Ramification in Causality is meaningless lie of the human

[iambiguous]

Not from my frame of mind. The two are -- ineffably, inextricably -- linked in a No God world in which value judgments are derived existentially from daseins clashing in a world awash in conflicting goods. I can't resolve these conflicts precisely because "I" am tugged and pulled in opposing directions. Ambiguity and ambivalence are everywhere for me.

Why? Because I don't have a God or an ideology to fall back on anymore.

Right. Because you don't have any method. You're treading water and you're exhausted but you're not getting anywhere. If you had a method then you would be swimming in some direction.

Right.

Communism? If only I had the right method I would be swimming in a direction that would allow me to truly understand and correctly evaluate it.

In your direction, for example.

In reacting to things like Communism or abortion or putting Brett Kavenaugh on the Supreme Court, a "method" is just another existential contraption. You convince yourself that you have found one in sync with who you most are in sync with the most rational manner in which to behave.

Then you convince yourself further that it is not just another psychological defense mechanism to sustain the comfort and the consolation that they were designed [by nature] to bring about in making the human condition a little less precarious.

A pragmatist will pick a stroke and a direction and he/she will start moving.

Might I then suggest a discussion between you and KT on the role that pragmatism might play in reconfiguring dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into less threatening components of a moral philosophy?

But my point is precisely that even to the extent that I do these things, my reasoning can only be just another existential contraption.

Okay, you're reasoning will be an existential contraption but you will have a particular result which is not a contraption. The result will be in the real world. Assuming that you even go beyond talk and actually take some actions.

How can the result not be an existential contraption? You're basically insisting here that, with respect to Communism, your own predilection toward objective morality like KT's propensity to embrace pragmatism, make the components of my own moral philosophy...go away? You just don't let the existential implications of them [that I note above and elsewhere] bother you in the way that they bother me.

But then that's not an existential contraption either.

[iambiguous]

Okay, you're reasoning will be an existential contraption but you will have a particular result which is not a contraption. The result will be in the real world. Assuming that you even go beyond talk and actually take some actions.

And as you point out above he does not display compromise, moderation and negotiation here. He is utterly uncompromising about what the focus is.


His discussion partner may want to focus on his behavior, or an epistemological issue he is not interested in, etc. His response is to repeat his position, or say that that issue/topic/comment does not resolve confliciting goods, or label the other person or the person's position either explicitly or implicitly pejoratively.

Again, let's focus this criticism on a particular context involving conflicting goods. How about your own reaction to Communism?

Show us how the arguments I make with Phyllo substantiate your claim that I do not "display compromise, moderation and negotiation here". That I am "utterly uncompromising about what the focus is."

What on earth are you talking about here?

It's a very abstract and restricted part of the real world here, but it is a part of it, and he does not exhibit the values he says are the only ones that make sense given we are sans God, etc.

Same here. Let's choose a context involving conflicted value judgments and discuss it. You can then note the manner in which this accusation plays out when I discuss the components of my own moral philosophy "out in the world" of actual human interactions.

[iambiguous]

Iamb: No, the issue for me is always this: How with respect to conflicting value judgments in a No God world construed to be lacking in objective morality, he is able to "resolve" such conflicting assessments and not feel fractured and fragmented as I -- "i" -- am.

I have presented a hypothesis. What is the hypothesis I have presented recently a few times about why I am not in a hole and you are? Hint: it related to contraptions not just giving comfort.

Your own moral and political "preferences" are, in my view, able to comfort you considerably more than the "existential leaps to particular political prejudices" that I make are able to comfort me.

And this, I speculate, revolves around the manner in which your own thinking [here and now] takes you further away from the manner in which I construe the "self" [in the is/ought world] as an existential contraption -- more so than a frame of mind able to be in sync with one or another objective morality font.

But that in my view is no less embedded in the life that you lived predisposing you to one set of conclusions rather than another.

There does not appear to be a way for philosophers or scientists to pin down the most reasonable way in which to think about these relationships.

All we can do [it seems to me] is try to describe what goes on in our heads when we are confronted by others who reject [or even attack] our own values.

I'm in pieces here more so than you are. Why? Because I recognize the extent to which my own "preferences" are derived more from the actual trajectory of my life than from anything that philosophers or objectivists are able to propose.

Your "pragmatism", in my view, is just a frame of mind that puts less weight on the part where had you lived a very different life you would embody very different values.

Anyway, once he notes the manner in which his views on an issue like abortion are embedded in the sort of trajectory I provide above, we will have something more concrete to exchange moral philosophies regarding.

Why does it have to be abortion? I gave a description of how I handled a conflicting goods situation.

It can be any value "preference". Abortion is just something I go back to because it was the issue that happened to reconfigure my own objectivist contraption into moral nihilism.

And my abortion trajectory roots my own values not just in a single context but over the course of my entire life. It attempts to intertwine over time experiences that I had and ideas that I came into contact with.

So, pick a "preference" and do the same. Let's see how your thinking did evolve over time given new sets of experiences and relationships.

And, given how crucial this interaction is, what can philosophers then conclude about, among other things, deontology or utilitarian approaches to human interactions? In other words, given how important my own assumptions here may or may not be.

Now the onus on you is to show that I should, really, be down in your hole.

As I have noted elsewhere, that is not my argument. Knowing almost nothing about the life that you've life, who am I to to say what you should or should not do with respect to conflicting goods? I'm just trying grasp how, through your own rendition of pragmatism, your "I" is not in as many pieces as mine.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I have presented a hypothesis. What is the hypothesis I have presented recently a few times about why I am not in a hole and you are? Hint: it related to contraptions not just giving comfort.

I'm in pieces here more so than you are. Why? Because I recognize the extent to which my own "preferences" are derived more from the actual trajectory of my life than from anything that philosophers or objectivists are able to propose.

Nope. No evidence of this, just random speculation. I have never said that my preferences are derived from anything other than my experiences and my genetics/tendencies I was born with. You are just making stuff up here.

Your "pragmatism", in my view, is just a frame of mind that puts less weight on the part where had you lived a very different life you would embody very different values.

Nope. My pragmatism is 'doing stuff to achieve what I want'. It has nothing to do with how I arrived at preferences. YOu are making stuff up. I problem solve given my preferences. So do you. That's it. It has nothing to do with the weight I put on my other lives I might have had and what preferences I would have had.

By the way, you seem to be assuming you know how much weight one SHOULD NECESSARILY PUT on that. How did you figure that out?

It seems like you are saying that you know how one should emotionally react to the fact that preferences and values can change over time AND how strongly one should react to that. I believe that mine can. I know that they have. I think there is every chance that some will. This does not make me fragmented and in a hole. You seem to think your reaction, the weight you place on this would be everyone's reaction, unless they have a contraption. Here you are calling my pragmatism a comforting contraption. But it isn't. It is simply what all mobile creatures and many immobile ones do given they have preferences. It does not say a thing about how much weight I should give to the fact that my values may change. You are making stuff up, and it seems you do this because, it must be true that anyone not suffering like you around these issues is either an objectivist or has some other contraption. You, of all people, with a philosophy based on dasein, are in an ironic position when you universalize your reactions.

And you did not answer the question or use the hint.

Can you see why I thought you considered it inevitable that any non-objectivist is either in your hole or has a comforting contraption? I did because you constantly assign me such contraptions, despite their being not the slightest bit of evidence that I have them.

[iambiguous]

In any particular community of human beings, wants and needs come into conflict.

Can you control what you want? If not, then how is a want different from a need? Are you breathing because you want to or because you need to? Do you want to go on living or do you need to?

Sure, wants and needs get all tangled up. But in order to subsist from day to day there are clearly things that you need: access to food and water and shelter; protection from those who wish to do you harm. Though here the conflicts generally revolve more around means than ends.

Or take sex. As a species we rely on sex to procreate each new generation. But given that sex can be engaged for the sheer pleasure of it, we have come to want many, many different kinds of sex. And in any number of different contexts. Conflicts abound here.

So, we need some things. How then ought we to go about procuring them? We want many, many other things. How then ought we to differentiate between the good things and the bads things.

Me? I cue dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Why? Because if you do what you want to do [for "fun" or not] it can piss the others off.

So not wanting to piss people off is greater than wanting to do the thing that might piss people off, even though it's something you originally wanted to do before you realized that people could be pissed.

Again: We need to bring these "general descriptions" down to earth. What in particular are you doing that pisses others off and why in particular are they pissed off about it?

In any event, we need to establish rules of behavior in any particular community. But the rules are always embedded in the historical, cultural and experiential interaction of genes and memes. And generally predicated on one or another rendition/interaction of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.

The part about "rooted in dasein" revolves basically around the fact that...

1] as children we are all indoctrinated [re rewards and punishments] to embody one set of rules rather than another
2] as adults the rules that we subscribe to are generally derived from the experiences, the relationships and the access to ideas that unfold in the course of living our lives.

The manner in which I describe dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Others then can either agree or disagree regarding the extent to which this description is applicable to their own "I" out in the is/ought world.

Suppose Jack has "fun" torturing animals. His purpose could be to exorcise the pain inflicted on him by others, or it might be just to entertain himself.

If we ask Jack why he is torturing animals his answer could only be "I don't know" because all fun activities have that answer, and if they didn't have that answer, then the activity would be purposeful instead of purposeless.

Maybe, but Jack's answer is still embedded in dasein out in a world where some are able to rationalize torturing animals while others insist that it is necessarily immoral to do so.

But rationalization implies purpose. If he is rationalizing, then he wouldn't be torturing animals for fun (no purpose), but possibly to please the gods who will bless the crops or send rain. Rationalization is trying to find a purpose to justify the action.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

The thought that we put into the rules here are, in my view, historical, cultural and interpersonal manifestions of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

The thought that some put into having no rules at all is still just another existential frame of mind to me.

To fight fair or not to fight fair is construed by different people in different ways in different contexts. Why do some come to one conclusion and others another? Is there a way to determine [either universally or context to context] what one is in fact obligated to do?

The "rule of no rules" is always only going to be applicable to a particular situation understood in a particular way. The rest [to me] becomes all entangled in language game. The gaps that sometimes come to exist between words and worlds. One can argue that having fun is their purpose for doing something. Then "technically" we can go on and on regarding the extent to which this is logically or epistemologically sound.

As for the role that human autonomy plays in all of this, that can range from reconciling it with the "will of God" to grappling with "free will" in a wholly determined universe. Here and now the "truth" still seems far, far beyond our reach.

Thus when you argue that...

What I mean by "mechanistic" is like cogs in a machine: if one cog turns, the other cog won't do anything randomly, but it will respond with 100% certainty. The universe is not like that. The universe functions on randomness rather than 100% certainty.

...I have to ask how an infinitesimally tiny and insignificant speck of exaistence like yourself can possibly imagine that what they think they know about all of this here and now is wholly in sync with all that would need to be known about the ontological and/or teleological nature of Existence itself. And that's presuming that this universe is not but one of an infinite number of additional universes.

And that's presuming there is No God.

And all QM let's us know is just how far removed we may well be from successfully grappling with Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns".

Again, when someone makes the sort of assertions that you make here, I presume it is a manifestation of human psychology more so than such disciplines and science and philosophy.

Your arguments are bursting at the seams with assumptions. But, then, how could they not be? And being or not being on vacation doesn't change that.

And then when I point this out:

What always boggles my mind here is how folks can actually say -- believe -- things like this: as though they did have access to all that would need to be known about the universe in order to fully explain it.

You insist:

There is no other conclusion. If there are 2 things, you'd need to explain how one thing could relate to the other thing, and if you did that, you'd join the things together into one thing by their relation. So there can only be one thing (the universe is the only atom - atmos = the indivisible). If there can only be one thing, then that one thing cannot look at itself and any effort of self-examination will result in randomness (causeless). It's just logic man

As though through "logic" alone, one can explain why something exists rather then nothing at all, and why this something and not another.

You give us a world of words. Words said to be true because more words say so. How "on earth" would you go about actually demonstrating this re experiments and predictions? What empirical evidence is there to back this up? Other than your assumptions about it?

One thing for sure though: There's no way in hell I will ever be able to falsify it. And James S. Saint is no longer with us. Able to connect the dots between his own set of assumptions here [RM/AO] and the Real God.

Your purpose is to connect the dots, but why do you want to connect the dots? (Because it's fun )

Right from the start I own up to the fact that my own purpose here is hopelessly -- ineffably, inextricably -- tangled up in dasein. There are just too many variables [and variable permutations] from the past I either did not understand or were beyond my control. What seems most pressing to me is to connect the dots between the either/or and the is/ought world as that has implications for the fate of "I" having tumbled over into the abyss.

Then [again] back to the things that you assert/insist are true:

The universe isn't a machine, it's more like a plant. It doesn't function like Newtonian balls, but it grows and sends random branches into barren places to die while branches that just happened to find sun will bear fruit. The whole thing is completely pointless random happenings that are going on.

So [again] I have to ask myself how your pourpose here in coming to these conclusions is related to my purpose in probing the philosophical parameters of "how ought one to live"?

As "infinitesimally tiny and insignificant specks of existence"?

As for the part that a God, the God, my God might play in all of this?

Cue yet another avalanche of assumptions.

[phyllo]

Right.

Communism? If only I had the right method I would be swimming in a direction that would allow me to truly understand and correctly evaluate it.

In your direction, for example.

Go in whatever direction that you want, whatever direction makes you feel good. Then you won't need to feel fractured.

If you believe your own philosophy, then "my direction" must be as good as any other.

I personally don't care if you go in "my direction". I have not need for some kind of confirmation which your agreement would bring me. LOL

In reacting to things like Communism or abortion or putting Brett Kavenaugh on the Supreme Court, a "method" is just another existential contraption. You convince yourself that you have found one in sync with who you most are in sync with the most rational manner in which to behave.

Oddly enough, one can use methods in math, science, engineering, history, archeology, geography, etc.
Then suddenly we get here (wherever here is) and methods are useless, according to you.

Okay, then pick an existential contraption that you like and go with it.

By the way, "in sync with who I most am" means nothing to me.How can the result not be an existential contraption?

Might I then suggest a discussion between you and KT on the role that pragmatism might play in reconfiguring dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into less threatening components of a moral philosophy?

What are "threatening components of moral philosophy"? I have no idea.

How can the result not be an existential contraption?

