Ramification in Causality is meaningless lie of the human

So what you implied was the only possible truth given the existence of different objectivisms was not the case. You were wrong. Thank you.
And of course it was a general description, given that you made a general description and then drew a general conclusion. I am not sure you know what citation marks mean.

There is no such thing as a universal truth for such a concept cannot be empirically demonstrated
Instead it is something entirely subjective based upon our life experience and acquired knowledge
As we change then our understanding or perception of what that truth is might also change as well
We choose from many narratives and select the one that most characterises who we are personally
We may have limited free will but within that constraint we are free to choose the narrative for us
But it is an eternal work in progress so is not set in stone even if the fundamentals remain the same

That is not truth as such but a perception of what you think truth is or should be. The truth in question is philosophical not scientific or mathematical so the
notion of universality does not apply. To show this let me use your example of abortion : there is no way to demonstrate the moral right or wrong of it [ or in
deed any moral issue ] You do not arrive at a decision through logical deduction as it is not an issue that can be referenced from such a perspective. All moral
issues are a potential infinity of shades of grey sandwiched between the twin absolutes of black and white. Getting universality from that is next to impossible

The only possible truth about what? Right or wrong in what sense? Objective or subjective pertaining to what particular aspect of human interactions?

A description of what?

This part:

[b]So, what we need then is a context in which to configure/reconfigure these abstract conjectures into a set of actual behaviors able to be or not to be defended against conflicting assessments of “the right thing to do”.

Which particular problem do we wish to solve?[/b]

You can pick it.

And then the rest of our exchange:

Yes, and, for all practical purposes in a No God world, what else is there?

Then in contemplating this at the intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, some tumble down into the hole that I am in and others do not.

But ought one to tumble or not tumble down in it?

Can one come up with a solution to a problem like abortion that “pragmatically” enables us to intertwine the points raised by Trump in his SOTU speech last night and the points raised by those who either choose or perform abortions?

A way of thinking about it so that “I” is considerably less “fractured and fragmented”?

Yeah, it’s done by some. It’s just not able to be accomplished “here and now” by me.

True. But the distinction I keep coming back to is the one between those who insist that their truth is wholly in sync with objective reality and that if others don’t share it they are necessarily wrong.

Here I have no clear idea of the point being made. What question is being raised in regard to what context such that we can more reasonably assess and evaluate the answers that are given. And perhaps even come up with the must rational assessment and evaluation of them all.
[/quote]

This seems basically reasonable to me. Here and now. But how do we determine if it reflects the most reasonable assessment of what is in fact true?

All we can do is to note what seems true to us. In this or that context. Then it comes down to the extent to which we either are or are not able to demonstrate it to others. In any particular set of circumstances in which humans interact precipitating [at times] conflicts regarding what is thought to be true.

Taking or not taking a leap to the assumption that in doing so we have some meaure of autonomy.

But how do you go about demonstrating in turn, that, beyond all doubt, there is no way in which to demonstrate whether abortion is moral or immoral? How can we know the limits of logic here until we can connect the dots between what “I” think I know about it here and now and all that can be known about it going back to all that can be known about the existence of existence itself.

To all that can be known about determinism and human autonomy as it is intertwined in all that can be known about existence itself.

From my frame of mind assertions such as this become hopelessly entangled in all of the “unknown unknowns” that stand between what we think are shades of grey and all that needs to be grasped about existence such that everything can finally be rendered crystal clear.

Personally, I’m not there yet so I presume that much of what I construe to be black and white is more a reflection of human psychology than of my capacities as a philosopher.

Demonstrating beyond ALL doubt is not possible on any moral issue as you can never be absolutely certain you will never change your mind
I used to be anti abortion then pro abortion now am neither. I cannot guarantee this current position will remain with me till my final day
You also cannot be absolutely certain that you have thoroughly examined all of the different moral positions with a completely open mind

I can only deal with the known and unknown knowns so that is all I actually do
If something else exists I do not know it does so I cannot address it in any way

What is existence of existence itself? You have to define what you mean by that because when you use that lingo all I see is dhjksaljdskbasdvbcnxzncnvdsfhjarght.

In order for you to control whether you prefer pepsi to coke there would have to exist a you independent of you who could orchestrate all the matter that forms you in conformance to how you want to exist. If there is no you controlling how you are made, then you are a slave to whatever process is making you and you’ll have no control over whether you prefer pepsi or coke or like them equally.

Everything is a contraption. We cannot think in terms of anything other than contraptions. So pointing out that everything is a contraption doesn’t change anything or convey any information.

