ILovePhilosophy.com

So, you have 2 things... your existential contraption and your conflicting goods.

Your existential contraption comes with 2 subcategories.

1.) there is no afterlife
2.) there is no "I"

1.) in order to destroy a continuity of consciousness forever, the person cannot exist even once, as they are a subset of continuity of consciousness - if they exist at any point in time, it always exists. This is easier to understand if you say that existence ends sometime (past or future). If existence does end at some time, you and time are a subset of existence, which means that proof you are here is proof it never ends.

2.) you respond to people. If you truly believed there weren't individuals, the logically consistent action to this belief would be to stop communicating as if you or others existed, which is to stop communicating as a whole. That you communicate with the assumption that there are others shows that you very much believe in concrete identities for self and others. Every time you post, you look like a jackass to what you say you believe.

Your conflicting goods are solvable. For example:

If we knew that there was a point of oblivion for every being forever, than nothing except suicide would be moral. Think about this. "I can have a great life for a trillion years, but I won't remember it and neither will anyone else (because they all obliviate at some point as well).

But we know it's not possible to exist and not exist. Your existence is proof that you don't obliviate.

This means that the ethical field changes. If nobody obliviates, then your calculations for morality must involve substantive infinities, if not for anyone but yourself in the context of everyone.

I submit this to you morally. None of us are moral. I think this is why you are confused about morality. If we'd been raised morally, parents wouldn't even have offspring they didn't have a home for life pre-prepared. It's unethical to bring someone into this world absent that. It's unethical to have rape babies because it rewards rape ... we are not a moral species (except yours truly) but the difference between you and I, is that your contraption is not real, and mine is visceral and demonstrable. I know based on objective morality that had life emerged better in this world, all the sex would have been different and none of us would have been born.

These are some of my thoughts to you.

I also agree with others that you are like a Turing test that can't pass.

Thanks, but no thanks.

This is precisely the sort intellectual contraption that I have no interest in exchanging here at ILP.

I am intrigued only given the extent to which those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism, are able to convey to me why, in their own conflicted interactions with others, they are not down in the hole that "I" am in.

This one:

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.

And, in particular, I am interested in exploring the value judgments of others, such that they are able to encompass them descriptively by noting an actual existential trajectory combining experiences, relationships and ideas.

As I do here.

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.

Finally, in noting how the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here -- viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529 -- is not pertinent to their own sense of self out in an is/ought world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and the "real world" components embedded historically in political economy.

You'll either take your points above there or you won't.

Now, I'm not arguing that if you don't, I win. I'm merely pointing that this is what is of interest to me when the tools of philosophy come to revolve around the question, "how ought one to live"?

I've already answered how ought one live..,

Hallucinate reality from eternal forms.

It's the factual answer to the question ...

Here's another factual answer to a question:

What up?

How's it going?

Nice day, isn't it?

The factual answer is that "there are some things I appreciate about the day". One of them is not some homeless person who died of hypothermia today!!

But you're not that kind of person.

You're the kind of person who says "fine". You have no nuance, you are always attempting psycho-neuro-linguistic programming on your victims to be attractive to females, you are not really a compelling or difficult person to understand.

Ecmandu wrote:I've already answered how ought one live..,

Hallucinate reality from eternal forms.

It's the factual answer to the question ...

Here's another factual answer to a question:

What up?

How's it going?

Nice day, isn't it?

The factual answer is that "there are some things I appreciate about the day". One of them is not some homeless person who died of hypothermia today!!

But you're not that kind of person.

You're the kind of person who says "fine". You have no nuance, you are always attempting psycho-neuro-linguistic programming on your victims to be attractive to females, you are not really a compelling or difficult person to understand.

You're a Kid, aren't you?

Seriously though, thanks but no thanks.

iambiguous wrote:

Ecmandu wrote:I've already answered how ought one live..,

Hallucinate reality from eternal forms.

It's the factual answer to the question ...

Here's another factual answer to a question:

What up?

How's it going?

Nice day, isn't it?

The factual answer is that "there are some things I appreciate about the day". One of them is not some homeless person who died of hypothermia today!!

But you're not that kind of person.

You're the kind of person who says "fine". You have no nuance, you are always attempting psycho-neuro-linguistic programming on your victims to be attractive to females, you are not really a compelling or difficult person to understand.

You're a Kid, aren't you?

Seriously though, thanks but no thanks.