Okay, then it's all existential contraptions and there is no way to escape that fact. You can simply accept it and move on.
Nobody can give you an argument that says otherwise. There is no reason to be critical of people who have other existential contraptions ... including all objectivists.

Problem solved.

It could be that you just like gibbering on the internet, claiming to be fractured, asking for help and bugging objectivists. Go with it.

(Unfortunately in that case, there is obliviously an element of confusion which is bound to arise.)

[Karpel Tunnel]

Might I then suggest a discussion between you and KT on the role that pragmatism might play in reconfiguring dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into less threatening components of a moral philosophy?

In the sense that I used 'pragmatism' as self-description, it cannot. All it means is I, like you, like all mammal, do things to achieve what I want. It offers nothing soothing, does not weigh in on what is important or not, what should get more or less weight. It is a purely description term for what, my repeated example, mammals do. Mammals without contraptions. The fox smells wolves and moves in the other direction. That's it. It's not a philosophy. (in the sense I meant it. I'd have to look up the various official PRAGMATISMS to see what those would entail, but since I do not follow them, it doesn't matter in this context). You've been running with this for a while and I am partly responsible for using that term in the way I meant in a philosophy forum. But as I meant it, it simply cannot do what you keep attributing it doing.

[Serendipper]

Sure, wants and needs get all tangled up.

I don't see it as a tangling, but needs are merely wants that are pedestalized into something greater than what they are, as if we actually need to go on living because life has a higher purpose or meaning.

Consider this Alan Watts bit:

So, we have to learn... well we don't have to; you don't have to do anything; you don't have to go on living, but it's a great idea; it's a great thing if you can learn what the Chinese call 'purposelessness'. They think nature is purposeless. When we say something is purposeless, that's a put down: "there's no future in it, it's a washout". But when they hear the word purposeless, they think that's just great. It's like the waves washing against the shore, going on and on and on forever, with no meaning.

The great Zen master said, as his death poem, just before he died: 'from the bathtub to the bathtub I have uttered stuff and nonsense'. The bathtub in which the baby is washed at birth, the bathtub in which the corpse is washed before burial, all this time I have said many nonsenses.

Like the birds in the trees go 'tweet, tweet, tweet!' what's it all about? Everybody tries to say "ah it's the mating call, that's the purpose, trying to get their mate, you know, attract her with a song. That's why they have colors, butterflies have eyes on them, self protection", the engineering view of the universe! LOL!

Why do that? They say "well it's because they need to survive". Well, why survive, what's that for? "Well,,, to survive".

See, human beings really are a lot of tubes. And all living creatures is just tubes. And a tube has to put things in one end and let it out at the other. Then they get clever about it and they develop nerve ganglia on one end of the tube, the eating end called the head. And it's got eyes, and it's got ears, and it's got little organs and antenna, things like these, and it helps to find things to put in one end so that you can let them out at the other. Well, while you're doing this, you see, the stuff going through, wears the tube out. And so that the show can go on, and the tubes have complicated ways of making other tubes, who go on doing the same thing: in at one end, out at the other. And they say well, that's terribly serious, that's awfully important, we've got keep on doing this (ha ha ha).

Now when Chinese say 'nature is purposeless' - this is a compliment. It's like the idea of the Japanese have a word 'Yugen', and they describe Yugen as: 'watching wild geese fly and be hidden in the clouds, as watching a ship vanish behind the distant island, as wandering on and on in a great forest with no thought of return'. Haven't you done this, haven't you gone on a walk with no particular purpose in mind? Carry a stick with you and you occasionally hit a doodle and wander along and sometimes twirl your thumbs. It's at that moment that you are a perfectly rational human being, you learn purposelessness.

All music is purposeless. Is music getting somewhere? If it were, I mean if the aim of music, of a symphony were to get to the final bar, the best conductor would be the one who got there fastest! See, dancing, when you dance, do you aim to arrive at a particular place on the floor? Is that the idea of dancing? The aim of dancing is to dance! It's the presence. Well it's exactly the same with our life! We think life has a purpose. No.

That "tubes" bit is too funny and luckily enough some guy happened to upload it:



But why survive? What's it all for? What's the purpose? There are no such things as needs, but only wants.

Why? Because if you do what you want to do [for "fun" or not] it can piss the others off.

So not wanting to piss people off is greater than wanting to do the thing that might piss people off, even though it's something you originally wanted to do before you realized that people could be pissed.

Again: We need to bring these "general descriptions" down to earth. What in particular are you doing that pisses others off and why in particular are they pissed off about it?

No one can be pissed without caring about something, so the one who is pissed is the one with the problem. "Rules" are merely ways of flattering ourselves: that our wants are really important.

Someone dumped a bag of trash on my property. Inside I found a pizza box with a name on it. The cops do not care. I have the offender's name, address, phone number and I'm pissed, but what can I do except to continue being pissed while the scalawag is blissfully oblivious.

I witness people breaking laws every single day, and it pisses me off, but there is nothing I can do. If I tried to do anything, they'd put me under the jail because no good deed goes unpunished and trying to correct a wrong is far worse than the wrong.

All I can do is let it go and try to keep people far away from me because if they offend me, then I'm the one with a problem. Having rules (cares, desires, wants, expectations, etc) = me having a problem.

In any event, we need to establish rules of behavior in any particular community. But the rules are always embedded in the historical, cultural and experiential interaction of genes and memes. And generally predicated on one or another rendition/interaction of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.

Might makes right is the only rule.

The part about "rooted in dasein" revolves basically around the fact that...

1] as children we are all indoctrinated [re rewards and punishments] to embody one set of rules rather than another
2] as adults the rules that we subscribe to are generally derived from the experiences, the relationships and the access to ideas that unfold in the course of living our lives.

The manner in which I describe dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Others then can either agree or disagree regarding the extent to which this description is applicable to their own "I" out in the is/ought world.

I've resigned myself to being forever ignorant of the meaning of dasein. If it can't be explained simply, then no one understands what it means.

Suppose Jack has "fun" torturing animals. His purpose could be to exorcise the pain inflicted on him by others, or it might be just to entertain himself.

If we ask Jack why he is torturing animals his answer could only be "I don't know" because all fun activities have that answer, and if they didn't have that answer, then the activity would be purposeful instead of purposeless.

Maybe, but Jack's answer is still embedded in dasein out in a world where some are able to rationalize torturing animals while others insist that it is necessarily immoral to do so.

But rationalization implies purpose. If he is rationalizing, then he wouldn't be torturing animals for fun (no purpose), but possibly to please the gods who will bless the crops or send rain. Rationalization is trying to find a purpose to justify the action.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

If a lit candle is 7 inches tall and burns 1 inch per hour, then how tall was it when it began burning? You don't know, right? Now, is your lack of knowledge considered a contraption? If you don't know the answer to a question, then you don't know. What is the purpose of an action? I don't know. <--- that is not a contraption. You can't concede that. You can't let it go. You're trying to find a way to make nothing into an implement because everything has an explanation (the engineering view of the universe) and by doing so you're assuming the thing you're trying to prove (ie everything has an explanation, a reason, a purpose).

Contraptions are artifacts of intelligence; if you didn't have the wit to construct a contraption, then you wouldn't have a contraption.

The thought that some put into having no rules at all is still just another existential frame of mind to me.

Yes, I know and I'm trying to show you that it's a function of intelligence and realization of the fact rather than never having given it thought in the first place, like a bird or mouse which don't have the capacity to form contraptions. Animals don't live by rules and neither do they have the rule of no rules; they just don't think about it because they can't.

To fight fair or not to fight fair is construed by different people in different ways in different contexts. Why do some come to one conclusion and others another? Is there a way to determine [either universally or context to context] what one is in fact obligated to do?

There are no obligations because there are no needs. I want to fight fair because I'm defending a persona I have of myself which is a fair person. Or I may want to cheat because I'd rather live than honestly see who is stronger. It's just a matter of my perspective at the time and there is no right way. Truth is a relation of the internal to the external.

The "rule of no rules" is always only going to be applicable to a particular situation understood in a particular way. The rest [to me] becomes all entangled in language game. The gaps that sometimes come to exist between words and worlds. One can argue that having fun is their purpose for doing something. Then "technically" we can go on and on regarding the extent to which this is logically or epistemologically sound.

But having fun is not really a purpose because if we ask someone why something is fun, they can't know. I have absolutely no idea why this is fun to me and "fun" is just a placeholder for saying "I don't know" or "it doesn't have a purpose."

You say fun is enjoyment and results in certain neurochemistry, so that's why we have fun, but why the certain chemistry? Because atoms like stability (resonance)? Why? Because certain masses attached together by certain springs like to vibrate at certain frequencies? Why? Because it has to be some way. Why? Because otherwise it would be no way. Yes but why this way? There is no reason because randomness is a causeless event.

As for the role that human autonomy plays in all of this, that can range from reconciling it with the "will of God" to grappling with "free will" in a wholly determined universe. Here and now the "truth" still seems far, far beyond our reach.

Truth is relative to each being and every creature lives in its own world. Is it true that you emit blinding light when you apply sunscreen on a sunny day? The answer to that depends what kind of creature is observing you.

If the sun were the only thing in the universe, it would give off no light, both because there are no eyes to see and conjure the light from the darkness and because photons cannot be emitted until they have found a destination. No objective conclusion can be made about the sun without an observer (something that is not the sun) and then the only conclusions that can be made are descriptions of the interactions between the sun and the observer. Existence is a relationship between subject and object; if there is no relationship, there is no existence. Or like James said: if there is no affectance, there is no existence. Affectance is just another word for relationship which is just another word for existence. Having affect is a relationship and the relationship is the existence.

What I mean by "mechanistic" is like cogs in a machine: if one cog turns, the other cog won't do anything randomly, but it will respond with 100% certainty. The universe is not like that. The universe functions on randomness rather than 100% certainty.

...I have to ask how an infinitesimally tiny and insignificant speck of exaistence like yourself can possibly imagine that what they think they know about all of this here and now is wholly in sync with all that would need to be known about the ontological and/or teleological nature of Existence itself.

How can anyone know anything? If you fall from a cliff and some rocks fall with you, it does no good to cling to the rocks on the way down. Ultimately you have to have faith in the universe and whatever its doing without being able to have an understanding of it (purpose) to cling to.

And that's presuming that this universe is not but one of an infinite number of additional universes.

The infinite is not anything than can exist. Additional universes cannot exist or they would be merely part of this universe and not universes at all.

And that's presuming there is No God.

Likewise, God would have to be an aspect of this universe or it couldn't exist.

And all QM let's us know is just how far removed we may well be from successfully grappling with Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns".

The self is the only thing that cannot be known because an eye cannot look at itself, teeth cannot bite themselves, knives can't cut themselves... and when they try, infinity results.

Again, when someone makes the sort of assertions that you make here, I presume it is a manifestation of human psychology more so than such disciplines and science and philosophy.

What has science and philosophy gotten you except in a hole (paradigm entrapment)? Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems using the same thinking we used when we created them."

Although he did not believe in a personal God, he indicated that he would never seek to combat such belief because "such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... _and_deism

It seems to me that Einstein preferred a person to be a little mystical rather than so married to disciplined and robotically regimented science because only when we think outside the box can we make profound discoveries. It appears you're admonishing me for not being in the box with you and struggling with the same contraptions. You don't know how to escape the box, yet you are telling me how to get you out lol

Your arguments are bursting at the seams with assumptions.

Then kindly point out my assumptions. They feel more like deductions to me, but working from the assumption that logic is true.

What always boggles my mind here is how folks can actually say -- believe -- things like this: as though they did have access to all that would need to be known about the universe in order to fully explain it.

You insist:

There is no other conclusion. If there are 2 things, you'd need to explain how one thing could relate to the other thing, and if you did that, you'd join the things together into one thing by their relation. So there can only be one thing (the universe is the only atom - atmos = the indivisible). If there can only be one thing, then that one thing cannot look at itself and any effort of self-examination will result in randomness (causeless). It's just logic man

As though through "logic" alone, one can explain why something exists rather then nothing at all, and why this something and not another.

Existence is relationship; they are synonyms. When you ask why something exists, you're asking why it's related to something else, but haven't seen that relationship is a connection joining the two things into one thing.

You give us a world of words. Words said to be true because more words say so. How "on earth" would you go about actually demonstrating this re experiments and predictions? What empirical evidence is there to back this up? Other than your assumptions about it?

Experiments require assumptions. Empirical evidence requires assumptions. "All statements must be empirically verifiable". Where is the verification for that statement? There is none, so it's an assumption.

We can experiment a googolplex times and always get the same result, yet know nothing for sure. We've demonstrated for all of human existence that heat must flow from the hot to the cold, but it's not a law and heat is perfectly capable of flowing from the cold to the hot, but it's a matter of odds which practically never happens. Experimentation substantiates nothing.

One thing for sure though: There's no way in hell I will ever be able to falsify it. And James S. Saint is no longer with us. Able to connect the dots between his own set of assumptions here [RM/AO] and the Real God.

When James was here, everyone hated him. Now he's gone, everyone wants him back. He said all he needed to say, and then some, and requiring him back around to answer questions is just a result of being too lazy to dig through his 25,000 posts, which is a goldmine containing nuggets that are valuable precisely because they are so hard to find. But Max Planck said it best:

As the great Max Planck, himself the originator of the quantum theory in physics, has said, science makes progress funeral by funeral: the old are never converted by the new doctrines, they simply are replaced by a new generation. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/25/progress/

People must leave and take their dogmas with them so the new can grow from the fertile ground left and stand on the shoulders of giants.

James had the same problem as Descartes, which is explaining how one thing affects another thing (how does the spirit affect the material). The answer must be that they are not two distinct things, but one thing. If we do not axiomize that, then we're back to struggling to explain how one thing affects another thing. Naturally, James made an infinity out of explaining it (because infinity results from self-inspection) and postulated an infinite number of affectance particles to explain forces. The fact that infinity is required should be clue-enough to join particles into one.

Your purpose is to connect the dots, but why do you want to connect the dots? (Because it's fun )

Right from the start I own up to the fact that my own purpose here is hopelessly -- ineffably, inextricably -- tangled up in dasein. There are just too many variables [and variable permutations] from the past I either did not understand or were beyond my control. What seems most pressing to me is to connect the dots between the either/or and the is/ought world as that has implications for the fate of "I" having tumbled over into the abyss.

The abyss is another infinity and that's a hint of self-inspection.