Here is an apple
Yeah but an apple is merely a thing.
So what? Every thing is a thing.

I have a thought.
Yeah but a thought is a contraption.
So what? Every concept is a contraption.

If you want to get away from contraptions, then you’ll have to explore what Dionysus said about agnosticism (nonconceptual knowledge). Of course, obviously, we won’t be able to discuss it.

Truth referenced to body parts is relational. Truth referenced to absolute morality is fictional.

It means you cannot use X to prove X is true. You cannot use logic to prove logic is true. You cannot use observation to prove what you’re seeing is true.

Connecting dots is a red herring and waste of time. It doesn’t matter how the dots are connected, the fact remains that they are connected. Why get burdened down rehearsing how forces cause consciousness when we already know there cannot be discontinuities?

What do you consider observation? Is 2+2=4 observed or deduced? What’s the difference? Do you see what I mean? Do you observe what I mean? Do you deduce what I mean?

The distinctions between observation and deduction are irrelevant. We are a dimensionless center of perception and it doesn’t matter through which sense that information comes.

It’s verified with deduction.

The max possible things in existence are 1. If you see that, then you’ve verified it. If you haven’t, then you’ll need to grow eyes.

Can it be falsified? Sure. Show me how two distinct things can interact without being one.

But your presupposition is that the answer cannot be found. You’ve appealed to it plenty before: why have so many before not found the answer? What questions will be asked in the future? Everyone here thinks he’s found the answer. Yada yada. You’re convinced no one can know.

It’s not pre-determined or even pre-determinable, but probabilistic. You are determined by the outcome of a causeless event.

Yes but why is a baby objectively more important than an apple? Why does the universe care more about babies than apples? An apple is a baby appletree. A baby human is just another among the billions of other baby animals. Because the baby human will grow up to be arrogant, it should be given more respect?

Demonstrated to who? Rocks? Planets? Stars? The universe? Almost nothing in this universe recognizes Trump as president. Like me recognizing an ant queen in imminent peril while I’m mowing the lawn. The queen only has significance to other ants. Nothing else cares.

Objective reality can never be known and that’s as close to knowing anything about it that we can go.

It shows that what the object is depends just as much on what the subject is as it does the object. What exists depends on what you are.

Why not? It’s not about breaking the rules of the game, but choosing how to play by sending the pawns out first to absorb the attack. That’s evil, right? The kings should get out in the middle and have a fist fight.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naUt2bYc3ng[/youtube]

They aren’t laws, but observed regularities. Laws are decreed by authority and enforced (and sometimes broken). The concept of law in science is a holdover from theocracy.

Sure, evidence can change minds. I used to be theist and now I’m not. I can’t swap back n forth, but can only believe what seems sensible to me, which is not anything I have control over. Show me enough evidence that santa claus exists and I might stat to believe it, uncontrollably. If some big dude gets in my face and threatens to kick my ass, I can’t just force myself to think I can take him; I either believe him or I don’t.

You can only be “maximally sure” of anything.

You guys would enjoy this debate as they cover what can be objectively known:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL8LREmbDi0[/youtube]

One guy says nothing can be objectively known without a belief in god and the other says nothing can be objectively known, period.

I was pointing out that one can choose to aim at evidence and experiences that lead to beliefs. IOW one can be active. Yes, evidence changes minds, but one can take the step of moving towards environments where evidence is possible or even evidence is likely to support a belief. You are dying of some cancer and do not trust alternative medicine. Well, you could decide to see if you can find evidence that a certain process actually does work. So you challenge your own belief - ask to see records at a specific clinic, check research about the alkaloids in a plant they use, talk to their clients, etc. You do not believe in God but decide to test it out. So you approach an expert from tradition X and ask them what practices might change that belief. Then you engage in these practices for a long time. There are all sorts of more mundane interpersonal beliefs that can be challenged: about the opposite sex, about the possibility of being honest and nto being punished, whateever.

If I look at your post, it can seem like we float through time and things appear in our perceptive fields and they change us or don’t. Since one can choose what appears, one can increase the liklihood of counterexamples of one’s own beliefs or simply aim for new experiences which increase the liklihood of changes. Etc.

And while it is evidence, in a sense, I would broaden that term out to ‘experience’.

I agree. But when those who embrace objectivism change their mind, it is rationalized. They convince themselves that the Real Me is still aiming to be wholly in sync with The Right Thing To Do – and has now really found it.

They just switch fonts.

Again, it is the psychological need to anchor “I” to a font that chiefly motivates them.