Those are speech and cognition algorithms used to gain female attraction ... they are not moral or ethical ... winking is one of those algorithms as well. You're not a cognition ... you're either a bot, or a troll for women. I can give the proof of you like

iambiguous wrote:Seriously though, thanks but no thanks.

and

Now, I'm not arguing that if you don't, I win. I'm merely pointing that this is what is of interest to me when the tools of philosophy come to revolve around the question, "how ought one to live"?

Good trend. Lovely trend. A not engaging with anything outside the issue you want to talk about up front, no as if you are engaging with his points. No positioning yourself (except around age, but still the trend is great)

I think the problem has comes up, at least for me, when it seemed like a more mutual discussion is potentially on the table, as is generally expected, even welcomed in discussion forums. But if all else is completely ignored, as is done in this thread and a clear statement is made....

My issue is X, period. All else I ignore. If you have trouble with my approach or assumptions or philosophy, I am not interested. I have one exact role for people who respond to me, all else is of no interest and I will not engage with it.

A clear 'just do this or I am not interested' have a nice day. Keeping it just to your threads, so none of your posts can be confused with participating in the intentions of the other OP writers or participants in those threads.

Cool.

Perhaps your reaction to this will be 'But I have made it clear that that is all I want to focus on'.

And I now have some sympathy for that.

On the other hand the culture of philosophical disussion or really discussion in general requires the utterly clear and limited approach you took here. No engagement at all with the other person's positions or criticisms. None. No labeling the other person. No psychic stuff - the age thing is minor. Here's my goal, and it is the only one. All else will be utterly ignored.

No need to repeat what your goal is, no need for the cutting and pasting. A link, perhaps if you encounter someone you never encountered before. This avoids seeming to be responding when you are not. And when it appears in other discussions seems like an attempt to derail or a misunderstanding of what other people's goals are. Their goals do not matter to you, which is fine. Keep yourself from being noise for them, as you did here. This is all I will discuss + link. Nothing more. This will eliminate, for example the entire need for long campaigns with me or Phyllo and anyone else like us in the future. These discussions have not given you what you want, the one single goal you have. These tangents can be completely avoided by the concise approach here. The first post could simply have been like your last here. No repetition of the position. No possible confusion on a reader's part that you are engaging in mutual discussion.

Perfect. Seriously. This made me just a tad happy.

Months ago, in a more direct response to that cut and paste thing, i told iambiguous that he seems confused in a way that he hypothetically could have been born as anyone with a differing view ... so how should he choose one. I replied something like: you weren't born as anyone, you were born as you, so stop blaming others by incident of birth for your problems to this regard, and listen to them as well.

Oh well.

Ecmandu wrote:Months ago, in a more direct response to that cut and paste thing, i told iambiguous that he seems confused in a way that he hypothetically could have been born as anyone with a differing view ... so how should he choose one. I replied something like: you weren't born as anyone, you were born as you, so stop blaming others by incident of birth for your problems to this regard, and listen to them as well.

Oh well.

I guess my sense has been that he is a terrible discussion partner, it is as if his ideas are not to be challenged, though he will nevertheless, misleadingly, interact with challenges, sort of.

But if there is very clear truth in advertising. Like X is all I will discuss. I want it in this format. Everything else I will ignore - and he needs to,then, ignore it, like he does in this thread. Then people can directly see he will not really look at the underpinnings of his position or his behavior in the discussion, his misinterpretations and false dilemmas, his metaphysics, etc. and they can choose to have him as a partner or not.

I can even see where he may think he has been clear about this.

but discussion forums are a culture, and he enters that culture, sometimes, seems to participate in the more complicated ways one expects in a discussion forum, only to back out in what seemed a solipsistic rude way. If it is clear he is not interested in nearly all the unstated guidelines and expectations of discussion cultures, it is then up to others to decide based on this knowledge.

It's like if you meet someone, they say they just want casual sex, make this clear, you can't then blame them if they don't want to move into an apartment together at a later date.

But if there is very clear truth in advertising. Like X is all I will discuss. I want it in this format. Everything else I will ignore - and he needs to,then, ignore it, like he does in this thread. Then people can directly see he will not really look at the underpinnings of his position or his behavior in the discussion, his misinterpretations and false dilemmas, his metaphysics, etc. and they can choose to have him as a partner or not.

He won't even discuss the stuff that supposedly interests him.

There is no concrete example that you can provide which he will consider as adequate.

There is no answer to "how ought one to live?" which is adequate.

There is no description of "I" which is adequate.

There is no way to "bring it down to earth".

