Philosophy Now Forum

Looks like everyone who is not iambiguous agrees that this whole "objectivist" "Nazi" "jihad terrorist" bullshit is completely contextually irrelevant here then. I'll record that in the meeting notes. Moving on.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:24 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:15 am Can he prove that the people he is disagreeing with are objectivists? Can he prove the attributes he gives to people he labels this way?No.

Again, simply unbelievable.

Well, if I do say so myself.

I tell others what I mean when I use the word objectivism. Just as I do when I use the word dasein. And, over the years, I have cited any number of particular sets of circumstances in which my own understanding of these words is "for all practical purposes" made applicable.

Now, if you know someone convinced that they are wholly in sync with the "real me" and come in here disdainful of those who do not share their own conclusions regarding either moral, political and spiritual value judgments or explanations regarding the Big Questions -- "my way or you're wrong" -- what would you call them?

Why not simply disagree with their position?

Because I believe that objectivists [God or No God] can be dangerous. And have been down through the ages. What, the Jews in Nazi Germany should have been advised to simply voice their disagreements with the Fuhrer?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amI think it's odd that you assume you have to give them a general pejorative label and one that often has 'fulminating fanatical' or something close to that before it.

Same thing. Sure, for some of the moral objectivists here you might try reasoning with with them. But others in my view -- those who come to embrace this fame of mind -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296 -- embody the "psychology of objectivism". You are almost always wasting your time deconstructing their "my way or the highway" value judgments. But it's still always no less a judgment call on my part rooted existentially in dasein.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amAlso I don't really see how you're not in this category. You're certainly disdainful and futher it seems people gain this label for not being drawn and quartered or not being fractured and fragmented. You certainly seem to consider them wrong to be certain and express this and decide this with enough certainty to label them insultingly.

Again, that's your take on my frame of mind. But, again, polemics aside, which, admittedly, I thrive on, I am more than willing to explore objectivism in entirely civil exchanges given particular contexts. With you, with anyone.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amIOW at a meta level of knowledge you think 'my way or you're wrong.' Your way being (supposedly) uncertain. You have an us them attitude. Sure, you're neither determinist nor free willer. But you still manage to have an us/them with the objectivists as the them.

Meta level? Take that up with BigMike, okay?

"My way or the highway". "One of us or one of them", And, for some, that means the gulags and the death camps.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am My sense is that this is extreme polemics for a term you aim at Flannel Jesus and Phyllo for example. Yes, you don't say that they want to open gulags, but since someone gets called an objectivist for thinking you're wrong about something regarding determinism and free will and not being drawn and quartered, I think this is problematic.

No, from my vantage point, someone gets called an objectivist when they insist that anyone who does not share their own frame of mind regarding the morality of abortion or assumptions regarding free will, is wrong. Then the part revolving around polemics for those who get particularly agitated regarding my "fractured and fragmented"/dasein perspectives.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am And note: every time you start labeling and bemoaning the objectivists you are encountering negatively you are making posts that are about them. Something that when it happens to you, you consider wrong.

It comes off as you are not aware of what you are doing AND about things that seem very important to you.

Come on, when some here do consider my own fractured and fragmented frame of mind, a part of them might become concerned that it is also applicable to them. They have much to lose if my frame of mind begins to sink in, while I have much to gain if I can be convinced to embrace a frame of mind that dispenses with my current belief that...

1] my life is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] I am hopelessly drawn and quartered in regard to value judgments
3] my death = oblivion

It is precisely because their own objectivist dogmas allow them to make these things go away that, in my view, they are particularly antagonistic towards me.

But: this is still no less an existential conjecture rooted subjectively in dasein. Though, sure, if you wish to believe it is much more than that...

"my way or you're wrong"

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am People disagree with each other. That doesn't necessarily put them in some 'my way or....' category. And it doesn't require proof. People come to the forum express their views and yes, may think you are wrong about an issue. That doesn't put them in some category unless that also puts you in one.

Yes, it's a judgment call. Subjective and subjunctive down to the bone at times. How I react to a particular post/poster may not be how others react. All we can do here is, to the best of our ability, grapple with closing the gap.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am Your way seems to include that people should be fractured and fragmented or they must prove there is a reason not to be. Your way or they are wrong. If they can't prove that determinism is the case, but they believe in it, then it's not your way. Likewise with free will. I'm openly unsure of which is the case and you are asking me to demonstrate why I am not fractured and fragmented.

Again, though, I flat out suggest that this is problematic and then some. With regard to something like the morality of abortion, you either believe that one side does provide us with the optimal or the only rational frame of mind or you recognize that both sides make reasonable points and that the "best of all possible worlds" seems to revolve around "moderation, negotiation and compromise".