Or, rather, so it seems to me. But what it seems to me here and now is construed by me to be no less an existential contraption. Given new experiences, relationships and access to ideas “I” may very well change my mind again.

But only in sync with this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

The “hole” I’m in. The “fractured and fragmented” “I” in the is/ought world.

Well, in my own way, I am in the same boat. Only I can’t know for certain that there is not an objective truth here that one can be “absolutely certain” about. Why? Because there it is: that gap between what I think is true now and all there is to be known about the existence of existence itself.

I can’t even know for certain if I possess any measure of actual autonomy in making these claims.

Exactly, but: how is that not applicable to all of us? There either is an explanation available to us that allows us to connect the dots between “I” here and now and a complete understanding of existence itself or there’s not.

Or there is and only God is privy to it.

Or there is and one day in what one imagines to be the distant future mere mortals will actually have access to it sans God.

In the interim, all of our speculations here about the either/or world, the is/ought world, the debate over free will and determinism, the relationship between spacetime and something rather than nothing at all, and all the other Big Questions that remain embedded in the unknown unknowns, will surely go with each of us to the grave.

And I suspect that some react to me as they do because I keep bringing this up. They want to be convinced that there are at least some things that they just know are true. But everything that we think we know is clearly subsumed in all that we don’t.

And, in some of us, this precipitates a “spooky” sense of “unreality”. We don’t really know what to make of anything able to be anchored to one or another whole truth. So, psychologically, most are able to convince themselves that this is not the case at all. There is something akin to the Real Me and it is in sync with The Right Thing To Do in what they insist encompasses the Real World.

And then some being able to convince themselves that this Reality extends beyond the grave.

And this may well be true. But here and now all any of us can do is to be persuaded that some things are reasonable to believe and some things aren’t. And this would seem to revolve around those things that can in fact be demonstrated to be applicable to all rational people in a world in which there is in fact some measure of human autonomy.

How can the existence of existence itself be defined?! Only when it is determined definitively why something – why anything – exist at all [going all the way back to how and why that is the case] can it be pinned down with a definition.

Consider:

Definition: a statement of the exact meaning of a word

How on earth can we encompass the exact meaning of existence when existence itself is clearly embedded in this:

There are known knowns about existence. These are things we know that we know about it. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know about it. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know about it.

It’s not exactly the same as providing a definition for a bachelor, right?

Now this is the sort of mental masturbation that is embedded in intellectual contraptions to me. There is in fact an actual flesh and blood me. And over the course of my life [for whatever reasons existentially] I acquired a taste for both Coke and Pepsi. More specifically Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. To the extent I had any control over this is rooted in the actual existential variables that predisposed my choice here. Or in a wholly determined universe in which I was never really free to not choose [autonomously] either one, neither one or both.

Depends on how broadly you want to define “contraption”.

There are nature’s contraptions embedded in the laws of physics. There are human contraptions [like watches or cigarette lighters] derived from the laws of nature.

And thoughts are contraptions originating in the brain. But: What thoughts can be demonstrated to reflect that which is deemed to be an objective reality and what thoughts are subsumed instead in subjective/subjunctive contraptions. The kind that pop up all the time in the is/ought world of value judgments and conflicting goods.

Defining and describing an apple is one thing. Reacting to the fact that John Doe poisoned an apple that Don Trump ate, killing him, another thing altogether.

Really? Okay, demonstrate this. Demonstrate that there is absolutely no possibility that an absolute morality exist in regard to an issue like abortion.

All some need do is to cite one or another God and Scripture here. Others embrace one or another rendition of Humanism and insist that, using Reason, we can derive – deduce – the whole truth here. The deontologists for example. Or the political ideologues. Or those who insist that their own understanding of nature provides them with a list of natural behaviors.

Okay, but again: In what particular context relating to what particular conflicting behaviors?

Then we understand the dots and connecting them in different ways. There are factors/variables that we can explore and probe relating to the choices that we make from moment to moment. And there is how you connect them to that which you construe to be “fundamental forces”. You seem to be insisting here that the fact that they are connected need be as far as we go. You see no need to bring this down to earth and note how this particular intellectual contraption is related existentially to the things that you do. That way [in my opinion] you can stay up in the clouds encompassed in your “general descriptions” of these relationships.

I don’t construe this as addressing the point I made. The either/or world is bursting at the seams with empirical relationships that science and inventors and engineers are able to reconfigure into buildings and airplanes and spaceships and smart phones. Both induction and deduction are utilized in accomplishing these transformations.