He either says that he doesn't understand what you are saying, or he thinks it's beside the point or it's just another "intellectual contraption'. If it looks like it's getting too "close to earth", he goes back to the abstractions ... epistemology, deontology, etc.

I've tried, probably more than anyone on this site.

I agree with iambiguous…..

you do have the right to fight the battles you want to fight,
not necessarily all the battles... just the ones you want to fight....

and quite often I won't engage with certain people because I know
where it will go and frankly, I am not interested in wasting my time
with them.....

as one gets older, time becomes more important then any other aspect,
and wasting one's time with certain people is just not worth it.....

it is an example of wisdom, picking one's battles....

Kropotkin

iambiguous wrote:Thanks, but no thanks.

This is precisely the sort intellectual contraption that I have no interest in exchanging here at ILP.

I am intrigued only given the extent to which those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism, are able to convey to me why, in their own conflicted interactions with others, they are not down in the hole that "I" am in.

This one:

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.

And, in particular, I am interested in exploring the value judgments of others, such that they are able to encompass them descriptively by noting an actual existential trajectory combining experiences, relationships and ideas.

As I do here.

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.

Finally, in noting how the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here -- viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529 -- is not pertinent to their own sense of self out in an is/ought world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and the "real world" components embedded historically in political economy.

You'll either take your points above there or you won't.

Now, I'm not arguing that if you don't, I win. I'm merely pointing that this is what is of interest to me when the tools of philosophy come to revolve around the question, "how ought one to live"?

I think it would be useful to look closely at Lambiguous' last paragraphs to justify his understanding of what Dasein means to him, in the context he is using it, rather then arrive at an objective definition, since it seems to me, that this is all that was done: like looking up referential definitions. I think that isn't he crux of the matter here.

Starting from the bold paragraph, "I am always of the opinion ......down to the end including the paragraphs in bold letters. I have read this and I think that to be able to get to his unique position its important and worth a try.

The existential position nowadays are very hard to ground because the bottom fell out around the time when universal principles of social ism fell out favor, starting with Sartre in the 1950's, and fractured into the Italian and the French , the Chinese versions.

What interesting is his use of -fracture and fragment - in am existentially reduced , personal level. There is a deep tie in there.

In this way the philosophical argument can continue, as a modus operandi, rather then mixing psycholisms with moral arguments. When one says 'i am of the opinion. as a starter, it immediately diaqualifies a moral argument in an existential mode , because opinions can not.contrive a general argument in terms of Dasein, where Dasein is never used in the sense of opinion. The circular loop begins in not having a clear notion of.meaning here.

The attempt to get to it did not get very far in a previous forum , on Heidegger's meaning of Dasein, so perhaps it could start through another channel of exploration?

Peter Kropotkin wrote:I agree with iambiguous…..

you do have the right to fight the battles you want to fight,
not necessarily all the battles... just the ones you want to fight....

and quite often I won't engage with certain people because I know
where it will go and frankly, I am not interested in wasting my time
with them.....

as one gets older, time becomes more important then any other aspect,
and wasting one's time with certain people is just not worth it.....

it is an example of wisdom, picking one's battles....

Kropotkin

Good point, but intentionality comes through the back door whether we like it or not, since we are involved in a certain philosophical forum with its requirement of participating , even if we have our own opinions.

Put a different way, its difficult to argue a point without some measure of objectivity, about a subject which excludes the idea of objectivity of moral issues. And of the argument stays on that level, then it stays there, and becomes a matter of optics, creating illusions and perhaps false images.

I've done a lot of calculations on morality

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DiUrry3GWq8&t=59s

This link may need to be rewound

The gist of the video is that a world with more than one person is the only aspect that causes problems, by proof of what living in a world with more than one person causes... the solution deals with the issue of "how do you change everyone without changing anyone?"

I'm working on giving the hallucinated world spirituality from eternal forms, as many beings find this indespensible. I'm looking at substrate issues, all kinds of stuff.

Iambiguous is completely disinterested in my hole, damned if you do, damned if you don't (as a proof) or my solution, which is a solution to all possible moral issues - conflicting desire fulfillment (not conflicting goods - a much harder problem than his!)

Practically speaking, he's not at my level of attainment, his hole being much shallower than my own - which proves that everyone on the earth is a psychopath except me... I prove it in that video, none of you thought of the 5 heartbreaks of relationship for example. Why? Because I'm less psychopathic than you. Iambiguous also uses a tease, very female, the tease is: if someone comes along and pulls me out of the hole or changes my mind, they will be the hero of all time... shamming unsuspecting victims into proving themselves worthy without iambiguous using any intellectual output themselves, which is why people do get caught up in discussions with iambiguous that we all know are shallow with respect to cognition and morality and relationship.