Then [again] back to the things that you assert/insist are true:

The universe isn't a machine, it's more like a plant. It doesn't function like Newtonian balls, but it grows and sends random branches into barren places to die while branches that just happened to find sun will bear fruit. The whole thing is completely pointless random happenings that are going on.

So [again] I have to ask myself how your pourpose here in coming to these conclusions is related to my purpose in probing the philosophical parameters of "how ought one to live"?

My purpose here, I think, is to digest my food. I'll spend a time listening and a time talking. Listening is eating and talking is digesting. I don't know, but that appears to be the phases I go through.

As "infinitesimally tiny and insignificant specks of existence"?

Infinitesimally is the line that divides you from what is not you.

As for the part that a God, the God, my God might play in all of this?

What do you mean by God? An object of worship? I can't believe anything like that. I guess I'm a pantheist or panvitalist since I don't believe the universe is sterile and dead.

There are 4 models for the universe (and I'm open to new ones): the ceramic, the automatic, the organic, the dramatic. In the ceramic, the universe is made like a potter makes pots. The automatic is the same as the ceramic, but the universe makes itself (creation model with the god deleted). The organic model says the universe is alive like a plant and the dramatic says the universe is a play/dream that is orchestrated by the actor/dreamer. Which seems most likely to you?

Cue yet another avalanche of assumptions.

Conjuring the conjecture.

[iambiguous]

Right.

Communism? If only I had the right method I would be swimming in a direction that would allow me to truly understand and correctly evaluate it.

In your direction, for example.

Go in whatever direction that you want, whatever direction makes you feel good. Then you won't need to feel fractured.


If you believe your own philosophy, then "my direction" must be as good as any other.

Right, someone just flicks on the switch for that in the brain. The one that assures they will be wholly in sync with who they really are in sync with the right thing to do.

Some will do this to embrace Communism, others to condemn it. But the only thing that really matters is that everyone will feel good.

Or maybe the pharmaceutical industry will invent a pill for it.

Oddly enough, one can use methods in math, science, engineering, history, archeology, geography, etc.
Then suddenly we get here (wherever here is) and methods are useless, according to you.

Okay, cite just one instance in our exchanges that demonstrates this.

Not counting history, which is more a "social" science, the methods embraced by the other folks here are [eventually] either in sync with the either/or world or they are not.

By the way, "in sync with who I most am" means nothing to me.How can the result not be an existential contraption?

You study Communism. You read this about it but not that. You have experiences involving Communism. This happens but that doesn't.

Now, once you conclude that your reaction to it reflects that which all rational men and women are obligated to think and to feel, then, yeah, how can this not be the only way in which someone must be in order to arrive at this conclusion?

If you have new experiences, relationships and access to ideas, and this changes your mind about it, "I" here has been reconfigured.

What you thought and felt before wan't who you really were after all.

That's precisely why the objectivists need one or another moral and political foundation from which they can sustain a sense of who they really are in sync with the right way to think and to feel about Communism.

It's just that some like you are also able to squeeze in God here. And surely how God feels about Communism is crucial to your own "sense of self", right?

Might I then suggest a discussion between you and KT on the role that pragmatism might play in reconfiguring dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into less threatening components of a moral philosophy?

What are "threatening components of moral philosophy"? I have no idea.

To the extent that one isn't certain about who they think they are in relationship to Communism, "I" begins to crumble. It begins to grapple with doubt, equivocation, ambiguity, ambivalence.

Well, unless they've installed that switch in their brain.

How can the result not be an existential contraption?

Okay, then it's all existential contraptions and there is no way to escape that fact. You can simply accept it and move on.
Nobody can give you an argument that says otherwise. There is no reason to be critical of people who have other existential contraptions ... including all objectivists.

Problem solved.

What on earth does this have to do with the real world where, with respect to Communism and hundreds and hundreds of additional conflicting goods, many objectivists insist that there is no "moving on" until you become "one of us"?

Well, aside from the No God pragmatists like KT, who have evolved a way in which take an existential leap to a particular political prejudice and not let all the stuff that I bring up here ruffle the feathers of their own [more intact] sense of self.

[phyllo]

The one that assures they will be wholly in sync with who they really are in sync with the right thing to do.

I don't know why you keep repeating that phrase. It makes no more sense to me than it did the last time that you wrote it.

But the only thing that really matters is that everyone will feel good.

That is one of the potential goals of philosophy.

Now, once you conclude that your reaction to it reflects that which all rational men and women are obligated to think and to feel, then, yeah, how can this not be the only way in which someone must be in order to arrive at this conclusion?

I never conclude that. They are not obligated to think and feel as I do.

Just for laughs, look at the Bible. Even God did not expect everyone to be convinced and turn away from sin. Even He didn't have an argument for all rational men and women.


Why do you expect so much?

What you thought and felt before wan't who you really were after all.

Yes it was ... at that time.

You seem to think that "I" should be static and unchanging. That seems to be the reason you keep referring to a "real me" and "who I really am".

I don't know why you hang on to that idea. Or why you insist that others think in those terms.

To the extent that one isn't certain about who they think they are in relationship to Communism, "I" begins to crumble. It begins to grapple with doubt, equivocation, ambiguity, ambivalence.

I am whatever I am at this moment. There is nothing to "crumble".

Water doesn't crumble unless it is frozen.

Well, aside from the No God pragmatists like KT, who have evolved a way in which take an existential leap to a particular political prejudice and not let all the stuff that I bring up here ruffle the feathers of their own [more intact] sense of self.

Your ideas about "self" appear to the top reason why you are in your hole.

Probably a good place to focus the discussion.

[iambiguous]

Might I then suggest a discussion between you and KT on the role that pragmatism might play in reconfiguring dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into less threatening components of a moral philosophy?

In the sense that I used 'pragmatism' as self-description, it cannot. All it means is I, like you, like all mammal, do things to achieve what I want.

I'm still not able to grasp why you seem to place such emphasis on this.

After all, every single living thing comes into the world hard-wired biologically to want things. And, more important still, to need things.

But other mammals -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal -- spend almost their entire lives basically subsisting from day to day. It's all about how, instinctively, they are able acquire food to eat, water to drink, shelters for protection and sex to reproduce.

Dasein, conflicting goods and political economy are more or less moot here. Or they revolve almost entirely around survival of the fittest.

Is your point aimed in the general direction of Satyr and his KT ilk? That human mammals -- Desmond Morris's "naked apes" -- are, when push comes to shove, driven [re motivation and intention] more by nature than nurture? More by genes than memes?

It offers nothing soothing, does not weigh in on what is important or not, what should get more or less weight.

From my frame of mind, any sense of self that results in a less fractured "I" when confronting conflicting goods, has got to be more soothing, less discomfitting than my own very real sense of fragmentation.

That's just common sense to me. Yes, "I" is embedded existentially in the life that one lives; both sides [all sides] are able to construct arguments said to be reasonable given initial sets of assumptions; ultimately, it's having the power to enforce your own rules of behaviors in any particular community, that counts.

Yeah, you accept this in part but you don't let it bother you as much as it does me. But even this manifestion of "I" is just another existential contraption to me. Some are predisposed to go in one direction here, others in an entirely different direction.

And philosophers seem at a loss in grappling with conflicting moral narratives and political agendas. No resolutions other than those constructed "theoretically" in a world of words.

So, it's pragmatism by default then.

And all basically irrelevant to any other species of mammal.

Though [perhaps] not to other species of intelligent beings on other planets.

Provided of course that they [like we] are in possession of at least some measure of autonomy.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Is your point aimed in the general direction of Satyr and his KT ilk? That human mammals -- Desmond Morris's "naked apes" -- are, when push comes to shove, driven [re motivation and intention] more by nature than nurture? More by genes than memes?

No, just noting that I struggle to get what I want, for myself and others, and to avoid what I do not want. That's it. It's more complicated than with other mammals, and humans absolutely are affected by nurture MUCH more.

It offers nothing soothing, does not weigh in on what is important or not, what should get more or less weight.

From my frame of mind, any sense of self that results in a less fractured "I" when confronting conflicting goods, has got to be more soothing, less discomfitting than my own very real sense of fragmentation.

I would guess it is less painful to feel less fragmented. But that does not mean there is a contraption present that soothes. It could be that there is not a contraption in me that disturbs. It could be that something happened to me or to you that makes me less likely to worry about this issue. It could be....

All without contraptions.

That I take practical steps, just like you do, does not give me a sense of self. It has nothing to do with a sense of self. That I take steps to get what I want and to avoid what I don't is not frame of mind.
It doesn't give you any soothing, nor me. It was just an observation about my behavior. That's it. It is an observation I could make about your behavior or a dog's. It is not giving any of us some shared frame of mind that soothes.

You saw the word pragmatism, took it as some soothing philosophical position, here now saying it gives me some specific sense of self. It doesn't. Just drop it.

It's like I made the mistake of helping a woman at a party who nearly fell over and my girlfriend spends the next ten months talking about how I want to leave her for this other woman. It wasn't about that at all. Let it go. You're being ridiculous.

I mention mammals because they do not get in holes like the one you are in, nor ones I have been in. Why don't they. THEY LACK CONTRAPTIONS. Contraptions are needed to create the holes.

If we wonder why one person has a hole and another person does not. We have to consider the very likely possibility that that the one in the hole is there because of contraptions, rather than the other way around.

And yes, I seem to be less fragmented. That couldn't possibly have to do with the fact that I am not housebound, am married, have activities I am passionate about, could it. Or to do with you life situation. It couldn't have to do with my genes or my parenting and the way these might be different from yours, could it. It couldn't have to do with the specifics of the traumas we have each gone through and how we dealt with them and what support or lack of we each had. Your fragmentation could not possibly have to do with your past or habits of thinking or temperment. It couldn't possibly have to do with non-contraption facets of me or us or you.

No. The fact that we experience non-objectivism differently has to do with the fact
that I try to avoid certain things and achieve others for myself and other people.

You are embarrassing yourself.

[iambiguous]

Someone dumped a bag of trash on my property. Inside I found a pizza box with a name on it. The cops do not care. I have the offender's name, address, phone number and I'm pissed, but what can I do except to continue being pissed while the scalawag is blissfully oblivious.

I witness people breaking laws every single day, and it pisses me off, but there is nothing I can do. If I tried to do anything, they'd put me under the jail because no good deed goes unpunished and trying to correct a wrong is far worse than the wrong.

All I can do is let it go and try to keep people far away from me because if they offend me, then I'm the one with a problem. Having rules (cares, desires, wants, expectations, etc) = me having a problem.

What is this but a single snapshot of someone being pissed off about something in a particular context.

We are all able to identify with it. Only we might be pissed off about other things in other contexts for other reasons. And we either do or do not have the capacity or the will to do something about it.

But "I" here is clearly an existential contraption. "I" can only take this or that existential leap to this or that behavior rationalized by this or that philosophy of life.

With philosophers [in my view] unable to judge these interactions as anything other than existentiual contraptions.

The part about "rooted in dasein" revolves basically around the fact that...

1] as children we are all indoctrinated [re rewards and punishments] to embody one set of rules rather than another
2] as adults the rules that we subscribe to are generally derived from the experiences, the relationships and the access to ideas that unfold in the course of living our lives.

The manner in which I describe dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Others then can either agree or disagree regarding the extent to which this description is applicable to their own "I" out in the is/ought world.

I've resigned myself to being forever ignorant of the meaning of dasein. If it can't be explained simply, then no one understands what it means.

Doesn't surprise me. Indeed, how many times do we bump into exchanges here in which someone becomes utterly expasperated because something that seems crystal clear to them is completely misconstrued [or even mangled] by others. Over and over and over again.

Besides, how could it ever possibly be simple to explain complex human beings coming into conflict with other complex human beings because they don't share the same moral and political values?

It's nothing at all like communication in the either/or world. Though even here -- think qm or space/time or dark matter -- the relationships are grasped the least subjectively only by a relative few.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

If a lit candle is 7 inches tall and burns 1 inch per hour, then how tall was it when it began burning? You don't know, right? Now, is your lack of knowledge considered a contraption? If you don't know the answer to a question, then you don't know. What is the purpose of an action? I don't know. <--- that is not a contraption. You can't concede that. You can't let it go. You're trying to find a way to make nothing into an implement because everything has an explanation (the engineering view of the universe) and by doing so you're assuming the thing you're trying to prove (ie everything has an explanation, a reason, a purpose).

This example is a contraption embedded in the laws of nature. We may not know the answer but there is one. And it is true for all of us. The purpose is also something that may or may not to known. But there either is or is not one. Where things become more muddled is if the candle was lit by someone whose purpose it was to, say, provide a light so that she could commit a crime. Say, to light a marijuana cigarette where that is a crime. Then different folks arguing over whether or not she ought to have committed this crime. Or whether or not it ought have been deemed a crime at at.

That is when my own "existential contraption" comes into play. The arguments here being embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

As for this sort of thing...

But having fun is not really a purpose because if we ask someone why something is fun, they can't know. I have absolutely no idea why this is fun to me and "fun" is just a placeholder for saying "I don't know" or "it doesn't have a purpose."

You say fun is enjoyment and results in certain neurochemistry, so that's why we have fun, but why the certain chemistry? Because atoms like stability (resonance)? Why? Because certain masses attached together by certain springs like to vibrate at certain frequencies? Why? Because it has to be some way. Why? Because otherwise it would be no way. Yes but why this way? There is no reason because randomness is a causeless event.

We need to bring this "world of words" down to earth. Who claims to be having fun in what context? Why do they call it fun? And if they claim not to know what can the rest of us discern [philosophically or otherwise] about whether or not it really is fun?

But, sure, eventually, the only answer that encompasses "the truth" here is the one that has access to why anything exists at all. And why this way and not that way?

Then we ["I"] segue to this:

...I have to ask how an infinitesimally tiny and insignificant speck of exaistence like yourself can possibly imagine that what they think they know about all of this here and now is wholly in sync with all that would need to be known about the ontological and/or teleological nature of Existence itself.

How can anyone know anything? If you fall from a cliff and some rocks fall with you, it does no good to cling to the rocks on the way down. Ultimately you have to have faith in the universe and whatever its doing without being able to have an understanding of it (purpose) to cling to.

Ultimately [in my view] it comes down to closing the gap between what you think you know is true about the relationship between "in my head" and "out in the world" and what you can demonstrate empirically is true for all rational human beings.

You claim things like this...