That’s your assumption about my “presupposition”. My own conjectures here revolve around two general assumptions:

1] the gap between what any of us think we know about these relationships here and now and all there is to be known about the existence of existence itself
2] the implications embedded in a wholly determined universe regarding anything we might think or feel or say or do

Come on, the gap here between my experiences, relationships, and access to information/knowledge and all there is to know about all there is to know is the equivalent of a teeny, tiny drop of water in the ocean. There is a staggering amount of experiences and ideas that I have had no contact with at all. The same with all the rest of us.

And even as I type these words, who knows how many folks are out there with points of view that I have never even really considered. Points of view far, far more sophisticated than mine. Again all I can do is to come into places like this and maybe, just maybe, I’ll bump into one.

I agree. In an essentially meaningless No God world the baby and the apple are interchangeable. Instead, what we need is a particular context construed from a particular point of view involving both an apple and a baby.

If you were minutes away from starving to death and had to choose between access to an apple tree or saving a baby’s life, which would you choose? It could only be one or the other. Is there a way to determine philosophically how one ought to choose – is morally obligated to choose here?

From my frame of mind this is rooted in dasein [“I” configured existentially], conflicting goods [the baby lives and I die] and political economy [the reaction of those in power able to reward or punish you for what you choose].

Well, there is being “maximally sure” about the safest and most effective medical procedure for aborting the unborn.

And there is being “maximally sure” about whether an unborn human zygote/embryo/fetus is an actual human being.

And there is being “maximally sure” about whether it is moral or immoral to abort whatever it is.

And there is being “maximally sure” about how this all fits into a complete understanding of existence itself.

And there is being “maximally sure” about whether we are even able autonomously to voice our own point of view about any of this.

Well, in regard to abortion, I would surmise that both of them are subject to the manner in which I break down the various things that one can be “maximally sure” about above.

After all, why would that not include the extent to which one can be “maximally sure” about God…or regarding what can be known objectively?

Wondering how maximally sure one can be about anything is self defeating as there is no way
of actually knowing such a thing and so it is therefore a question that can never be answered

That may be when you go far enough out on the limb metaphysically. In other words, that gap between what we think we are maximally sure about here and now and all that would need to be known about the existence of existence itself in order in fact be certain about it.

But: for all practical purposes in our interactions with others from day to day there are clearly things [in the either/or world] that being maximally sure about garners an overwhelming consensus.

Whereas other things that folks claim to be maximally sure about they are considerably less able to demonstrate that all others ought to think the same regarding.

That’s always where I go with this, right?

We can only make decisions based upon the knowledge that we actually have
Although better decisions can be made over time as our knowledge increases

Actually not in his world. Why? well, if you want your choices about how you ought to live to be objectively correct, then how can you choose goals? You cannot choose goals - what it would be good to do tomorrow - unless you have a way of calculating what every person should want to prioritize for tomorrow.

And you cannot calculate what every person should want for tomorrow, or today or next week and you cannot calculate what actions you ought to perform and which you ought not to…

by using your own values and desires as guide. Your own desires CANNOT INFORM YOUR CHOICES. Since your desires and wants are clearly not universal, let alone objective.

You can amass knowledge, sure. You can see that minimum wage seems to lead to X. You can see that being kind to people who are sad leads to Y. Not perfect knowledge, but some knowledge of these things. Perhaps moving closer to truth. But you cannot know if X and Y are good things.

So what is the only task left. Well, that’s trying to find out if there is a way to objectively determine how one ought to live. That is the only thing you can do…

But wait a fucking minute…why ought one do that?

Why follow that one desire and let that desire, to know the answer to that question, guide your actions?

There is no objective way of determining if that is a good desire or goal.

And yet that desire is allowed to guide all his social interactions…

Even though there is no objective justification for this.

One commandment.

Objectivists live a life of crime because they live from their morals as if they are objective.

He lives out his life according to one moral, which he does not think is objective, though he thinks it might be.

A Bunch of people living their lives out according to their morals, one of them not sure if it is objective.
A herd of elk with one elk not sure if what is doing is right will look like…a herd of elk.

I see an elk who wants to know how to be a god who does not believe in gods.

I suppose that’s a fair image of many people. It is certainly Romantic. In the sense of not-Classical.

But maximally sure of knowledge is of no use to him, because he needs to know what he ought to do. And since he rules out using his desires to guide his actions - except this one enormous exception - he has no reason to apply any knowledge, whether only possibly true, maximally likely to be true or any other degree of liklihood.