Have any of you guys been able to discuss with Iambig the stuff that he is interested in and in the way that he expects?

If yes, then please provide a link to those discussions.

I don't think it has happened. (Unless I'm wrong.)

Karpel Tunnel wrote:

iambiguous wrote:Seriously though, thanks but no thanks.

and

Now, I'm not arguing that if you don't, I win. I'm merely pointing that this is what is of interest to me when the tools of philosophy come to revolve around the question, "how ought one to live"?

Good trend. Lovely trend. A not engaging with anything outside the issue you want to talk about up front, no as if you are engaging with his points. No positioning yourself (except around age, but still the trend is great)

Pick an issue to talk about here. Then we can discuss what it means to properly "engage" it.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I think the problem has comes up, at least for me, when it seemed like a more mutual discussion is potentially on the table, as is generally expected, even welcomed in discussion forums. But if all else is completely ignored, as is done in this thread and a clear statement is made....

More discussion about having a discussion. What I would prefer is a discussion of the existential relationship between "self", "values" and "political power" as it pertains to a conflicting good out in a particular world most here are likely to be familiar with. As that pertains to a philosophical examination of the question "how ought one to live" in a world of conflicting goods.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: My issue is X, period. All else I ignore. If you have trouble with my approach or assumptions or philosophy, I am not interested. I have one exact role for people who respond to me, all else is of no interest and I will not engage with it.

Actually, my point is that "I" am down in the hole regarding all moral and political issues. Given any particular context there are those things able to be demonstrated as true for all of us, and those things that appear [to me] to be invested more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein in the is/ought world.

And, clearly: if someone here is not interested in exploring my own approach to "I" as an existential contraption -- a bundle of political prejudices at the intersection of self, values and political economy -- they can move on to others.

With you though [on thread after thread] you choose to engage in a discussion with me...and then abandon it. Perhaps because you feel that I refuse to engage in the "exact role" that you have in mind for others.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: A clear 'just do this or I am not interested' have a nice day. Keeping it just to your threads, so none of your posts can be confused with participating in the intentions of the other OP writers or participants in those threads.

Come on, how hard is it to note the manner in which any particular value judgment that you now embody is embedded sequentially in the evolution of your particular experiences, your particular relationships and your access to particular information, knowledge and ideas.

I merely note that in articulating this you are pointing out all of the experiences, relationships and ideas that you did not have access to.

And that "I" here out in the is/ought world revolves around grasping the implications of that for any particular "I".

This part:

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables---some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are "thrown" into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of "reality" suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

On the other hand:

In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then this part:

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my "self" is, what can "I" do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknolwedging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we "anchor" our identity to so as to make this prefabricated...fabricated...refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: On the other hand the culture of philosophical disussion or really discussion in general requires the utterly clear and limited approach you took here. No engagement at all with the other person's positions or criticisms. None. No labeling the other person. No psychic stuff - the age thing is minor. Here's my goal, and it is the only one. All else will be utterly ignored.

No need to repeat what your goal is, no need for the cutting and pasting. A link, perhaps if you encounter someone you never encountered before. This avoids seeming to be responding when you are not. And when it appears in other discussions seems like an attempt to derail or a misunderstanding of what other people's goals are. Their goals do not matter to you, which is fine. Keep yourself from being noise for them, as you did here. This is all I will discuss + link. Nothing more. This will eliminate, for example the entire need for long campaigns with me or Phyllo and anyone else like us in the future. These discussions have not given you what you want, the one single goal you have. These tangents can be completely avoided by the concise approach here. The first post could simply have been like your last here. No repetition of the position. No possible confusion on a reader's part that you are engaging in mutual discussion.

Until we bring this "general description" of me down to earth, I'm still at a loss as to what you are intending to convey substantively about the components of my own narrative.

Given a context likely to be familiar to most of us.

Admittedly, very few folks here engage me in the particular discussion that I crave. And those that once did [in the past] are long gone.

I suspect this revolves around...

1] the fact that my "style" tends to be provocative, challenging...even surly at times.
2] the speculation that my "message" is disturbing. In particular with regard to understanding the nature of "I" as a fractured, fragmented existential contraption unable to truly [wholly, fully] commit to a set of values.
3] my emphasis on oblivion in a No God world.

I already gave you the answer iambiguous.