The infinite is not anything than can exist. Additional universes cannot exist or they would be merely part of this universe and not universes at all.

The self is the only thing that cannot be known because an eye cannot look at itself, teeth cannot bite themselves, knives can't cut themselves... and when they try, infinity results.

...as though you actually can demonstrate it!

And then in the is/ought world, that which you can demonstrate is virtuous for all rational men and women.

Thus...

When someone makes the sort of assertions that you make here, I presume it is a manifestation of human psychology more so than such disciplines and science and philosophy.

What has science and philosophy gotten you except in a hole (paradigm entrapment)? Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems using the same thinking we used when we created them."

Although he did not believe in a personal God, he indicated that he would never seek to combat such belief because "such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... _and_deism

It seems to me that Einstein preferred a person to be a little mystical rather than so married to disciplined and robotically regimented science because only when we think outside the box can we make profound discoveries. It appears you're admonishing me for not being in the box with you and struggling with the same contraptions. You don't know how to escape the box, yet you are telling me how to get you out lol

Right, as though there did not exist in turn that gap between what Einstein thought he knew about these relationships and all that would need to be known about the exxistence of existence itself in order to explain them fully.

About God, about the universe, about how the two may or may not be in sync.

And folks of my ilk don't admonish folks of your ilk for not being down in box/hole that we're in. Instead, we ask you to demonstrate how and why you have managed to escape them.

I simply focus the beam here on what I construe to be an existential juncture involving identity, conflicting goods and political power. Out in a particular world, embedded in a particular context, understood from a particular point of view.

Then the role of logic [and deduction] here:

As though through "logic and deduction" alone, one can explain why something exists rather then nothing at all, and why this something and not another.

Existence is relationship; they are synonyms. When you ask why something exists, you're asking why it's related to something else, but haven't seen that relationship is a connection joining the two things into one thing.

Another "general description" of existence that is true only to the extent that the definition and the meaning that you give to the words here are true. Yeah, you think that they are "in your head". Okay, demonstate to me and others why we should think this true in turn.

Only this time using inductive reasoning:

Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be probable, based upon the evidence given.

What is the exact nature of the relationship between the two of us in this exchange? Between our conflicting arguments? As that pertains to a particular context in which conflicting goods manifest themselves.

What hard evidence here do you have to support the premises that lead you to your conclusions?

So, it seems...

There are 4 models for the universe (and I'm open to new ones): the ceramic, the automatic, the organic, the dramatic. In the ceramic, the universe is made like a potter makes pots. The automatic is the same as the ceramic, but the universe makes itself (creation model with the god deleted). The organic model says the universe is alive like a plant and the dramatic says the universe is a play/dream that is orchestrated by the actor/dreamer. Which seems most likely to you?

More to the point: How on earth could anyone one of us [even the Einsteins] actually know this?

Sure, I applaud the scientists and the philosophers who take the time to ponder and to explore and to grapple with possible answers here. What could possible be more fantastic then that we might have access to answers here?!

But just as intriguing to me is the role that human psychology plays in all of this. The yearning for answers can become so overpowering that some are able to convince themselves that they are in possession of answers.

The answers.

[iambiguous]

Is your point aimed in the general direction of Satyr and his KT ilk? That human mammals -- Desmond Morris's "naked apes" -- are, when push comes to shove, driven [re motivation and intention] more by nature than nurture? More by genes than memes?

No, just noting that I struggle to get what I want, for myself and others, and to avoid what I do not want. That's it. It's more complicated than with other mammals, and humans absolutely are affected by nurture MUCH more.

Then it comes down [yet again] to how much emphasis you and I place on the importance of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy in fragmenting "I" either more or less.

It offers nothing soothing, does not weigh in on what is important or not, what should get more or less weight.

From my frame of mind, any sense of self that results in a less fractured "I" when confronting conflicting goods, has got to be more soothing, less discomfitting than my own very real sense of fragmentation.

I would guess it is less painful to feel less fragmented. But that does not mean there is a contraption present that soothes. It could be that there is not a contraption in me that disturbs. It could be that something happened to me or to you that makes me less likely to worry about this issue. It could be....

Then we are back to pinning down what a "contraption" is here.

From another post of mine:

Contraption: a machine or device that appears strange or unnecessarily complicated, and often badly made or unsafe.

Starting here, is it then reasonable to think of the self -- "I" -- as a kind of contraption when probing the question, "what ought all men and women do?"

I think so. In the sense that "I" here is composed of any number of vast and varied existential variables that comprise any particular individual's life. And to others these assessments can certainly seem strange and complicated. After all, what do we [can we] really know about the sense of "reality" construed by others?

And we often look at the behaviors of others as badly chosen or unsafe to the extent that they are not the behaviors that we would choose.

So, how you think about yourself in any specific context [related to any specific set of behaviors] will depend in large part on which particular variables you choose to emphasize. Those you include, those you leave out.

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?

But what is this but one more of my own existential contraptions?

That I take practical steps, just like you do, does not give me a sense of self. It has nothing to do with a sense of self. That I take steps to get what I want and to avoid what I don't is not frame of mind.

You come into conflict with another in a particular context. She wants you to behave more like she does. But you think she ought to behave more like you do.

Now, depending on what she does, you are either going to feel more or less satisfied. Spontaneously. In the moment. But: From my frame of mind, soon after, in recognizing this "spontaneous in the moment" feeling as but another manifestation of "I", "I" devolves into an existential contraption. Had my life been different I might be feeling just the opposite. And, when push comes to shove, there does not appear to be a way in which to determine how either of us [as rational human beings] ought to have behaved. Instead [ultimately] it comes down to who has the power "here and now" to enforce one set of behaviors rather than another.

For the life of me, given the manner in which I think here, I can't imagine a frame of mind -- an "I" -- that is not held together [adventiously] as just a particular existential aggregation of mental, emotional and psychological factors. All coming together "in the moment" to predispose me to one reaction rather than another.

It all comes to seem so fortuitous [and thus precarious] to me.

And how can not thinking like this [in whatever manner that you don't] not be more comforting and consoling?

I am simply unable to grasp "I" here in a No God world as anything other than something that is patched/stitched together year in and year out given a particular aggregation of contingency, chance and change that will always more or less await us.

You saw the word pragmatism, took it as some soothing philosophical position, here now saying it gives me some specific sense of self. It doesn't. Just drop it.

"Pragmatist" makes sense to me as a description of my own existential leaps of faith. To particular political prejudices. But given how I construe pragmatism here as just another existential contraption in a No God world, I can't just not feel less comforted when I discuss my own moral values. I have nothing with which to defend them other than as particular existential predispositions.

It's like I made the mistake of helping a woman at a party who nearly fell over and my girlfriend spends the next ten months talking about how I want to leave her for this other woman. It wasn't about that at all. Let it go. You're being ridiculous.

Only [existentially] it might have gone the other way. That particular contact might have precipitated a relationship in which you do want to leave your girlfriend for her. But "I" here [to me] is no less an existential contraption. There does not appear to be a way in which to resolve whether or not [as a rational human being] you are obligated to either stay or go.

I mention mammals because they do not get in holes like the one you are in, nor ones I have been in. Why don't they. THEY LACK CONTRAPTIONS. Contraptions are needed to create the holes.

Contraptions as I undertand them above is moot here. Nature/life evolved on planet earth such that the overwhelming preponderence of mammals are driven to behave instinctively. Period. The holes they interact in revolve instead around survival of the fittest. The holes here being mouths that gobble up other living things. No lion is ever going to ponder becoming a vegetarian.

And yes, I seem to be less fragmented. That couldn't possibly have to do with the fact that I am not housebound, am married, have activities I am passionate about, could it.

What on earth does that have to do with any of this? On the contrary, the more your age and health permits you to go out into the world and interact with others, the more often you risk encountering conflicting goods in which the "passion" that you crave in life is challenged by the assumptions that I construe to be relevant here re "I" out in the is/ought world.

Try even to imagine if how you came to construe good and bad behaviors in your day to day interactions with others, began to fracture and fragment more and more.

That's what is at stake here for you. Keeping "I" just enough intact so that, for all practical purposes, it does feel "in the moment" that what you choose to do is necessary given "who you think you are" here and now.

Among other things, for example, you're less embarrassed?

[Karpel Tunnel]

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?

Not what I meant by pragmatism, this ground has been covered. More posting where you describe me using ideas that have nothing to do with me. More sticky paper. Nothing new. No showing you can consider other possibilities. No revision.

That I take practical steps, just like you do, does not give me a sense of self. It has nothing to do with a sense of self. That I take steps to get what I want and to avoid what I don't is not frame of mind.

You come into conflict with another in a particular context. She wants you to behave more like she does. But you think she ought to behave more like you do.

I don't think she ought to. I wish she would. (here, me AGAIN, having to remind you that I am a non-objectivist.)

Now, depending on what she does, you are either going to feel more or less satisfied. Spontaneously. In the moment. But: From my frame of mind, soon after, in recognizing this "spontaneous in the moment" feeling as but another manifestation of "I", "I" devolves into an existential contraption. Had my life been different I might be feeling just the opposite. And, when push comes to shove, there does not appear to be a way in which to determine how either of us [as rational human beings] ought to have behaved.

I'm not interesting in figuring out what she or I ought to have done. I have no tools to do that and I don't think an answer exists. I might be wrong, but I have no way, as far as I can tell to find out. You seem not to either. This is old ground. Rehashing your positions as if it somehow indicates I have a contraption. More sticky paper where I have to re-explain. Not going to anymore.

And how can not thinking like this [in whatever manner that you don't] not be more comforting and consoling?

Sigh. It certainly seems like it is troubling for you to keep saying these same things and to keep trying to find answers you can't find. I seem to be less troubled by non-objectivism than you are. Sure. But I am not less troubled because of a contraption. I have offered other options here. Nothing new on your part here.

You saw the word pragmatism, took it as some soothing philosophical position, here now saying it gives me some specific sense of self. It doesn't. Just drop it.

"Pragmatist" makes sense to me as a description of my own existential leaps of faith.

Fine, that's what the word means to you. Great. But that's you, not me. I have made it really clear that what I meant by pragmatism was me simply noting that I do things to achieve what I want. And you are off in the clouds of radical abstraction, finding a way for that word to be connected to contraption in you. Your own defnition, finding contraptoins in you. Nothing to do with me.

I have no need for a contraption there.

I mention mammals because they do not get in holes like the one you are in, nor ones I have been in. Why don't they. THEY LACK CONTRAPTIONS. Contraptions are needed to create the holes.

Contraptions as I undertand them above is moot here. Nature/life evolved on planet earth such that the overwhelming preponderence of mammals are driven to behave instinctively. Period. The holes they interact in revolve instead around survival of the fittest. The holes here being mouths that gobble up other living things. No lion is ever going to ponder becoming a vegetarian.

Precisely. Because they lack the ability to make contraptions. eVerything you said here merely supports my point. They don't get into holes like yours because they simply cannot sit around mulling over things like that. And they have no contraption telling them they should. YOu seem to. Contraptions are necessary for holes. They are not necessary when there is a lack of hole. This has now been passed between us many times. We never need mention it again.

And yes, I seem to be less fragmented. That couldn't possibly have to do with the fact that I am not housebound, am married, have activities I am passionate about, could it.

What on earth does that have to do with any of this? On the contrary, the more your age and health permits you to go out into the world and interact with others, the more often you risk encountering conflicting goods in which the "passion" that you crave in life is challenged by the assumptions that I construe to be relevant here re "I" out in the is/ought world.

More opportunities WHERE YOU might get all twisted up in your mind and think abstractly about yourself, because that is how YOU react to non-objectivism. For me having an active life does something different.

You're not coming with anything new. You can't seem to admit that what I called pragmatism has nothing to do with soothing me. You can't seem to admit that non-contraption differences between us might be the cause of my not feeling so fragmented. You cannot even consider the possibility that you have some contraption that makes you obsess over this issue and feel fragmented.

We react differently to non-objectivism. It seems like you experience yourself as more fragmented than me. You conclude over and over that this means I have a contraption. I don't. I have offered other possible reasons why you might obsess over this while I do not. You have no arguments to dismiss these and just keep repeating yourself.

From here on out I am going to ignore much more of what you say in my responses. I want it to be clear that this is not me unable to respond to the points you make, but simply tired of repeating what has already been said and responded to and not wanting to deal with what I am starting to call the sticky paper.

What new do you have to say?

[iambiguous]

You come into conflict with another in a particular context. She wants you to behave more like she does. But you think she ought to behave more like you do.

I don't think she ought to. I wish she would. (here, me AGAIN, having to remind you that I am a non-objectivist.)

Okay, not that she ought to, but that in order for the outcome to be more to your liking, she chooses to behave more in sync with your own behaviors.

Still, from my frame of mind, these choices are no less in sync with the components of my own moral philosophy here. Something you tell her predisposes her to change her behavior. But, with another, it may not have been effective at all. It would be you that would have to change your behavior or the conflict would go on.

Objectivists [the right makes might folks] would be adament: my way or the highway. Why? Because my way is the right way. Or it might come down to someone [in the might makes right crowd] simply exercising his power to effectively create a "solution" in sync with that power.

At best, using moderation, negotiation and compromise, a give and take proposal can save the day. But the assumptions I make regarding how that works don't go away.

Or so [here and now] it seems to me.

You note...

I'm not interesting in figuring out what she or I ought to have done. I have no tools to do that and I don't think an answer exists. I might be wrong, but I have no way, as far as I can tell to find out. You seem not to either. This is old ground. Rehashing your positions as if it somehow indicates I have a contraption.

Again, as I see it, your "contraption" here revolves around the manner in which [from my frame of mind] you have come -- existentially -- not to be as bothered as I am that any behaviors agreed upon are still no less entangled in the assumptions that I make down in my hole.

Basically, this part:

Had either of your lives been different you may well be pushing each other from the opposite end of the moral and political spectrum. But they weren't different and you are both what you became given the existential trajectory of your lives. And that's good enough for both of you.

Then this part:

As though there is really nothing more that I can say that might tug you down into the hole with me. Or nothing more that you can say that might yank me up out of it.

And how can not thinking like this [in whatever manner that you don't] not be more comforting and consoling?

Sigh. It certainly seems like it is troubling for you to keep saying these same things and to keep trying to find answers you can't find.

Perhaps because I have come to think myself into a hole that you have not.

And I look for the answers that others give here when confronting conflicting goods because my own are no less existential contraptions.

