in the missing parts, and the effort to leap within a constrained level of acceptance of a medicum of reasonableness on the basis of absolute certainty, ignores the weakness that such absolution is never completely possible.

In moral terms, particularly with religious overtones, such tolls in the never-ending search for IT, the Being. , not only in It’s self, but within It’s Self.

This is an admirable effort, a purely Platonic or Neo-Platonic effort, one that a purist would hold.

But this forum’s intention , I presume does not, can not lower to a point which is much lower than an existential plane , congruent, or at least compatible with Sartre’s ’ Being and Nothingness’. With Nietzsche, it is above a moral equivalent, its beyond good and evil, even if Sartre was his contemporary.

Limits of the modern reify into boundaries between the Enlightement and the Post Modern, and the idea just posted, I think by Phylo, that we can imagine a non determined world, even if knowing that exist facto, it will be interpreted as statistically determined, may give credence to a difference between such a forward hyposthetized look into a possible past occurance, OR, give the opposite view of a completely locked in , intractable lack of any freedom whatsoever.

There is this difference, and the new choices are 3: nothing(nihilism); something (leaping unwisely headlong), or, using new partial differences schemes to change not perhaps the hard drive structure, but the rebuilding a slowly disintegrating and archaic structure piece by piece.

.

No, I keep pointing out that I do not have access to an argument that is able to convince me that I was either able to choose not to say it or that I was not able to choose not to say it.

And that the argument you propose is likely to be embedded in the same antinomy. The one revolving around the exact relationship between the brain as matter and the mind as brain. A relationship that [seemingly] can only be understood to the extent someone understands the existence of existence itself.

Actually, that’s my question regarding the entire exchange. Is it unfolding only as it ever could have going back to an essential understanding of existence itself, or do we have the capacity to both ask and answer these questions with some measure of autonomy going back to an essential understanding of existence itself?

But that just takes us to this: Were you ever able not to not be troubled by it?

Again, if, hypothetically, we lived on a planet that was wholly determined, an observer from an autonomous planet, could note that you are not troubled by it. But then his friend points out that, unlike them, you were never able to freely choose to be or not be troubled by it.

Though sure my thinking here could be flawed. If so, then, using this example, straighten me out.

Note to others: What point do I keep missing here? However general or specific the questions, we either choose to ask them “of our own free will” or we were never able not to ask them.

Clarity? How clear can we be about any of this until an argument is framed that resolves the question such that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace it.

And how on earth is that possible until an argument is framed connecting the dots between this resolution and the ontological understanding of existence itself?

Or are your posts [and your book] as far as we need go?

In a wholly determined universe this would seem to be just the banana matter and the brain matter going through an “experience” that was never, ever going to unfold in any other way. Was never, ever able to. What’s mindboggling of course is still the part where matter evolves into mind able to convince itself that the meaning it imparts to the experience seems to be one that the mind was able to not choose instead.

I note this…

…and somehow you are convinced that these points reflect an effective response to it:

None of this enables me to grasp if my “really really really grim point of view” is or is not “beyond my control”.

And none of it enables me to grasp in turn the extent to which the things that I cling to or defend is or is not “beyond my control”.

We do seem able to grasp that the evolution of life on earth has culminated [so far] in the minds of our own species. But that doesn’t resolve the quandaries embedded in dualism, in the mysteries entangled in the part where the brain ends and the mind begins.

And then, for others, the part where the mind ends and the soul begins.

And “the fact of the matter” is that I don’t know if what I come to “easily believe” is or is not in turn “beyond my control”. I only think I know this based on all of the information and knowledge and ideas I have fortuitously bumped into over the course of living this one entirely unique life.

Same with you.

Really, can you even begin to grasp all of the information, knowledge and ideas that you have not yet happened upon relating to these relationship.

Explored in, for example, these arguments: google.com/search?q=free+wi … es&ie=&oe=

Okay, let’s try to pin this down more. Do you believe that, in regard to the relationship between the brain as matter and the human mind this matter has evolved into, “I” is able to understand it such that it can be determined whether or not “I” am freely choosing to type these words or, instead, “I” was never able not to type them?

To what extent do you construe your arguments here as true objectively? To what extent are you able to demonstrate that there is in fact one right answer and that you are convinced it is yours?

Otherwise you would seem to embrace the assumption that “I’m right from my side and you’re right from yours”. Based entirely on the intital conflicting premises that the arguments falls back on.

Or maybe you were never able to come to any other conclusion but that one. Your “theory of mind” being just another sequence of dominoes toppling over “inside your head” reconfiguring necessarily into a sequence of words in a book that was never able not to be written.

But this “intellectual contraption”…

… is entirely too abstract to be of any practical use to someone like me. How on earth would/could this be related to the actual behaviors that we choose? In either the either/or world or in the is/ought world?

So, in regard to your increasing exasperation with me as someone not able to grasp the points you make, is that just an exercise in polemics? Or do you really believe that, as intellectual contraptions go, yours is right up there with the best of them. And mine is not.

Sure, as long as just insisting that something is true need be as far an one goes.