If we can hallucinate our reality from eternal forms without impinging on others doing the same, then we not only solve the sense of a stable "I", we also solve all moral problems.

phyllo wrote:

But if there is very clear truth in advertising. Like X is all I will discuss. I want it in this format. Everything else I will ignore - and he needs to,then, ignore it, like he does in this thread. Then people can directly see he will not really look at the underpinnings of his position or his behavior in the discussion, his misinterpretations and false dilemmas, his metaphysics, etc. and they can choose to have him as a partner or not.

He won't even discuss the stuff that supposedly interests him.

There is no concrete example that you can provide which he will consider as adequate.

Then we are back to our exchange on other threads regarding the issue you construe as an adequate example: Communism.

All I can do [as I did] is note the distinction that I make between that which you are able to convey as true for all of us regarding it, and that which I argue is embedded more in the "existential contraption" that was your own particular "I" in conjunction with it.

And then to note how those who react to capitalism as you do to Communism are in much the same existential boat.

Which brings us to the extent to which philosophers/ethicists can settle this dispute once and for all by providing a moral/political narrative/agenda that all rational/virtuous men and women are obligated to share.

And then with you how this is all situated in your refrain about God and religion.

phyllo wrote: There is no answer to "how ought one to live?" which is adequate.

On the contrary, the moral and political objectivists insist that of course there is.

But it's got to be theirs.

Right?

phyllo wrote: There is no description of "I" which is adequate.

Sure there are. There are any number of variables here able to convey any particular "self" concretely. Where you are, what you are doing, your age, your place of birth, your family members, your height, your weight, the events that you experienced in your life. True objectively for you, true objectively for all of us.

Or, rather, true depending on ones access to the facts.

phyllo wrote: He either says that he doesn't understand what you are saying, or he thinks it's beside the point or it's just another "intellectual contraption'. If it looks like it's getting too "close to earth", he goes back to the abstractions ... epistemology, deontology, etc.

More huffing and puffing about the problem being me.

Okay, let's redo the discussion regarding Communism [or pick another value judgment] and you can expose more specifically what you are accusing me of here.

Ecmandu wrote:I already gave you the answer iambiguous.

If we can hallucinate our reality from eternal forms without impinging on others doing the same, then we not only solve the sense of a stable "I", we also solve all moral problems.

Are you still here?

Reposting: I figured iambiguous would miss this message, which I'm willing to discuss at depth

Ecmandu wrote:I already gave you the answer iambiguous.

If we can hallucinate our reality from eternal forms without impinging on others doing the same, then we not only solve the sense of a stable "I", we also solve all moral problems.

phyllo wrote:Have any of you guys been able to discuss with Iambig the stuff that he is interested in and in the way that he expects?

If yes, then please provide a link to those discussions.

I don't think it has happened. (Unless I'm wrong.)

Well, on the surface he is asking for a method to resolve all conflicting goods without force. IOW for an objectivist to step forward, show via text arguments that will and should convince all rational people and continue to do so one all issues. I say on the surface because his could be a rhetorical position, as in he does not think they can and mainly wants to throw the gauntlet down and watch the objectivist fail or run. These are not mutually exclusive, also. He could be doing the latter rhetorical posturing but also be at the same time hoping for the former type of objectivist to appear, winning him over and lifting him up from his hole, not via self-help ideas, even if these are scientifically supported.

I don’t think it is possible to satisfy what he is interested in, and in this I mean also that even if some method existed, it would likely take large periods of time and involve more that just text based interactions. Think Truth and Reconciliation processes coupled with demonstrations and statistics and films and long debates and…multiplied by millions. Maybe we are doing that but it ain’t gonna be proven in his lifetime.
There are also possible processes where universal ideas of the good or preferences become accepted, whether or not these are objective being another issue. IOW perhaps one day no groups at least and very few individuals will think owning a slave is OK. That issue could potentially resolve. It would not mean that it has been determined that slavery is objectively bad, just that people, no doubt in part via argument and discourse and propaganda and life experience moved towards agreement.

It is not clear to me if he would be happy with solutions where conflicting goods disappear, but no scientific repeatable process was found to prove one or neither of those goods was OBJECTIVELY correct.

We, as social mammals, might find ways of relating that we all think are the best. Which is different from saying they are GOOD. WE might find agreement on some, resolve only some conflicting goods. Probably we have resolved, in the main, the issue of whether football (soccer) should be legal to play, at least as children.

However I would bet the house on his never being satisfied that an objectivist has met his criteria. One can only hope he enjoys the process and I suspect he does.

