These are not universal truths...

Imagine taking this argument to men and women engaged in a fierce discussion and debate about the meaning of the words written in the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution.

How [to them] would this not cue Will Durant’s speculation about “epistemologists”?

Truth as it is understood here technically by certain philosophers or truth as it is related to actual human interactions that revolve around the manufacture, sale and use of firearms.

Okay, but would you or I or others agree with the statement “the second amendment supports the position of gun ownership in America” more or less than the statement, “the second amendment supports the position of those who want guns to be taken away from private citizens in America.”

My interest always revolves around the extent to which any particular philosopher’s “wisdom” reconfigures dramatically when we shift from what is true – objectively? universally? – in the either/or world and what is true – objectively? universally? – in the world of conflicting value judgments.

Okay, perhaps, technically. But what actual flesh and blood human beings will do here is to connect the dots between words such as this and the lives that they live. The fact is that in American lots and lots and lots of people bear lots and lots and lots of arms. It is both in fact true “out in the world” and accurate to state that it is in fact true.

Is that where the controversy lies here?

We just think about this differently. Insofar as where the emphasis lies embedded “in reality”.

Claims or statements or assertions can be true. There were real things before claims were made, but truths are a conceptual part of reality ABOUT other parts of reality. As are falsehoods. So, yeah, there were no truths before sentience. But there were real things, I would guess. Real processes. Real patterns. Truths would be assessments made by minds about what is real, what is really going on and so on.

Were there falsehoods before sentient creatures had thoughts or made assertions?
Was there nonsense?

It’s a category error.

The Sun certainly seems to be older than humans. But the sun wasn’t true before we existed. The bulk of the evidence says it was real.
And the moon wasn’t false, for that matter.
And meteor showers were not nonsense.

Unless the meteor shower was a very inefficient message from an alien race tht was not making sense in its communication.

That of course is a biological truth built into the evolution of life on earth. There is also the biological truth embedded in fact that if you choke someone and they stop breathing, they will die. Now, technically, whether one or another serious philosopher makes that more complicated than another serious philosophers says it has to be can quickly become bogged down in epistemological conjecture that goes all the way back to, say, a definitive understanding of existence itself. In a universe where the human species is afforded the option of freely choosing one point of view rather than another.

But suppose the presumed autonomous discussion shifts to whether, in any one particular context, it is either objectively or universally true that choking someone to death is moral or immoral?

I dont.

As I see it, matter is only recognized by these forces, so it is incorrect to presume there is matter independent of these forces.

Right now all you’re doing is reifying experience.

Im saying there is no criterium for posting continuous experience as more fundamental than discrete experience, as your notion of the former is derived from the latter.
We’ve had this discussion in 2013 or 2014 on Humanarchy, of course, but Tom Secker (the owner) took it offline, I think prompted by his Marxist handlers.

This is a non sequitur, as you’re using the term “gap” both as positive and as negative.

No.“Experience” is irreducible (except to its singular quality which is valuing) but the argument for its continuousness is, as I see it, merely syntactic, which does not amount to a foundational idea in my book.

But we can agree to disagree here, at least you’re actually invested in your idea, and it isn’t hollow semantics.

Anomaly - I rather think what we see as “matter” is a configuration of forces. That there is no “substance” apart from these forces, which I see all as “valuing” (selecting, attracting, repulsing).

Ah, so now the “intellectual contraption” of choice is “valuator logic”.

Might he be so bold as to bring this new one down out of the scholastic clouds.

Scholastic clouds? To witless:

Okay, so now…

[b]I dare him to bring “valuator logic” down out of the “serious philosopher” clouds. First he can define it. Then he can define “universal truth”.

Then he can note how his definitions are applicable to a discussion of human interactions revolving around the manufacture, sale and use of guns.

Or in regard to any other context in which a discussion of universal truth might be expected.[/b]

Let’s see how he wiggles out of it this time. =D>

Finally…

:laughing: :wink: :laughing: :wink: [though not necessarily in that order]

Straw man much?

The point being of course to make me the issue.

Again, he is rather famous here for posting this sort of “it’s-so-deep-it’s-meaningless” intellectual, uh, drivel?

You know, if I do say so myself. :wink:

Anyway, all I can do is to challenge him to bring his accusation out into the world of human interactions where a discussion of “universal truth” pertains to an actual context. Of his choosing.

Giving him yet another opportunity to demonstrate more substantively the manner in which I ask stupid question. And no doubt provide stupid answers.

Well, unless I manage to turn it all around and convince you that it is instead him that his own accusations are more applicable to.

Let’s see if he’ll take that chance. :-k

Unless, of course, that was directed at someone else here. :wink:

See, addressing the guy with philosophical concepts merely results in him exhibiting a deeper feigned ignorance and an increased feigned pride.

However, before I addressed him directly (and thus implicitly played along with the idea that he was seriously trying to get us to think), when I defined his methods, he had no choice but to accept me as his master and put my terms in his mouth, to use a phrase.

All play for power, i.e. the power to be the valuator of the situation, and some commit more strongly to particular methods than others.
Iambiguous has found the very high “affect-quotient” of arrogant feigning of ignorance.

Probably learned it in 'Nam.

II mean, cause it works.
Its a game of attrition.

If being is defined as will to power (if being is only experience, it is only experience of will to power) and if this definition identifies a universal fact, then all human writing and speaking would certainly be misunderstood if it wasn’t interpreted foremost and a priori to any conveyed meaning as an expression of will to power.

To take something that is said at face value is always to misunderstand its origin, cause, and thus, I would argue, its true meaning.

Scientific statements of fact are included in this. Why make a scientific observation at all? There is no “objective reason” for it.

There is no fight with iambiguous.

There is only the fight,

Within one’s self.

Namaste

No fight with one who never confronts, never looks in the eye.

You either follow the trail of breadcrumbs (misunderstandings for you to correct) or you figure out you already have a loaf of bread (you weren’t suffering the doubt he purports).

Ah, yes, his beloved “philosophical concepts”.

Then, well, back up even further into clouds full of them:

Note to others…

If you think you understand what he means here as it relates to the relationship between describing what some construe to be universal truths in regard to human interactions in conflict over value judgments, statements about them, and how to differentiate them technically, please provide your own context in which his “philosophical concepts” might be expressed as meaningful given the part that most interest me: actually reconciling or resolving these conflicting goods down here on the ground.

Also, how do you suppose astrology fits into all of this? If that’s an appropriate point to being up.

Lol.

Well yes, to be beyond his shenanigans requires perhaps that one has conquered the bird of intellectual vanity.

Straw men are used to avoid having to engage in conflict, if that answers your question.

[size=85]They are often preemptively fabricated to distract from problematic experience but often enough spontaneous misapprehension of the case at hand.[/size]

Right now the Sun is on the last degree of Scorpio. I don’t know what you are asking.

The problem is Im not as good at weaving straw men.

Well, Im taking up way too much space with my implicit insults to everyone but myself.

Im just as vainglorious an idiot as this bastard. No doubt about that.