There might actually be answers. If, for example, as some here insist, there is a God.

All I can do is to note the answers that others have come up with.

Right?

I guess what intrigues me in particular here is how exasperated I seem to make you at times. If all these things that you assert about me are true, why not just chalk me up as a lost cause and move onto others.

My suspicion is that there is a part of you that wonders if what I am suggesting here re conflicting goods might not be applicable to you too. Then what? What then of your ability to feel less fractured and fragmented than "I" am?

I seem to be less troubled by non-objectivism than you are. Sure. But I am not less troubled because of a contraption. I have offered other options here. Nothing new on your part here.

That sort of thing is construed by me as just another rendition of this:

"I have told you how I think about these relationships but you don't seem to agree that it makes more sense than how you think about them."

Still, you are someone convinced "here and now" that there is no objective morality [as I am], yet you do not feel fractured and fragmented in confronting conflicting goods. Why Not?

Your option then is to bring your "pragmatism" here down to earth and try to describe your thoughts and feelings pertaining to an actual context involving conflicting value judgments; or to simply insist that you have already done this and that the problem here is my failure to grasp how this works for you.

Then give up on me and move on.

And, if that's what you decide, fine. No hard feelings on my part. I've enjoyed our exchanges. You think and feel about these relationships as I wish that I could. All I am doing here [polemics aside] is trying genuinely to understand how you have managed to convince yourself of what you believe. Because "I" cannot.

And yes, I seem to be less fragmented. That couldn't possibly have to do with the fact that I am not housebound, am married, have activities I am passionate about, could it.

What on earth does that have to do with any of this? On the contrary, the more your age and health permits you to go out into the world and interact with others, the more often you risk encountering conflicting goods in which the "passion" that you crave in life is challenged by the assumptions that I construe to be relevant here re "I" out in the is/ought world.

More opportunities WHERE YOU might get all twisted up in your mind and think abstractly about yourself, because that is how YOU react to non-objectivism. For me having an active life does something different.

Whatever that means.

You can't seem to admit that what I called pragmatism has nothing to do with soothing me. You can't seem to admit that non-contraption differences between us might be the cause of my not feeling so fragmented. You cannot even consider the possibility that you have some contraption that makes you obsess over this issue and feel fragmented.

Perhaps that's because I am not inside your head when you encounter situations in which others challenge your value judgments.

AGAIN: All you can here then do is to cite examples of this given your own capacity to go out into the world and interact with others.

Really, try this. See if it might stimulate something "new" from me.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Okay, not that she ought to, but that in order for the outcome to be more to your liking, she chooses to behave more in sync with your own behaviors.

Still, from my frame of mind, these choices are no less in sync with the components of my own moral philosophy here. Something you tell her predisoses her to change her behavior. But, with another, it may not have been effective at all. It would be you that would have to change your behavior or the conflict would go on.

Sure, that can happen. Nothing you say here goes against what I see and experience. That's life as I know it. I certainly hope I haven't given the slightest impression I always get what I want. Hardly.

Objectivists [the right makes might folks] would be adament: my way or the highway. Why? Because my way is the right way. Or it might come down to someone [in the might makes right crowd] simply exercising his power to effectively create a "solution" in sync with that power.

At best, using moderation, negotiation and compromise, a give and take proposal can save the day. But the assumptions I make regarding how that works don't go away.

As I've said before objectivists use moderation, negotiation and compromise ALL THE TIME. So do I. And non-objectivists can have a might wins, so have might attitude. Not sure what this has to do with the present topic, however.

Again, as I see it, your "contraption" here revolves around the manner in which [from my frame of mind] you have come -- existentially -- not to be as bothered as I am that any behaviors agreed upon are still no less entangled in the assumptions that I make down in my hole.

I was never as bothered by it. I don't have a contraption or a 'contraption'. I love the shift to 'contraption', with the citation marks. LOL.

I gave this example elsewhere, but let's look at your behavior in a different context. A person who cares very little about how one ought to live but is in a hole about mortality - his own death and the deaths of those he loves - and spends his time online challenging religious people of different stripes to prove there is an afterlife. This guy in his different from your hole hole notices your threads and thinks

Oh, this guy, iambiguous, must have a contraption. He should be focused just on the fact that we die and there's no reason to believe in afterlives, but he is obsessing over morals. He should be in my hole.

(and just because you once in a while mention upcoming death, you do it just a tiny percentage of the time. To someone in the mortality hole you obsession with how one ought to live will seem odd, that you are not giving the more important issue more weight will seem odd to him)

Or the person in another kind of existentialist hole. The one yearnign for love and real friendship, intimacy. He sees you focused on morals and thinks, oh, that iamb, he must have a contraption, why isn't he in my hole. He must have a soothing contraption about not needing love or closeness otherwise he would give MY HOLE the weight it deserves.

IOW you think a contraption must be present if someone is not in your hole. Either the person not in your hole is an objectivist, or they are a non-objectivist with some other contraption that soothes them. But to people in other holes, you will seem to have contraptions, since you give so much weight to morals, rather than mortality, or rather than the impossility of true intimacy and love. The reason you are in your hole and not their holes may have nothing to do with contraptions, it might have to do with temperment, experiences, current situation, personality.......

You know, I think you are incapable of actually understanding what I am getting at here. You are oddly clueless for such a smart guy. I think it has taken me a long time to understand that functionally you aredumber than you are. I still find it a fascinating mystery. But it is no longer fascinating enough.

And when I say you are obtuse or clueless, this does not mean about dasein, etc. Nor does it mean you should do what I do or have some contraption that I do not have. When I say you are clueless it has to do with how hard it is for you to NOT take every response I make as me trying to prove your fundamental position is wrong. It has to do with you're not even considering that your behavior, which I am obviously focusing on, is the issue rather than your nihilism. It is to do with you OBVIOUSLY considering your own reaction to non-objectiivism as the default one other should have, but then denying you think this, then behaving as if it is, then denying it, then contradicting it.

Your cluelessness utterly astounds me. Because it stands in contrast to what you are capable of on occasion. So, I have been drawn in time and again to probe this. Can he really not understand what I meant`?

Not, can he really not understand that I am right and he should feel less fragmented.

See, I have to say things like that because you always CONVENIENTLY (though not consciously) misinterpret. Oh, he is telling me I should do what he says, take on his contraptions. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I am telling you your communication is so limited it is truly unbelievable.

Honestly, no polemics here, this morning I woke up and had a moment of fear that I had been communicating with a Turing program and hadn't realized it. I don't say that to insult you. I mean, there is this eerie odd experience of you always interpreting everything into a couple of potential interpersonal acts. 1) I am telling you you are wrong about the effects of dasein. 2) I am trying to convert you. 3) What I am presenting to you is a contraption I think you should take on.

So often I wonder things like....how can he possibly not understand the topic of what I wrote, me now having reworded it 8 times? How could he possibly not have understand, since I quote his behavior, referred to the quote, called it behavior in a specific context, that I was not saying his nihilism was wrong?

Utterly astounded. Curiosity gets the cat stuck in sticky paper.

Basically, this part:

Had either of your lives been different you may well be pushing each other from the opposite end of the moral and political spectrum. But they weren't different and you are both what you became given the existential trajectory of your lives. And that's good enough for both of you.

Then this part:

As though there is really nothing more that I can say that might tug you down into the hole with me. Or nothing more that you can say that might yank me up out of it.

I'm not trying to tug you out.

And how can not thinking like this [in whatever manner that you don't] not be more comforting and consoling?

Sigh. It certainly seems like it is troubling for you to keep saying these same things and to keep trying to find answers you can't find.

Perhaps because I have come to think myself into a hole that you have not.

Finally, thank you. Yes, that's possible. (and then below, astoundingly, you go back to assuming I have a belief or contraption again, after here saying it is possible that the difference between us might depend ON YOUR THINKING, your own contraptions. Unbelievable. It's like you have a split personality.)

I guess what intrigues me in particular here is how exasperated I seem to make you at times. If all these things that you assert about me are true, why not just chalk me up as a lost cause and move onto others.

Good question. I find it utterly fascinating how obtuse a smart person can be. I honestly can't believe it. It is a mystery. And this mystery had kept me coming back to be stunned over and over how badly you misinterpret and how much you assume.

My suspicion is that there is a part of you that wonders if what I am suggesting here re conflicting goods might not be applicable to you too. Then what? What then of your ability to feel less fractured and fragmented than "I" am?

Well, obviously that is your interpretation. That interpretation fills EVERY POST AND EVERY RESPONSE. I would have to be clueness not to have noticed that that is perhaps THE DOMINANT PATTERN you have when encountering anyone. Which would be fine, if it was open to revision. Or if you could see that your own philosohpy - dasein et al - indicates other possibilities which are just as likely.

It seems utterly impossible for you to actually MULL over what it would mean to you if you encountered someone who was a non-objectivist but despire not having a contraption is not in your hole. It would seem likely that scares you.

Because you cannot for one second explore what that would mean to you.

That sort of thing is construed by me as just another rendition of this:

"I have told you how I think about these relationships but you don't seem to agree that it makes more sense than how you think about them."

Yes, it is construed by you that way. But I don't think differently about them. You often tell me I do.

You know why you do? Becaues I am not in your hole. So, it has to be that way. If I point out that you are saying it is inevitable that everyone will react like you. You snort with indignation. But then you go right back assuming it over and over despite a complete lack of evidence AND other very liklely possibilities.

I know it would be scary to think you have a contraption that makes you obsess about the hole. But there are other interpretatoins where neither of us has a contraption. I can only assume those threaten you also.

Still, you are someone convinced "here and now" that there is no objective morality [as I am], yet you do not feel fractured and fragmented in confronting conflicting goods. Why Not?

LOL, asking me again

Your option then is to bring your "pragmatism" here down to earth and try to describe your thoughts and feelings pertaining to an actual context involving conflicting value judgments; or to simply insist that you have already done this and that the problem here is my failure to grasp how this works for you.

That's my option? No. There are a number of options.

You are asking me for a contraption. You are asking what contraption I use to not feel bad like you do. If you are the one with the contraption, and that is the difference between us, then I obviously can't do that. LOL

If it is your temperment to withdraw and fall into this hole or holes in general that is the source of the difference since I don't have that - another possibility - then I have no contraption to offer you.

There are other possibilities, as I have said, not invovling contraptions on my part.

Even though you admit above your hole may be created by your own thinking, here you are again asking for my contraption.

Then give up on me and move on.

Yes. We agree on that.

And, if that's what you decide, fine. No hard feelings on my part. I've enjoyed our exchanges. You think and feel about these relationships as I wish that I could. All I am doing here [polemics aside] is trying genuinely to understand how you have managed to convince yourself of what you believe. Because "I" cannot.

There you go again. You're being an ass here. Polemics aside. You keep making an assumption that I believe something that makes me feel better about conflicting goods, dasein and all those implications. You keep making that assumption. Even after denying you make that assumption, you go back to that assumption. Even after saying it is not inevitable, you go back to acting like it is.

And you are a smart guy. It utterly amazes me. Truly utterly amazes me that after all this time, with all the different ways I have explained other possiblities. Sometimes in anger, sometimes calmly.

And you keep coming back to me having a contraption.

As a parting note...consider what would be scary about me not being in a hole AND not having a contraption. I can only assume there must be something scary about that.

Whatever that means.

You didn't understand. But nice passive aggressive way of putting that on me.

Really, try this. See if it might stimulate something "new" from me.

[/quote]But it didn't. In fact, things got worse.

Sticky paper, goodbye.

[iambiguous]

Okay, not that she ought to, but that in order for the outcome to be more to your liking, she chooses to behave more in sync with your own behaviors.

Still, from my frame of mind, these choices are no less in sync with the components of my own moral philosophy here. Something you tell her predisoses her to change her behavior. But, with another, it may not have been effective at all. It would be you that would have to change your behavior or the conflict would go on.

Sure, that can happen. Nothing you say here goes against what I see and experience. That's life as I know it. I certainly hope I haven't given the slightest impression I always get what I want. Hardly.

No, my point still revolves more around the extent to which, had your life or her life been different, you might both have come existentially to want different things. Preferences here are still entangled in the manner in which I construe meaning of "I" as rooted in dasein rooted in a particular sequence of experiences.

And not in the narrative that objectivists prefer: the real me in sync with the right thing to do.

And while we both reject that frame of mind [here and now] it is clearly in different ways. For me "I" here is basically an existential contraption embedded [re the future] in contingency, chance and change. For you [as I understand you here] the future will be what it is but you will dwell less on the part about how it would be or could be very different given a different sequence of experiences, relationships and access to ideas.

As I've said before objectivists use moderation, negotiation and compromise ALL THE TIME. So do I. And non-objectivists can have a might wins, so have might attitude. Not sure what this has to do with the present topic, however.

Yes, many will embrace democracy and the rule of law as the best of all possible worlds, but are still convinced that they ought to be in power because their moral narrative and political agenda does in fact reflect the most rational and virtuous of human interactions.

And the "present topic" for me always comes down to the extent that any particular individual defending any particular value judgment in any particular context feels more or less fragmented in so doing.

Then back to "contraptions":

Again, as I see it, your "contraption" here revolves around the manner in which [from my frame of mind] you have come -- existentially -- not to be as bothered as I am that any behaviors agreed upon are still no less entangled in the assumptions that I make down in my hole.

I was never as bothered by it. I don't have a contraption or a 'contraption'. I love the shift to 'contraption', with the citation marks. LOL.

You assert this. Again. And you claim to have given me examples of how this "works" for you "for all practical purposes" re your own encounters with conflicting goods.

And all I can point out [again] is that what worked for you then does not resonate for me now.

Then [from my frame of mind] straight back up into the clouds..

...you think a contraption must be present if someone is not in your hole. Either the person not in your hole is an objectivist, or they are a non-objectivist with some other contraption that soothes them. But to people in other holes, you will seem to have contraptions, since you give so much weight to morals, rather than mortality, or rather than the impossility of true intimacy and love. The reason you are in your hole and not their holes may have nothing to do with contraptions, it might have to do with temperment, experiences, current situation, personality.......

All I can do here is to try to figure out what you mean by these words defining and defending other words. They're not connected to any particular context in which your "I" is confronting the values of another "I" insisting that their behaviors are more rational and virtuous than yours.

In particular [for us] when both are non-objectivists.