But: Is that exactly what you were only ever able to say? And, if so, what are the existential implications of that regarding all of the other things that you think, feel, say and do?

How on earth is your theory of mind relevant here? And, in a wholly determined universe, how is anything that you claim to mean here not just the next sequence of dominoes “in your head” as nature unfolds necessarily.

And then the part about how time fits into all of this. Is the future only as it ever can be? And what is this “time” that matter topples over mechanically into?

And the fact that you figure you are more comfortable with what you think you mean here is only just another inherent component of reality itself. Yet you express it as though this were an accomplishment of yours. An accomplishment that you were never able not to achieve if “I” is no less determined than all other matter. And you point out that you can’t help me in what may well be a world in which there was never any possibilty of you not thinking and feeling this.

If the reason and the logic that any particular mind is able to utilize to function only as it ever could have functioned then that reason and logic exist only as they ever could have existed in turn.

But we do not seem to have the capacity to determine if this is in fact the case or not. It’s just that some think they do have that capacity and others think they don’t.

Then it’s either/or [if it is either/or] all the way down to whatever brought into existence the existence of existence itself.

Okay, I’ll leave it to others to determine for themselves how accurate accusations of this sort are. Provided of course this is something that they are actually able to determine for themselves freely, autonomously.

Okay, let’s give this one more shot…

1] Explain and describe your ideas about the self in a particular context we might all be familiar with. How are these ideas integrated into actual behaviors that you choose such that the manner in which you construe the meaning of God, religion and Communism become easier to understand.

2] How is your argument embedded less in an existential contraption and more in a set of assumptions that all rational men and women are likely to adhere to.

3] how do you go about making moral choices on this side of the grave given the manner in which you construe the fate of your self on the other side of it?

And how is all of this then understood by you given the arguments of some that, in a determined universe, all such explanations and descriptions are only as they ever could have been given that the mind is a manifestation of the brain is a manifestation of the matter that interacts given laws embedded in how the existence of existence itself came into being.

So, what do you do? You head straight back up into the clouds.

What is generally – fundamentally – good and bad in any particular context? Let’s focus in on conflicting value judgments from the news that the objectivists on both the left and the right might construe to be in sync with that which is generally good or generally bad.

How does any particular “I” come to embrace one frame of mind here rather than another? Assuming that human autonomy does in fact exist.

On the contrary, I make a clear distinction between that which we are able to determine is in fact true for all of us or is in fact false for all of us — regarding any particular context.

The basis for determining what is in fact true revolves around the extent to which it can be demonstrated that what we believe is true is in sync with the laws of nature, with mathematical proofs, with empirical evidence and with the logical rules of language.

Does God exist?
Is abortion immoral?
Is building Trump’s wall the right thing to do?
Are the choices we make autonomous?
Did everything explode into existence out of nothing at all?

And on and on and on.

What needs to be known by any particular “I” to answer these questions objectively?

Then the part [on this thread] where it is demonstrated that this knowledge is something that any particular “I” is able to acquire autonomously.

What I am reiterating is the fact that I am pulled in both directions when trying to determine if in fact this is true.

But how is this ability to imagine and to navigate not in turn wholly in sync with that which could only ever have been.

Instead, some might argue, the natural evolution of matter into the human brain has created this truly extraordinary matter. Mind matter actually able to become conscious of itself as matter able to convince itself that “I” is choosing what it does “freely”.

This is what neuroscientists are attempting to pin down. But: Have they accomplished it?

I suspect instead that all of us will go to the grave believing that what we think we know is…is what exactly?

How do we even begin to grapple with these relationships given that gap between what we think we know and all that there is yet to be known?

Sure, we can marvel at questions this big. And they make for some truly intriguing answers.

But the answer?

This is [admittedly] the part I may well be tripping up on. How is the “process” itself not but one more manifestation of a wholly determined universe?

Does “I” have any more autonomous control over that?

Okay, you too:

[b]1] Explain and describe your ideas about the self in a particular context we might all be familiar with.

2] How is your argument embedded less in an existential contraption and more in a set of assumptions that all rational men and women are likely to adhere to.

And how is all of this then understood by you given the arguments of some that, in a determined universe, all such explanations and descriptions are only as they ever could have been given that the mind is a manifestation of the brain is a manifestation of the matter that interacts given laws embedded in how the existence of existence itself came into being.[/b]

Yet another round of huffing and puffing in which I become the issue.

Look, if you have no respect for either the points I make or the manner in which I express them, fine. Move on to others. But here you are piling on with Phyllo in order to inform others of just how far removed I still am from taking philosophy seriously.

Like you do, right?

Anyway, with any luck, your own contributions to this thread will only have been what they could ever have been.

Not unlike, for example, mine.

I ask you to state what rational and irrational mean so that we can discuss it in this forum and you accuse me of heading up into the clouds. Are you fucking kidding???

Is that it? Is that your definition of rational?

A rational human is someone who demonstrates that a belief “is in sync with the laws of nature, with mathematical proofs, with empirical evidence and with the logical rules of language”.

