My point is that whatever is behind [or explains] the existence of existence itself led to my birth in this particular world.
[Unless of course my own “I” is some mind-boggling contraption in a sim world or in a dream…or just another domino in a wholly determined universe]
Now, over the course of living my life I came to prefer neither coke nor pespsi. I like them both. And there does not appear to a way in which to determine whether rational men and women ought to prefer one over the other. It’s a matter of “personal taste”. And all of the genetic/memetic factors that go into that.
But: What on earth does this point have to do with your point:
My point is that you cannot decide to prefer coke to pepsi because there is no you independent of you that could not be influenced by how you are put together.
This, in my view, is just an intellectual contraption that really tells us nothing at all.
Here my view is encompassed in a word contraption. But those words either can or cannot be connected to the world around us. Words used to describe or convey interactions in the either/or world seem to be applicable to all of us. Words used to describe or to defend moral narratives seem more in sync with subjective/subjunctive “personal opinions”.
Then it comes down to choosing a particular context/set of behaviors and examining the extent to which the words that we choose are able to convey things able to be demonstrated as true for all of us.
Okay, then, for all practical purposes, what are the existential implications of this being right given human interactions in conflict?
Over and again I point out that the “whole of everything” embedded in all of the “unknown unknowns” we are not yet privy to seems to be a given for all of us. Still, in a particular context relating to particular human interactions what on earth does, “you cannot verify your foundation of empiricism with empiricism” mean?
In the interim though, we all take our existential leaps regarding the relationship between mind and matter in order to convey what we construe to be true or false [here and now] about human interactions.
The dots are a figure of speech. But the gap between what you describe as “fundamental forces” and the choices that you make from day to day don’t go away unless you can connect them. And we don’t even appear to have connected enough of them [yet] in order to determine if consciousness itself is not but another of nature’s dominoes.
Well, if by empirical evidence we mean “the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation” science seems to make use of it re the laws of nature. Engineers and the inventors of technology [like computers] seem to find it especially reliable.
It’s just when we come to the is/ought world that it becomes considerably more problematic. The “problems I’m posing as questions” revolve around conflicting goods by and large. And the role played by dasein and political economy when individuals come to acquire sets of value judgments. And here Watts seems to be no less problematic than the rest of us. It’s not a question of “refuting anything he says” so much as probing the extent to which anything he says is able to be either verified or falsified.
As for this…
Why? Because I have no way of knowing for certain that it cannot be found. I only think that “here and now”. Thus all I can do is to come into places like this and seek out the narratives of others.
Because in a wholly determined universe we are [presumably] only able to grasp that which we were always going to grasp.
Exactly. But some would seem to be considerably more problematic than others. And all we can do is to focus the beam on a particular context and attempt to explore the extent to which it is constructed of parts able to be wholly grasped and made applicable to everyone [like the contraption we call an automibile engine]; or, instead, construed from conflicting subjective points of view [like abandoning the automobile in favor of mass transit – the contraption we call the environmental movement].
In regard to the former, Watts and all the rest of us are confronted with a seeming objective contraption: an automobile engine. It is what it is and could only be that because it is in sync with what we have come to know about the laws of nature.
In regard to the latter, however, Watts and all the rest of us take particular existential leaps to political contraptions rooted in the manner in which [subjectively] I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political power.
I can only assume that I am missing your point here. The distinction seems rather clear to me. A dead baby or an apple plucked out of a barrel. Which is more likely to generate discussion and debate among philosophers or ethicists?
Back to Trump. Is it or is it not reasonable to say it can be demonstrated that Trump is “here and now” president of the United States? Is this or is this not as close as we are likely to come to an objective reality? Acknowledging that, sure, Trumpworld may well be but a concoction in some entity’s sim world or dream.
Or, indeed, that it really is only a coincidence that everyone seems to think that this is so.
How is the existence of the knife and this observation of yours not in turn embedded in the gap? The truly problematic aspect of the distance between “I” and “all there is” would seem to revolve more around how enormously difficult it is to grapple with the existence of existence itself. Talk about a phenomenally enigmatic chasm between the knower and the known.
Next thing you know we’re saying things like this:
And this explains what exactly? And not just in regard to oxygen.
Sure, one might live in a world where chess is deemed a religion. The moves are part of some sacred truth and anyone who dares to not move as one must move, is thought to be an infidel.
But that is not how the overwhelming preponderance of our species think of chess. It’s a game. You make a wrong move and you lose. But few will insist that this makes you evil.
There certainly appear to be forces at play – gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces – that seem to be applicable to all of us here on earth.
We just don’t really know for sure what is behind them.
Cue those truly bizarre things like “dark energy”.