Then this part:

You know, I think you are incapable of actually understanding what I am getting at here. You are oddly clueless for such a smart guy. I think it has taken me a long time to understand that functionally you aredumber than you are. I still find it a fascinating mystery. But it is no longer fascinating enough.

And when I say you are obtuse or clueless, this does not mean about dasein, etc. Nor does it mean you should do what I do or have some contraption that I do not have. When I say you are clueless it has to do with how hard it is for you to NOT take every response I make as me trying to prove your fundamental position is wrong. It has to do with you're not even considering that your behavior, which I am obviously focusing on, is the issue rather than your nihilism. It is to do with you OBVIOUSLY considering your own reaction to non-objectiivism as the default one other should have, but then denying you think this, then behaving as if it is, then denying it, then contradicting it.

Your cluelessness utterly astounds me. Because it stands in contrast to what you are capable of on occasion. So, I have been drawn in time and again to probe this. Can he really not understand what I meant`?

The part where I become the argument. I am unable to grasp your own own frame of mind because I am simply not capable of it. Probably because I am not smart enough to. Thus allowing you to "expose" me to everyone here as that "lost csuse".

Whereas from my frame of mind, seeing our exchange as the embodiment of existential contraptions, I have no illusions that either one of us really is closer to what may or may not be the optimal understanding of these enormously complex relationships out in the is/ought world.

I guess what intrigues me in particular here is how exasperated I seem to make you at times. If all these things that you assert about me are true, why not just chalk me up as a lost cause and move onto others.

Good question. I find it utterly fascinating how obtuse a smart person can be. I honestly can't believe it. It is a mystery. And this mystery had kept me coming back to be stunned over and over how badly you misinterpret and how much you assume.

All of this basically revolving around the assumptiom that your own analysis and assessment here is clearly more in sync with that which any serious philosopher is capable of grasping.

That is why you are exasperated. It has nothing to do with my own speculation that to the extent you come to recognize that my points may well be applicable to you, you are less able to square your own composure with the recognition that your own wants/preferences may well in fact just be embedded in the particular existential contraption that revolves around the particular sequence of experiences, realtionships and access to information/knowledge/ideas that came to predispose you to embody one particular "I" rather than another.

In other words, whereas I have much to gain if can come to see the world as you do, you have much to lose if you succumb to my own truly grim outlook on life re the existential juncture that is identity, value judgments and political economy.

You keep making an assumption that I believe something that makes me feel better about conflicting goods, dasein and all those implications. You keep making that assumption. Even after denying you make that assumption, you go back to that assumption. Even after saying it is not inevitable, you go back to acting like it is.

All I can assume here is this: that, with respect to your own particular "I" confronting conflicting goods, you seem able to sustain a sense of self that appears [to me] less fractured and fragmented in a No God world where objective morality is not within reach.

And, in feeling fractured and fragmented myself here, this precipitates a frame of mind such that I am unable to attain that which would seem to be a more comforting and consoling psychological sense of reality.

And while you claim to bring this failure to communicate down to earth, I don't see many examples of that at all.

And there any number of contexts that we can explore here.

[Serendipper]

Someone dumped a bag of trash on my property. Inside I found a pizza box with a name on it. The cops do not care. I have the offender's name, address, phone number and I'm pissed, but what can I do except to continue being pissed while the scalawag is blissfully oblivious.

I witness people breaking laws every single day, and it pisses me off, but there is nothing I can do. If I tried to do anything, they'd put me under the jail because no good deed goes unpunished and trying to correct a wrong is far worse than the wrong.

All I can do is let it go and try to keep people far away from me because if they offend me, then I'm the one with a problem. Having rules (cares, desires, wants, expectations, etc) = me having a problem.

What is this but a single snapshot of someone being pissed off about something in a particular context.

You said "Again: We need to bring these "general descriptions" down to earth. What in particular are you doing that pisses others off and why in particular are they pissed off about it?"

I provide example.

Then you say "What is this but a single snapshot of someone being pissed off about something in a particular context."

We are all able to identify with it. Only we might be pissed off about other things in other contexts for other reasons. And we either do or do not have the capacity or the will to do something about it.

But "I" here is clearly an existential contraption. "I" can only take this or that existential leap to this or that behavior rationalized by this or that philosophy of life.

With philosophers [in my view] unable to judge these interactions as anything other than existentiual contraptions.

Yes I suppose you're right... "I" is a contraption.

I've resigned myself to being forever ignorant of the meaning of dasein. If it can't be explained simply, then no one understands what it means.

Doesn't surprise me. Indeed, how many times do we bump into exchanges here in which someone becomes utterly expasperated because something that seems crystal clear to them is completely misconstrued [or even mangled] by others. Over and over and over again.

Besides, how could it ever possibly be simple to explain complex human beings coming into conflict with other complex human beings because they don't share the same moral and political values?

It's nothing at all like communication in the either/or world. Though even here -- think qm or space/time or dark matter -- the relationships are grasped the least subjectively only by a relative few.

Well, you're not even trying to convey the meaning. You're speaking in difficult to interpret vernacular and beating around the bush, then tossing me an old thread so I can rummage around and by chance possibly stumble upon the right definition. It's just not that important to me to know the definition of that word to put all this work into it especially when you won't reciprocate and put work into a succinct and clear definition to save me all this stabbing in the dark.

Wikipedia says Dasein is a German word that means "being there" or "presence" (German: da "there"; sein "being"), and is often translated into English with the word "existence".

But you don't use it that way. Wikipedia goes on to say "Heidegger uses the expression Dasein to refer to the experience of being that is peculiar to human beings."

But you don't use it that way either. You keep talking about conflicting goods and contraptions, so I'm clueless how you're defining that word.

I figured Dasein meant the feeling of being "I" and having a perspective on the world since that is about the only thing I don't have a word for, otherwise it's a synonym for existence.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

If a lit candle is 7 inches tall and burns 1 inch per hour, then how tall was it when it began burning? You don't know, right? Now, is your lack of knowledge considered a contraption? If you don't know the answer to a question, then you don't know. What is the purpose of an action? I don't know. <--- that is not a contraption. You can't concede that. You can't let it go. You're trying to find a way to make nothing into an implement because everything has an explanation (the engineering view of the universe) and by doing so you're assuming the thing you're trying to prove (ie everything has an explanation, a reason, a purpose).

This example is a contraption embedded in the laws of nature. We may not know the answer but there is one.

If you aren't conscious of it, then it's not a contraption. Contraption is just a synonym for concept.

Say, to light a marijuana cigarette where that is a crime. Then different folks arguing over whether or not she ought to have committed this crime. Or whether or not it ought have been deemed a crime at at.

They're arguing because arguing is fun. Some people smoke without regard to legality. IOW, the law is completely inconsequential. How many people buy things online and then diligently send in their sales taxes? Nobody. We don't argue about it because we don't think about it. People don't debate whether or not to send in their sales taxes because the thought never crosses their mind.

But having fun is not really a purpose because if we ask someone why something is fun, they can't know. I have absolutely no idea why this is fun to me and "fun" is just a placeholder for saying "I don't know" or "it doesn't have a purpose."

You say fun is enjoyment and results in certain neurochemistry, so that's why we have fun, but why the certain chemistry? Because atoms like stability (resonance)? Why? Because certain masses attached together by certain springs like to vibrate at certain frequencies? Why? Because it has to be some way. Why? Because otherwise it would be no way. Yes but why this way? There is no reason because randomness is a causeless event.

We need to bring this "world of words" down to earth. Who claims to be having fun in what context? Why do they call it fun? And if they claim not to know what can the rest of us discern [philosophically or otherwise] about whether or not it really is fun?

Let's try a dialogue:

Why are you walking?
I don't know.
Where are you going?
No where.
Which direction are you going?
It looks like north.
Why are you walking north?
I don't know
So you're walking with no destination in mind?
Apparently.
Why?
I don't know.
Why are you doing something that has no purpose?
Why are you asking questions?
I don't know.
There is your answer.

Case #2

Why are you walking?
Car broke down.
Where are you going?
Work.
Why are you going to work?
To make money.
Why do you want money?
So I can eat.
Why eat?
So I can live.
Why live?
So I can go on.
Go on doing what?
Working.
Do you like to work?
No.
So you do something you do not like doing in order to go on doing something you do not like doing?
So it would seem.

Who is more rational?

...I have to ask how an infinitesimally tiny and insignificant speck of exaistence like yourself can possibly imagine that what they think they know about all of this here and now is wholly in sync with all that would need to be known about the ontological and/or teleological nature of Existence itself.

How can anyone know anything? If you fall from a cliff and some rocks fall with you, it does no good to cling to the rocks on the way down. Ultimately you have to have faith in the universe and whatever its doing without being able to have an understanding of it (purpose) to cling to.

Ultimately [in my view] it comes down to closing the gap between what you think you know is true about the relationship between "in my head" and "out in the world" and what you can demonstrate empirically is true for all rational human beings.

First you must demonstrate why empirical observation underpins truth before requiring me to adhere to it and the only way you could do that is by deduction and that undermines your very claim that only empiricism upholds truth.

Goethe said "Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." What's the difference in what is observed and what is deduced? Either an be a hallucination. There is no difference in a priori and a posteriori... only a contraption separates them.

You claim things like this...

The infinite is not anything than can exist. Additional universes cannot exist or they would be merely part of this universe and not universes at all.

The self is the only thing that cannot be known because an eye cannot look at itself, teeth cannot bite themselves, knives can't cut themselves... and when they try, infinity results.

...as though you actually can demonstrate it!

Deduction is demonstration.

And then in the is/ought world, that which you can demonstrate is virtuous for all rational men and women.

It's not rational to put such faith in lying eyes.

Thus...

When someone makes the sort of assertions that you make here, I presume it is a manifestation of human psychology more so than such disciplines and science and philosophy.

What has science and philosophy gotten you except in a hole (paradigm entrapment)? Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems using the same thinking we used when we created them."

Although he did not believe in a personal God, he indicated that he would never seek to combat such belief because "such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... _and_deism

It seems to me that Einstein preferred a person to be a little mystical rather than so married to disciplined and robotically regimented science because only when we think outside the box can we make profound discoveries. It appears you're admonishing me for not being in the box with you and struggling with the same contraptions. You don't know how to escape the box, yet you are telling me how to get you out lol

Right, as though there did not exist in turn that gap between what Einstein thought he knew about these relationships and all that would need to be known about the exxistence of existence itself in order to explain them fully.

Yes, Einstein didn't take his own advice and got stuck in a dogmatic hole.

And folks of my ilk don't admonish folks of your ilk for not being down in box/hole that we're in. Instead, we ask you to demonstrate how and why you have managed to escape them.

The problem is you dictate the form that demonstration should take as if the fact that I can't take a picture of it means it isn't valid, but you can't substantiate why a picture is worth more than words without using the very words you're demonizing.

Then the role of logic [and deduction] here:

As though through "logic and deduction" alone, one can explain why something exists rather then nothing at all, and why this something and not another.

Existence is relationship; they are synonyms. When you ask why something exists, you're asking why it's related to something else, but haven't seen that relationship is a connection joining the two things into one thing.

Another "general description" of existence that is true only to the extent that the definition and the meaning that you give to the words here are true. Yeah, you think that they are "in your head". Okay, demonstate to me and others why we should think this true in turn.

If you do not like my definition of existence, then offer up a new one. What does it mean to exist if existence is not relationship?

What is the exact nature of the relationship between the two of us in this exchange? Between our conflicting arguments? As that pertains to a particular context in which conflicting goods manifest themselves.

Uke and Nage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uke_(martial_arts)

What hard evidence here do you have to support the premises that lead you to your conclusions?

The only hard evidence I could possibly give is to bang a gong and leave it to you to figure out how you know the gong exists. But you want words so you can then pound the table in demand of proof. You can't see that you're chasing your own tail?

There are 4 models for the universe (and I'm open to new ones): the ceramic, the automatic, the organic, the dramatic. In the ceramic, the universe is made like a potter makes pots. The automatic is the same as the ceramic, but the universe makes itself (creation model with the god deleted). The organic model says the universe is alive like a plant and the dramatic says the universe is a play/dream that is orchestrated by the actor/dreamer. Which seems most likely to you?

More to the point: How on earth could anyone one of us [even the Einsteins] actually know this?

Deduction. How can you know anything? How do you know you have clothes on? You look in the mirror and the electromagnetic radiation being re-radiated off the mirror seems to indicate you have your clothes on and the neural input seems consistent with the feel of clothes on your skin, you can deduce that you're dressed and ready to go outside. There is nothing that is not deduction or there is nothing that is not observation; either way works. Problems come when you try to separate the two as if one is valid and the other is not.

[Karpel Tunnel]

First you must demonstrate why empirical observation underpins truth before requiring me to adhere to it and the only way you could do that is by deduction and that undermines your very claim that only empiricism upholds truth.

This is an area I went into briefly with Iambiguous, but I see you take it up also. Demonstrate empirically...
No one holds themselves to this criterion. Not scientists, no one. There are all sorts of practical reasons. We sure can't run around sitting in on all the empirical research, for example.
So we, especially, but not only laypeople, go on the assumption that if something is respected by the community of scientists as repeatedly demonstrated, then it has been empirically demonstrated. But note, this way of determining the truth of something includes not only deduction but also intuition. Something along the lines of 'Someone would have definitely noticed if they were confusing correlation with cause.' Or 'The research was not funded by parties interested enough in certain outcomes to create an effective conscious or unconscious bias.' Or 'This interpretation of the data is going to last.' Iambiguous wants a very clear line between what consensus science concludes and the seeming randomness of what people decide is good or bad. But there is no hard line. If one points this out to him he will interpret this as saying that someone can give him the solution to the abortion issue, the correct objective stance that can be demonstrated to all rational people. And so he maintains a false dichotomy between realms. None of this means that there are objective morals, but it does reflect on the formation of holes. If you are in a hole about ought, but not is, on certain claimed grounds, these may need to be revised if 'is' issues are not so clearly distinguished from 'ought' ones. It is not that abortion is suddenly morally determinable; it is rather that there is instability on the 'is' end, instability and revision he only connects with 'ought' issues. And the history of science is littered with incredible fundamental revision around very basic and important to humans sense of life and themselves issues.

There are a lot of holes on could, potentially, fall into and mull over and torture oneself with. If one is mainly in one hole, but not others, this is likely significant. And the reasons may or may not be the ones one thinks are the reasons. Self-evidence and our ability to effectively introspect in our cognitive lives has been empirically demonstrated to be shakey at best.