Is that your answer?

If it is, then we can tackle abortion.

And I responded to that above:

As for the part about “rational [or irrational] human beings”, my aim is always to zero in on actual contexts in which behaviors come into conflict. And then to explore the extent to which any particular behavior might be called rational or irrational. And then in exploring how that might be demonstrated beyond “general description” arguments embedded in intellectual contraptions.

We have tools in the either/or world for distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable thoughts and feelings and behaviors. Are those tools applicable in turn to the is/ought world?

Well, the only recourse we have is to focus in on the behaviors of particular human beings out in a particular context and discuss that which we contrue to be either rational or irrational.

Right?

Only this tread is more intent on exploring the extent to which, in regard to human interactions, the is/ought world is actually just another manifestaion of the either/or world.

You [and others here] are the ones ever intent on defining it. I am more intrigued instead with the extent to which one can take his or her definition out into the world of human interactions and note for us the actual existential parameters/implications of what they think it means.

Yeah, that’s one way in which to encompass it out in the world of human interactions. Is it the only way? Maybe not. All I can do in places like this is to take note of other arguments.

So, let’s focus in first on what it means to “tackle abortion” given the manner in which you define rational.

You’re the one who is constantly using the word ‘rational’ in your posts.
If you don’t have a definition for it, then what are you saying in your posts?

So you won’t commit yourself to one definition of ‘rational’.

That makes it kind of difficult to demonstrate what all rational men and women are obligated to believe.

If it’s impossible to figure out what ‘rational’ means, then what’s there to discuss?

If you had a definition of ‘rational’ then you could determine whether abortion is consistent with that definition or not.

That would be a demonstration of what all rational men and women are obligated to believe about abortion.

First of all, as I note over and over again, any defintion that any of us give is only applicable given the gap between how we define rational and how any definition of it is either in sync or out of sync with a conplete understanding of existence itself.

So, is how our species defines rational here on planet earth close enough to whatever the exact definition in fact is from the perspective of, say, God or of some pantheistic entity?

I’m willing to start with the definition derived from the OED:

rational:

The quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. The quality of being able to think sensibly or logically.

Okay, how “on earth” in any particular context where the behaviors of human beings come into conflict is that applicable?

And, in using that definition, is it rational or irrational to think that those behaviors are chosen autonomously by free human beings?

In other words, how exactly would I [would any of us] go about demonstrating that one frame of mind here is either the most rational assessment or the only rational assessment?

You first.

We can discuss whether or not it is impossible to figure out what 1] rational or 2] “rational” or 3] Rational means. And then take that meaning out into the world of conflicting human interactions in a world where those conflicts may or may not be just more dominoes toppling over onto each other as they were only ever able to in the first place.

And then we can explore what it means to speak of “the first place”. The Big Bang? The Garden Of Eden? The will of God?

Okay, back to the OED:

rational:

The quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. The quality of being able to think sensibly or logically.

abortion:

An operation or other procedure to terminate pregnancy before the fetus is viable or the premature termination of pregnancy by spontaneous or induced expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the uterus.

morality:

Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Given these definitions, is it or is it not moral to abort a human fetus?

Or, given your own definitions.

In fact, you seem inclined to embrace James S. Saint’s “definitional logic” here. If, of course I understand you.

Sure, if someone defines rational and abortion such that “by definition” an abortion is immoral, that is as far as he need go insofar as as something is true “in his head.”

Or his your point here different?

Left out: The legal definition , which usually rules here on earth.

In outer space on another planet millions of miles distant , we can’t yet know.

Was Kant right or wrong about some acts are irrevocable right or wrong?

Is it wrong for me to write this here and now? Would an innate feeling rule over common sense?

Can my penmanship compare to some. kind of hidden rule?

See how the figure of speech has a silent commitment to meaning?

Obviously it’s possible since there is a meaning written out in the dictionary.

Is there something wrong with that meaning? If yes, then what is wrong with it?

The word ‘logic’ is fairly specific but the words ‘reason’ and ‘sensible’ are too general. One would need to get a more precise meaning for those words. I can’t do that because I don’t have an account on OED.

Notice how you shifted the goal posts from figuring out if abortion is rational to figuring out if abortion is moral.

Nice try.

That assumes that you can give words any definition that you like. In fact, the dictionary definitions are a compilation of how words are used by people. The words reflect something that people see in the world - they see rationality and abortion - and they create the words which represent it. ‘Rational’ is some characteristic thought and/or behavior.

I fail to see why being a part of the universe should pose a problem… Even given determinism, by being a part of the universe, you are by definition part of the equation that determines what happens next.

Consider that in the fullness of time, even a non-deterministic universe, in which we all have magical autonomy somehow, will end up being immutable…
In such a universe you cannot change your past or make it different, yet would you not own your choices from the past all the same?

You focus on our ability to do differently… but our ability to do differently is inconsequential to the question…
What matters is our will… that we chose according to our will.

You cannot be free from yourself… and I suspect that is where you are stuck.
You are something you did not choose, but what you ARE is someone that has, does and will choose…