That’s my take on his Sisyfusian task or provocation or both and whether it has been successfully met wihtout his noticing it.

phyllo wrote:
There is no answer to "how ought one to live?" which is adequate.

On the contrary, the moral and political objectivists insist that of course there is.

But it's got to be theirs.

Right?

Okay, let's concentrate on this because it's fairly typical.

Instead of exploring "how ought one live" in a discussion, you dismiss the answers as some objectivists insisting on something ... forcing their views onto you.

Not even a simple proposal on how to live has been made and you already have your back up.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:
I guess my sense has been that he is a terrible discussion partner, it is as if his ideas are not to be challenged, though he will nevertheless, misleadingly, interact with challenges, sort of.

The irony here being that back in my own objectivist days -- as a Christian, a Unitarian, a Marxist-Leninist, a Trotskyist, a Democratic-Socialist, a Social Democrat -- I was clearly a terrible discussion partner. Why? Because if you didn't share my values, you were, quite simply, wrong.

And boy did it feel good to think that!!

And then irony number two:

My current frame of mind is embedded in what "I" construe to be an essentially meaningless world that ends for all of eternity in oblivion. A world in which a hopelessly fractured and fragmented "I" is unable to take but profoundly problematic leaps of faith to one or another moral and political value.

And, wow, how comforting and consoling that is!!!

More huffing and puffing about the problem being me.

Just describing how the threads progress. (or rather don't progress.)

Talking to you is like reading page 1 of a book over and over. It's impossible to get off page 1 because you keep bringing it back there.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Well, on the surface he is asking for a method to resolve all conflicting goods without force. IOW for an objectivist to step forward, show via text arguments that will and should convince all rational people and continue to do so one all issues.

First of all, I readily acknowledge that there may well exist such an objective methodolgy for resolving moral and political conflicts.

The existence of an omnipotent and omniscient God for example.

My point is to make the assumption [and that's all I can ever really do here] that we live in a No God world.

What then might an objective methodolgy be for determining how one ought to live in a world of conflicting goods? How might any particular mere mortal go about demonstrating that it is.

That's the -- inherently? -- tricky part about these exchanges. Some are noting to others what "in their head" "here and now" they think it might be. But do they really have a way of closing the gap between what they think they know here and now is true, and all that would need to be known [ontologically] about the nature of existence itself?

Some will argue in turn that in a determined universe there is really no capacity to argue anything here autonomously, freely.

I merely probe further by grappling with the implications of all this in the is/ought world.

There is in fact what I am, but there is in fact only that which I think "I" ought to be in order to be in sync with what may or may not be the "real me" out in a world where my value judgments may or may not be existential contraptions rooted in a particular set of political prejudices in a world teeming with contingency, chance and chance such that I have no way of knowing for certain how new experiences, relationships and ideas might reconfigure "I" into the embodiment of a whole other frame of mind.

Then I speculate that this may well be applicable to all others too.

I just know that it has already happened many times to "me" in the past.

phyllo wrote:

phyllo wrote:
There is no answer to "how ought one to live?" which is adequate.

On the contrary, the moral and political objectivists insist that of course there is.

But it's got to be theirs.

Right?

Okay, let's concentrate on this because it's fairly typical.

Instead of exploring "how ought one live" in a discussion, you dismiss the answers as some objectivists insisting on something ... forcing their views onto you.

Not even a simple proposal on how to live has been made and you already have your back up.

No, let's concentrate instead on a point of contention that we have discussed previously: Communism.

This part:

All I can do [as I did] is note the distinction that I make between that which you are able to convey as true for all of us regarding it, and that which I argue is embedded more in the "existential contraption" that was your own particular "I" in conjunction with it.

And then to note how those who react to capitalism as you do to Communism are in much the same existential boat.

Which brings us to the extent to which philosophers/ethicists can settle this dispute once and for all by providing a moral/political narrative/agenda that all rational/virtuous men and women are obligated to share.

How are you not arguing that if others wish to grasp the most reasonable reaction to it, they will come to embody yours?

And how have you demonstrated to me that in fact it is yours?

And my point is that, down in the "hole", as soon as I note arguments that attack Communism, I can note arguments that embrace it.

Conflicting goods predicated on particular sets of assumptions regarding the human condition.

Clearly, for example, if one presumes that human interactions revolve more fundamentally around "we" than "I", that will precipitate political narratives/agendas very different from those who presume the opposite.

Karl Marx took this in one direction, Adam Smith in another.

Ok, Mr. Philosopher, using the tools at your disposal which narrative makes more sense?