So, then, what is your epistemology, Serendipper. It feels - carefully chosen verb - like you are a bit like me as far as epistemology: ad hoc, bricoleur, mixed....

[iambiguous]

You said "Again: We need to bring these "general descriptions" down to earth. What in particular are you doing that pisses others off and why in particular are they pissed off about it?"

I provide example.

Then you say "What is this but a single snapshot of someone being pissed off about something in a particular context."

But my point does not revolve around the examples themselves so much as how particular preferences here are more or less embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

You give your example. You react to it. Others then react to your reaction either by being in sync with your behavior or not in sync with it.

If not in sync with it, then what? Are there limitations here beyond which philosophers are unable to go? Or is there in fact an argument available to all rational and ethical men and women such that they are obligated to embody it or to be seen as irrational and unethical human beings?

And, of even greater importance to me, how are those who reject objective morality here able to sustain a "sense of identity" that is not fractured and fragmented?

Well, you're not even trying to convey the meaning of dasein. You're speaking in difficult to interpret vernacular and beating around the bush, then tossing me an old thread so I can rummage around and by chance possibly stumble upon the right definition. It's just not that important to me to know the definition of that word to put all this work into it especially when you won't reciprocate and put work into a succinct and clear definition to save me all this stabbing in the dark.

What are you after then, the definition of it? The meaning of it?

Instead, over and again, I attempt to convey the manner in which I have come to understand it existentially "out in the world" of actual human interactions:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

And then I attempt to convey what I construe to be the psychology of the objectivist "I" here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

Wikipedia says Dasein is a German word that means "being there" or "presence" (German: da "there"; sein "being"), and is often translated into English with the word "existence".

In the Heideggerian sense ,"I" is thrown into existence at birth historically and culturally "here and now" instead of "there and then". Okay, so what are the existential implications of this in exploring conflicted moral and political narratives/agendas?

What can the ethicists tell us for sure about right and wrong behavior? And what makes this peculiar to human beings is precisely the fact that unlike other species, we make a considerably bigger distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

If you aren't conscious of it, then it's not a contraption. Contraption is just a synonym for concept.

All I can do here is to convery the manner in which I construe "I" as an "existential contraption" out in the is/ought world:

Contraption: a machine or device that appears strange or unnecessarily complicated, and often badly made or unsafe.

Starting here, is it then reasonable to think of the self -- "I" -- as a kind of contraption when probing the question, "what ought all men and women do?"

I think so. In the sense that "I" here is composed of any number of vast and varied existential variables that comprise any particular individual's life. And to others these assessments can certainly seem strange and complicated. After all, what do we [can we] really know about the sense of "reality" construed by others?

And we often look at the behaviors of others as badly chosen or unsafe to the extent that they are not the behaviors that we would choose.

So, how you think about yourself in any specific context [related to any specific set of behaviors] will depend in large part on which particular variables you choose to emphasize. Those you include, those you leave out.

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?

And then to ask others how this either does or does not make sense to them.

...I have to ask how an infinitesimally tiny and insignificant speck of exaistence like yourself can possibly imagine that what they think they know about all of this here and now is wholly in sync with all that would need to be known about the ontological and/or teleological nature of Existence itself.

Ultimately [in my view] it comes down to closing the gap between what you think you know is true about the relationship between "in my head" and "out in the world" and what you can demonstrate empirically is true for all rational human beings.

First you must demonstrate why empirical observation underpins truth before requiring me to adhere to it and the only way you could do that is by deduction and that undermines your very claim that only empiricism upholds truth.

Again, bringing this down to earth. Bob is on trial for murdering Bill. A mountain of evidence [including fingerprints and DNA] is able to convince a jury that he is guilty. They [or the judge] then sentence him to death. What then are the facts [using either deduction or induction] that is able to establish in turn that executing him is just or moral or "the right thing to do"?

What's your own argument here? And how do you see it as either embedded or not embedded in the components of my own moral philosophy. A philosophy that revolves around the assumption that both moral narratives and political agendas revolve around arguments that revolves around "existential contraptions".

In a No God world.

Goethe said "Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." What's the difference in what is observed and what is deduced? Either an be a hallucination. There is no difference in a priori and a posteriori... only a contraption separates them.

All hopelessly abstract of course. What specific idea does a particular mind think it perceives? In what particular context? What can be established as in fact true for all rational men and women and what cannot?

You pick the context.

You claim things like this...

The infinite is not anything than can exist. Additional universes cannot exist or they would be merely part of this universe and not universes at all.

The self is the only thing that cannot be known because an eye cannot look at itself, teeth cannot bite themselves, knives can't cut themselves... and when they try, infinity results.

...as though you actually can demonstrate it!

Deduction is demonstration.

Yes and all astrophysicists are wholly in agreement with you about the universe? And in what particular context is a particular self biting or seeing or cutting someone or something? And how do others react to it?

And then...infinity?

And folks of my ilk don't admonish folks of your ilk for not being down in box/hole that we're in. Instead, we ask you to demonstrate how and why you have managed to escape them.

The problem is you dictate the form that demonstration should take as if the fact that I can't take a picture of it means it isn't valid, but you can't substantiate why a picture is worth more than words without using the very words you're demonizing.

The form is simple. It is encompassed here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

You note for us a value judgment of your own. Then you piece together the most important experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas embedded in the life you lived such that you were predisposed to one political prejudice rather than another.

Then you explore the gap between this and the arguments of those who insist that in being in sync with "the real me" in sync with "the right thing to do", they are able to differentiate objectively between good and evil.

Then situate your own take on your own "I" in these interactions.

Existence is relationship; they are synonyms. When you ask why something exists, you're asking why it's related to something else, but haven't seen that relationship is a connection joining the two things into one thing.

Another "general description" of existence that is true only to the extent that the definition and the meaning that you give to the words here are true. Yeah, you think that they are "in your head". Okay, demonstate to me and others why we should think this true in turn.

If you do not like my definition of existence, then offer up a new one. What does it mean to exist if existence is not relationship?

But my emphasis here is less on a definition of existence and more on the manner in which you take this definition out into the is/ought world -- the world of conflicting goods.

What can we demonstrate is in fact related to something else? For example, in the either/or world sex can be related to pregnancy can be related to abortion. And then, legally, in particular political jurisdictions, abortion can be related to arrest and trial and conviction and punishment. How then is discussing these relationships the same? How are they different?

In other words, how are deductions pertaining to the either/or world the same or different from deductions pertaining to the is/ought world.

And be specific. Bring your words out into the world of actual conflicted goods in actual existential contexts.

[iambiguous]

Iambiguous wants a very clear line between what consensus science concludes and the seeming randomness of what people decide is good or bad. But there is no hard line.

There is a general consensus among those doctors able to perform abortions regarding how [medically] to go about it. And this is predicated on that which can in fact be known objectively about human biology, human sexuality and the creation of new life in a pregnant woman's uterus. And while there are many conflicting arguments regarding the rightness or wrongness of snuffing this life out, they are hardly plucked at random out of thin air.

One woman's set of circimstances is different from another. One woman's experiences in life have predisposed her to one set of political prejudices rather than another. What is at stake for one woman may or may not be what is at stake for another.

It's all embedded existentially in particular permutations of particular sets of existential variables.

If one points this out to him he will interpret this as saying that someone can give him the solution to the abortion issue, the correct objective stance that can be demonstrated to all rational people.

Is this or is this not what most objectivists will convey? It's only a question of their moral font of choice here. Sacred or secular. But how is their moral "stance" here not predicated on the assumption that had they lived very different lives that stance might well have been very different? And what can they argue given that both sides have access to reasonable points of view given particular sets of assumptions regarding "the human condition". Non-objectivists of KTs ilk are simply able to shrug that part off in a manner in which I am not able to. But this too is seen by me as embedded existentially in dasein.

His own "existential leap" to a particular political prejudice here is merely seen by him to be more "stable". Though, who knows, perhaps someday science and/or philosophy will in fact be able to establish a frame of mind here in which beyond all doubt it can be demonstrated that those who wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to think this way. And then to predicate their behaviors on the truly "right thing to do".

Let's call them the Neo-Kantians.

Then all that is now "ad hoc" will be a thing of the past.

Well, not counting the sociopaths who insist that in a No God world morality revolves entirely around not getting caught doing anything and everything perceived to be wrong by others. The fact that it sustains their own perceived self-interest need be as far a it goes.

[Serendipper]

First you must demonstrate why empirical observation underpins truth before requiring me to adhere to it and the only way you could do that is by deduction and that undermines your very claim that only empiricism upholds truth.

This is an area I went into briefly with Iambiguous, but I see you take it up also. Demonstrate empirically...

So, then, what is your epistemology, Serendipper. It feels - carefully chosen verb - like you are a bit like me as far as epistemology: ad hoc, bricoleur, mixed....

I was listening to a Matt Dillahunty show yesterday (real sharp fella btw) where a caller asked him to substantiate reason and evidence without using reason and evidence to which Matt replied "well you sorta can" but never did. So I thought for a minute and was taken back to Goethe's worldview that deduction is merely another form of vision, so I wondered how one could substantiate anything they perceive and I don't think we can because substantiation would be objective and objectivity is the observerless observation. What's "really real" cannot be beheld lest it be tainted by subjective interpretation through the lens of an observer. Alan says "Everyone has a metaphysical assumption that they can't prove; watchout for it." I suppose everyone starts with a set of assumptions (axioms) and builds their logic from there. For instance "All statements must be backed by empirical evidence" but it's impossible to show evidence for that statement and it's just assumed to be self-evident and held on faith.

A long time ago, after receiving simultaneous polar opposite interpretations of my writing, it dawned on me that more can be discerned about the one viewing art than the artist himself. I could draw a picture of something and it doesn't mean anything, necessarily, about me, but how someone reacts to it reveals much about them. So we see objectivity cannot be discerned (what the artist intended), but subjectivity is revealed (what sort of person is viewing the art). Likewise when someone says all statements must be empirically verifiable, nothing of objective truth is learned, but the person who said it reveals himself as what Alan describes as the "prickly" sort as opposed to the "gooey".

Here's a short cartoon illustrating it:



In a conversation with Gloominary I realized that morality is nothing more than veiled "might makes right" where people, by virtue of numbers, impose their ideals on others and pedestalize it as righteousness. The herd determines objectivity (what's right) by virtue of numbers (might) and they fool themselves into thinking it's something more intrinsic/absolute/fundamental than merely that.

Matt Dillahunty showcases this by challenging theists who assert the biblical foundation for morality to justify stoning an unruly child on the edge of town because Matt feels that stoning children is objectively wrong and I wonder how he knows. I get the impression that he's pandering to primal instincts of masses of people for the purpose of exposing biblical immorality, but if the bible isn't the source of morality, then what spooky knowledge is he exclusively privy to? How does he know stoning unruly children on the edge of town is morally wrong? Well it's just that the majority of people find the idea unpalatable and probably would find me unpalatable for even suggesting that such an act isn't objectively wrong.

[Serendipper]

Are there limitations here beyond which philosophers are unable to go?

Yes I think so because the objective is the observerless observation. All we can know is only in relation to something else.

Or is there in fact an argument available to all rational and ethical men and women such that they are obligated to embody it or to be seen as irrational and unethical human beings?

If someone is obligated to embody something lest they be viewed as irrational, then you've defined objectivity in terms of popularity. Truth is merely consensus of opinion.

And, of even greater importance to me, how are those who reject objective morality here able to sustain a "sense of identity" that is not fractured and fragmented?

This is saying a house built upon the sand will wash away, right? Because there is no objective foundation to underpin anything. Well, don't build a house. Why invest in the temporary?

Well, you're not even trying to convey the meaning of dasein. You're speaking in difficult to interpret vernacular and beating around the bush, then tossing me an old thread so I can rummage around and by chance possibly stumble upon the right definition. It's just not that important to me to know the definition of that word to put all this work into it especially when you won't reciprocate and put work into a succinct and clear definition to save me all this stabbing in the dark.

What are you after then, the definition of it? The meaning of it?

Yes. I try to define the terms I intend to use so others have an idea of what I'm talking about. It doesn't mean the terms always mean what I define them to be and they don't necessarily have to be consistent with the dictionary, but they're defined in order to help convey what I'm thinking.

For instance: Existence is a relationship, Reality is the interaction between subject and object, Objectivity is the observerless observation, Infinity is the boundless, a Thing is that which is mutually exclusive from anything else. So what is Dasein?

Instead, over and again, I attempt to convey the manner in which I have come to understand it existentially "out in the world" of actual human interactions:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Why do you compel me to read all that? It's 4 pages and 80 posts and I don't know in which post the definition resides. What can't you just tell me what it means?

And then I attempt to convey what I construe to be the psychology of the objectivist "I" here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

In that thread you said "And, then, in turn, this resulted in my tumbling down into a philosophical "hole" such that for all practical purposes, "I" became increasing more fragmented. "

"I" doesn't exist in any objective sense. It's an illusion pinned between two eternal darknesses. You're not going crazy, but becoming sane, but you live in a crazy world sending you mixed signals. Krishnamurti said "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

How do you make moral and political judgements? Well, not based on what's right, but based on what you believe would be best for you. For instance I believe having an educated, healthy, wealthy community is best for me. I don't righteously care about people, but I care about myself and what's good for people is generally good for me. I'm not serving some god or some objective morality, but I'm looking out for my own ass. And how do I know what's good for me? I don't. I'm just guessing like if I suppose that not sticking my hand in fire is best for me. Keeping my hand out of fire seems like the right thing to do and likewise aligning myself politically liberal seems like what is best for me.

You're groping for some objective pedestal to perch yourself upon, but it just isn't there. There is no handbook, no written law, no rule of thumb to consult and each instant in time is a decision you'll have to make based on what you want to do.

Wikipedia says Dasein is a German word that means "being there" or "presence" (German: da "there"; sein "being"), and is often translated into English with the word "existence".

In the Heideggerian sense ,"I" is thrown into existence at birth historically and culturally "here and now" instead of "there and then". Okay, so what are the existential implications of this in exploring conflicted moral and political narratives/agendas?

You began at the big bang because that's where all the newtonian billiard balls lead us and you are the big bang still coming on.

What can the ethicists tell us for sure about right and wrong behavior?

