Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 6:31 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:02 pm
People, once they've experienced life, want more of it. And they want better. And if I think they can have it, why wouldn't I tell them they can, and tell them as well how I think they can?
I can only give you my opinion why you shouldn't. You don't know it is true. No matter how much you might believe it is, you don't know.
It depends on what you mean by "know." As I said, there's not one thing in the empirical world that we human beings "know" in an absolute sense. As Descartes argued, it's even possible to doubt the existence of your own body.
So what we need, if we're reasonable folks, is a threshold of certainty that his high but not absolute. Because absolute knowledge belongs only to God. So we might ask, what would "high enough" knowledge look like to you?
Also, when you tell them how they can get the thing you describe as better, you would be trying to influence the way they live their lives,
Of course. Don't you also want the world to be better?
But if something is sad, then it is certainly good incentive to want something better, some alternative. Nihilistic resignation is a very poor option. And in any case, if the Nihilist were right, why not even delude yourself? If it makes a person happy, even if one were to become idiotically happy, why would the Nihilist speak against that option? For him, nothing matters anyway...not even truth.
You're at it again, with "nihilist".
"At it"? I wasn't accusing you, at all. Please don't misunderstand that: I was just saying that there's limits on how cynical anybody can reasonably be. And the extreme is untenable and unliveable. So we have to be circumspect about how far we want to go down that road.
Criticism is good; cynicism is tragic.
...a great many things matter to me, and the truth is one of the things that matters most to me. I am sure that I am not unique in my attitude; there must be plenty like me.
I'm sure. But that was my question: how come we do that, if ultimately, nothing really DOES matter (since all things end in heat-death anyway), and why do we prefer truth when cheerful illusions are not, in an empirical sense, "worse" than truths, and in a sociological sense may well even seem far better to us?
But we do want truth. And we do all want meaning. And we want things to matter. Why do we want things we also sometimes tell ourselves, by our basic ideology, that surely we cannot have?
It implies that, for some reason, people just can't or don't want to live without these things, even though their personal beliefs may assure them they're all bunk!
That's a startling fact, and needs some explanation: why would we, mere chance products of an indifferent universe, come to have a desperate longing for things that have absolutely no reality behind them? In fact, from what sort of inducement would such an urge even first emerge?
I don't know; I am not an authority on human psychology, except to say that it can be very weird in all sorts of ways.
That's for certain. But it all has to come from
somewhere or
something, so we could use an explanation, if one's available.
It's a great question: how could all of this have gotten started?
A hammer can be used for doing things like, say, opening a tin of beans. But it works very badly at that. When a hammer becomes an elegant tool is when one is, say, a cooper making a barrel, or an iron worker shaping iron. Then, the hammer really sings. It's an instrument that has found its right use, its right place, and is doing what it was designed to do.
And I wonder if human beings aren't very much like that. When they find their right use, they start to sing. There's nothing so wonderful as watching a high-calibre athlete float through a defense and score effortlessly, or a talented musician take those high notes to soaring heights, or watching a skilled negotiator navigate a tough negotiation into a solution that results in everybody slapping each other on the back and shaking hands...these things are elegant and beautiful.
And I think that the reason so many people are unhappy is maybe that they've never found their right use. They've never felt what it is to be in the moment and say, "I was born to be here; this is what I do, and what I was made for." That's an astonishing and delightful thing, if you have ever had such a moment. And what if many, many more such moments were possible; and not just moments, but an ongoing feeling of being exactly at the right place, at the right time, and being perfectly swimming in one's element? How could that sort of thing be anything less than delightful?
So maybe we do have a stake -- a real stake -- in seeing God's design purposes in us fulfilled. Maybe when He wins, we win.
What a stirring speech, IC, I feel positively guilty for not being moved by it.
I was just illustrating.
I hope you
have had moments in life like that. Hopefully, many. And if you have, you know they're the absolute best.
Well, as you know, I don't believe in God,...
Yep.
...so I think the things that you look to God for, we should really be looking to ourselves for.
The problem is that we, ourselves, are not adequate to that. I can't even grant myself life, in the first place. I can't guarantee my health. I can't forestall my death. I can't even arrange my circumstances, for the most part: I can't arrange my height, weight, basic aptitudes, basic propensities, the place of my birth and the culture into which I arrived, I can't control any of what other people do...
For somebody to whom I might look for things like meaning, truth and morality, I'm wholly an inadequate candidate. I simply don't have control of things anywhere near to the degree I need to in order to secure those things to myself.
I know you have given me numerous argument as to why that view is untenable, yet I still hold it as firmly as ever.
Okay, fair enough.
However, sharing of well-considered insights, I find quite pleasing. And the sharing of good news is a wonderful thing to do.
Okay, but just be mindful of making promises that are beyond your power to keep.
I don't. I don't promise anything from myself. But then, I don't believe the answers come from me. You might know that from my moniker.