The only thing we know for sure is there is nothing we know for sure.

The purpose of the things that we do -- i.e. what we tell ourselves the reasons are -- are no less existential contrapments to me. The important point [mine] is that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., seem unable to concoct an argument such that all rational men and women are able to embody only those behaviors they are morally obligated to choose.

Starting here, is it then reasonable to think of the self -- "I" -- as a kind of contraption when probing the question, "what ought all men and women do?"

Yes maybe so. I think the desire to delineate the world into dualities (right and wrong) is a way of manifesting the self. So clinging to objectivity is resisting death of the self. The only way to exist is to carve yourself out of obscurity and form clear distinctions between this and that. I am here and everything else is over there. When the lines get fuzzy, then you get fragmented. I think it's mighty perceptive of you to notice it.

I think so. In the sense that "I" here is composed of any number of vast and varied existential variables that comprise any particular individual's life. And to others these assessments can certainly seem strange and complicated. After all, what do we [can we] really know about the sense of "reality" construed by others?

Without the ability to read minds, we can only guess what others see.

And we often look at the behaviors of others as badly chosen or unsafe to the extent that they are not the behaviors that we would choose.

Yes, I hate that people do that. Each person should be their own judge of the level of risk they are willing to accept. Why "should"? Because that's what's best for me because I don't want people telling me I have to wear a seatbelt or helmet or be plagued by low-fat food or whatever well-intentioned regime they'd have me on. I want to do what I want to do. It's not an objective should, but a subjective should.

So, how you think about yourself in any specific context [related to any specific set of behaviors] will depend in large part on which particular variables you choose to emphasize. Those you include, those you leave out.

Yes it's all subjective.

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?[/i]

I don't know, but why does it matter? The concept of a contraption is a contraption because contraption is a synonym for concept.

There are two forms of knowledge: conceptual and nonconcpetual. The latter is the knowledge employed to beat your heart and the former is the contraptions you're on about.

Again, bringing this down to earth. Bob is on trial for murdering Bill. A mountain of evidence [including fingerprints and DNA] is able to convince a jury that he is guilty. They [or the judge] then sentence him to death. What then are the facts [using either deduction or induction] that is able to establish in turn that executing him is just or moral or "the right thing to do"?

What's your own argument here? And how do you see it as either embedded or not embedded in the components of my own moral philosophy. A philosophy that revolves around the assumption that both moral narratives and political agendas revolve around arguments that revolves around "existential contraptions".

In a No God world.

Morality is veiled "might makes right". Rather than retype it, I'll refer you to my post to Karpel viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194190&start=100#p2711863

Goethe said "Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." What's the difference in what is observed and what is deduced? Either an be a hallucination. There is no difference in a priori and a posteriori... only a contraption separates them.

All hopelessly abstract of course. What specific idea does a particular mind think it perceives?

What color red does a particular mind think it perceives? How do I know what I perceive as red is the same color that you see in your mind when you perceive red? Maybe what your mind sees is what I call blue.

In what particular context?

The context for the object is the subject.

What can be established as in fact true for all rational men and women and what cannot?

Nothing.

Yes and all astrophysicists are wholly in agreement with you about the universe?

Irrelevant.

The Monty Hall problem is a brain teaser, in the form of a probability puzzle, loosely based on the American television game show Let's Make a Deal and named after its original host, Monty Hall. The problem was originally posed (and solved) in a letter by Steve Selvin to the American Statistician in 1975 (Selvin 1975a), (Selvin 1975b). It became famous as a question from a reader's letter quoted in Marilyn vos Savant's "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade magazine in 1990 (vos Savant 1990a):

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Vos Savant's response was that the contestant should switch to the other door (vos Savant 1990a). Under the standard assumptions, contestants who switch have a 2/3 chance of winning the car, while contestants who stick to their initial choice have only a 1/3 chance.

Many readers of vos Savant's column refused to believe switching is beneficial despite her explanation. After the problem appeared in Parade, approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhDs, wrote to the magazine, most of them claiming vos Savant was wrong (Tierney 1991). Even when given explanations, simulations, and formal mathematical proofs, many people still do not accept that switching is the best strategy (vos Savant 1991a). Paul Erdős, one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, remained unconvinced until he was shown a computer simulation demonstrating the predicted result (Vazsonyi 1999). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

Like Mark Twain said, what most people know, isn't worth knowing.

Truth may be consensus of opinion, but that doesn't mean it's really true.

And folks of my ilk don't admonish folks of your ilk for not being down in box/hole that we're in. Instead, we ask you to demonstrate how and why you have managed to escape them.

The problem is you dictate the form that demonstration should take as if the fact that I can't take a picture of it means it isn't valid, but you can't substantiate why a picture is worth more than words without using the very words you're demonizing.

The form is simple. It is encompassed here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

You note for us a value judgment of your own. Then you piece together the most important experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas embedded in the life you lived such that you were predisposed to one political prejudice rather than another.

Then you explore the gap between this and the arguments of those who insist that in being in sync with "the real me" in sync with "the right thing to do", they are able to differentiate objectively between good and evil.

Then situate your own take on your own "I" in these interactions.

Yes I guess so. I call it as I see it because I can't call it as I don't see it.

But my emphasis here is less on a definition of existence and more on the manner in which you take this definition out into the is/ought world -- the world of conflicting goods.

What can we demonstrate is in fact related to something else? For example, in the either/or world sex can be related to pregnancy can be related to abortion. And then, legally, in particular political jurisdictions, abortion can be related to arrest and trial and conviction and punishment. How then is discussing these relationships the same? How are they different?

In other words, how are deductions pertaining to the either/or world the same or different from deductions pertaining to the is/ought world.

There is no difference and the ought is either/or because ought is discerned through relativity. You ought to do that, else this will happen.

[iambiguous]

Are there limitations here beyond which philosophers are unable to go?

Yes I think so because the objective is the observerless observation. All we can know is only in relation to something else.

Still, as soon as you try to grapple with the implications of this, you are so far out on the metaphysical limb that, for all practical purposes, it becomes meaningless. A universe that simply is what it is. And with absolutely no one or no thing around to know that?

Or is there in fact an argument available to all rational and ethical men and women such that they are obligated to embody it or to be seen as irrational and unethical human beings?

If someone is obligated to embody something lest they be viewed as irrational, then you've defined objectivity in terms of popularity. Truth is merely consensus of opinion.

No, in a world where some measure of human autonomy does in fact exist, it still comes down to that which can be demonstratred to be true objectively for all of us. We just don't know the limits of that. We accept that this exchange exists for all with access to the internet. That can be reasonably demonstrated. But how is it demonstrated that my argument or your argument is closer to the objective truth?

Unless perhaps it can be demonstrated that, say, the exchange is just part of some Sim world in which you and I are merely characters in minds beyond our capacity to even grasp.

Then what?

And, of even greater importance to me, how are those who reject objective morality here able to sustain a "sense of identity" that is not fractured and fragmented?

This is saying a house built upon the sand will wash away, right? Because there is no objective foundation to underpin anything. Well, don't build a house. Why invest in the temporary?

Many aspects of our existence are squarely embedded in the either/or world. There are many facts about our lives that can be easily established. The fractured and fragmented "I" revolves instead around the part embedded in an is/ought world. A world in which points of view are seen by me as more a manifestation of an existential contraption which become embodied in any particular dasein out in any particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

Well, you're not even trying to convey the meaning of dasein. You're speaking in difficult to interpret vernacular and beating around the bush, then tossing me an old thread so I can rummage around and by chance possibly stumble upon the right definition. It's just not that important to me to know the definition of that word to put all this work into it especially when you won't reciprocate and put work into a succinct and clear definition to save me all this stabbing in the dark.

What are you after then, the definition of it? The meaning of it?

Yes. I try to define the terms I intend to use so others have an idea of what I'm talking about. It doesn't mean the terms always mean what I define them to be and they don't necessarily have to be consistent with the dictionary, but they're defined in order to help convey what I'm thinking.

For instance: Existence is a relationship, Reality is the interaction between subject and object, Objectivity is the observerless observation, Infinity is the boundless, a Thing is that which is mutually exclusive from anything else. So what is Dasein?

Since I construe dasein [out in the is/ought world] to be an existential contraption derived largely from lives/relationships that can differ in many, many extraordinary ways, it is best in my view to situate that which I construe it to mean "out in the world."

And then to invite others to try to pin down their own rendition/description of "I" at the intersection of identity, values and political power.

Instead, over and again, I attempt to convey the manner in which I have come to understand it existentially "out in the world" of actual human interactions:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Why do you compel me to read all that? It's 4 pages and 80 posts and I don't know in which post the definition resides. What can't you just tell me what it means?

I compel no one. And it is the OP that I am mainly preoccupied with.

Instead, you appear to want the "25 words or less" version. The meaning and the defintion of dasein.

Like dasein were an actual thing I could take out of my pocket and say, "here, this is dasein".

What I am interested in is how you and others react to the OP such that the points raised are either more in or more out of sync with your own "I" when confronted with conflicting goods.

And then I attempt to convey what I construe to be the psychology of the objectivist "I" here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

In that thread you said "And, then, in turn, this resulted in my tumbling down into a philosophical "hole" such that for all practical purposes, "I" became increasing more fragmented. "

"I" doesn't exist in any objective sense. It's an illusion pinned between two eternal darknesses. You're not going crazy, but becoming sane, but you live in a crazy world sending you mixed signals. Krishnamurti said "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

There are clearly things about yourself "here and now" that are true objectively: your age, your gender, your race, your sexual orientation, your height, your weight...the place where you were born, the experiences you had, the relationships you sustained, the books you read, the films you viewed etc.

And let folks like Krishnamurti bring "general descriptions" of this sort down out of the clouds of abstraction and park them in particular contexts precipitating particular behaviors deemed to be either sick or healthy.

Let them discuss particular social, political and economic permutations that evolve over time historically and culturally.

You're groping for some objective pedestal to perch yourself upon, but it just isn't there. There is no handbook, no written law, no rule of thumb to consult and each instant in time is a decision you'll have to make based on what you want to do.

Quite the contrary. My aim is more to expose the dangers embedded in the moral and political narratives of the objectivists here among us. And, in turn, embedded in narratives of the moral nihilists. In particular, those that own and operate the global economy.

The only thing we know for sure is there is nothing we know for sure.

Yes, but "here and now" there are still distinctions to be made [in the either/or world] between those relationships able to be demonstrated as true for all of us and individaul reactions to those relationships which appear [to me] to be considersably more subjective.

I think the desire to delineate the world into dualities (right and wrong) is a way of manifesting the self. So clinging to objectivity is resisting death of the self. The only way to exist is to carve yourself out of obscurity and form clear distinctions between this and that. I am here and everything else is over there. When the lines get fuzzy, then you get fragmented. I think it's mighty perceptive of you to notice it.

Again, the problem I have with points like this is how abstract they are. Bring this assessment down to earth and note its relevance when confronting behaviors in conflict over value judgments.

Point us to a particular context that is embedded in your own life; or to one in which a great deal of news has been generated of late.

I think so. In the sense that "I" here is composed of any number of vast and varied existential variables that comprise any particular individual's life. And to others these assessments can certainly seem strange and complicated. After all, what do we [can we] really know about the sense of "reality" construed by others?

Without the ability to read minds, we can only guess what others see.

That's true up to a point. But there is still the capacity to demonstrate that what you believe is true "in your head" is that which all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

It's just that different individuals will draw the line here in different places. Is it true objectively that human life begins at conception? Or do we become actual human beings further on down the line? How can this be determined once and for all? And, once determined, how ought rational men and women configure their moral and political narratives in regard to abortion?

And how is that then not an "existential contraption" more or less?[/i]

I don't know, but why does it matter? The concept of a contraption is a contraption because contraption is a synonym for concept.

It matters because the extent to which you come to recognize that your value judgments are derived more from a particular sequence of experiences than from any deontological assessment, is the extent to which you are less likely to embrace objectivism.

Instead, you are more likely to embrace moderation, negotiation and compromise in your political interactions with others.

Then it's just a matter of whether or not you take this as far as "I" do. Tumbling all the way down into a hole like mine.

Again, bringing this down to earth. Bob is on trial for murdering Bill. A mountain of evidence [including fingerprints and DNA] is able to convince a jury that he is guilty. They [or the judge] then sentence him to death. What then are the facts [using either deduction or induction] that is able to establish in turn that executing him is just or moral or "the right thing to do"?

What's your own argument here? And how do you see it as either embedded or not embedded in the components of my own moral philosophy. A philosophy that revolves around the assumption that both moral narratives and political agendas revolve around arguments that revolves around "existential contraptions".

In a No God world.

Morality is veiled "might makes right". Rather than retype it, I'll refer you to my post to Karpel viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194190&start=100#p2711863

Well, it is certainly true that when push comes to shove what counts is the extent to which you are able to enforce "rules of behavior" more to your own liking. But that doesn't make your own "liking" here any less an existential contraption to me.

KT is hell bent on insisting that his own rendition of "pragmatism" is not an existential contraption. But I certainly see it as one. He lived a particular life predisposing him to a particular set of values; but he refuses to let the implications of that disturb him as much as they disturb me. In other words, "fracture and fragment" his own particular "I" when confronting conflicting goods.

And to speak of grasping these relationships "epistemologically" speaks volumes regarding the gap between us.

Still, I have to admit that there may well be an epistemological foundation allowing us to assess them wholly.

Or we can just argue that in a wholly determined universe this exchange itself is inherently embedded in the ontological [and teleological?] "fabric of reality".

As for your rendition of Vos Savant's rendition of the Monty Hall problem, what on earth does that have to do with the gap between what we think we know about the universe and all that would need to be known about it in order to encompass it objectively?

Would all astrophysicists weigh in on this in the precise manner in which you do?

I must be missing something here in grasping your point. You may be "calling things as you see them", but what you see is likely to be only a teeny, tiny sliver of all that can be seen going back to an ontological understanding of the existence of existence itself.

...how are deductions pertaining to the either/or world the same or different from deductions pertaining to the is/ought world.

There is no difference and the ought is either/or because ought is discerned through relativity. You ought to do that, else this will happen.

Still, you have to admit this point will be easier to understand if you take it out into the world that we live in and embed it in a context in which deductions are made regarding facts able to be established and then made regarding our reactions to those facts such that some insist they indicate we ought to behave one way while others insist they indicate we ought to behave in another way.