As for free will, however, that to me seems to be a futile endeavor given what none of us grasp -- can ever grasp? -- regarding how non-living matter became living matter became conscious matter became us. Sans God from my perspective. It's fascinating to think about and explore but as with the Flatlanders speculating about our third dimensional existence, how to actually would they or we pin it down?

Me? I'm "fractured and fragmented"/"drawn and quartered" in regard to both.

You're not? Okay, given a particular context like Mary and Jane and abortion above, explain to me why you are not.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am I don't need to justify my not having certain internal states. It's as if the onus is on others to demonstrate that your idea that we all actually should be drawn and quartered, fragmented adn fractured is false.

Come on, no one needs to justify anything to anyone here if, for their own personal reasons, they choose not to. But since a part of me very much does not want to be fractured and fragmented, all I can do is to hear out those who claim not to be themselves. And to note in turn that in being fractured and fragmented, the good news is that I am not anchored to one or another moral, political and/or spiritual dogma. That opens up many more options for me given that I don't have to ask myself the equivalent of "what would Jesus do?"

As I have noted time and again, anytime someone wants to sustain a civil and intelligent exchange, I won't be the first to make things personal.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am OK, great. In recent posts you seemed to be aiming a kind of generalized response to a number of posters, not listed, who were objectivists. It didn't seem to fit some of the people you were disagreeing with, but great if that's your goal.

Again, however, given how, in ways I don't even completely understand myself, this...

"He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest." John Fowles

...factors into my motivation for being here, polemics is still my exchange of choice.

And then back to this:

...polemics aside, it is often others who speak insultingly of me. The objectivists in particular. They grasp what is a stake for them regarding their own precious Self if my points are reasonable. So they make the exchange all about me.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amSo, you know about their internal states and motivations. You're drawn and quartered about a number of issues, uncertained, fractured and fragmented about those. But the problem of other minds is not one for you. You know what motivates their actions here. And from what I can you are very confident about this despite it contradicting what they say about their internal states and motivations.

Back to the machine that Maia -- remember her? -- and I used to ponder. The one we could use to actually be inside each other's head...to think and feel what the other does. Instead, it's often more in the way of Lucas Jackson just before they shot him dead: "what we have here is failure to communicate". Only no one dies here.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amHeck, you might be right, but your epistemology seems to shift quite a bit.

Epistemology and morality? Epistemology and the Big Questions? Like going all the way back to the existence of existence itself mere mortals here on planet Earth are equipped to connect the dots here.

But for a fairly abstract ontological issue - determinsm vs. free will - it seems one needs 'proof', even though it is not clear that resolving this issue changes the way people interact with each other.

Exchanges regarding determinism and free will are as abstract as we make them.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amOf course concrete examples are imporant, I think, to making clear what abstract ideas mean/entail/are justified by. But my point here was that you have, it seems to me, a loose say of epistemological criteria for when you decide you know the motivations of other people and can confidently call them names, but when it comes to something like determinism you want 'proof'.

Okay -- click -- in regard to Mary and Jane, how is this applicable? What epistemological criteria would you employ in discussing her unwanted pregnancy as a moral issue?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amAnd since you seem to think people need to justify not being fractured and fragmented, it means that even if someone says they cannot be sure about their position on determinism and free will, they still should have some kind of proof or they are objectivists. But when it comes to your own action in the world, you don't need this. However for taking a position on these ontological issues, which may or may not lead to specific actions in the world, you do need this.

I try to grasp what you are saying here about me but it just doesn't compute...epistemologically? It's not justification that I am after so much as explanation: "This is why I think that abortion is either moral or immoral." And then the objectivists among us who also add, "and so should you".

Or you are wrong.

Though, in my view, certain "serious philosophers" are hell bent on keeping the exchanges up in the didactic clouds. Why? Because up there it all revolves around dueling definitions and deductions. Philosophy as a world of words.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amSo, here you are with a view about other people's motivations and you do not have proof and you do not seem to be fragmented and fractured about it.

Again: your view about my view. Whereas my view is that it does not seem possible to have a wholly objective view either regarding the morality of abortion or the metaphysical parameters of the free will debate. Why? Because in regard to both, both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can't make go away. Then what? Well, for some, an existential leap to one set of assumptions or another. Or for others a fractured and fragmented Humpty Dumpty.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amSo, here you could have a base for understanding how other people might have a view about determinism, not be fragmented and fractured over it but also not have proof.

Note to others:

Go ahead, give it a go. In regard to either morality or free will.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 9:59 pm Because I believe that objectivists [God or No God] can be dangerous. And have been down through the ages.

That makes you an objectivist. You're a danger. Please sort your shit out first. After you have ceased being a danger, by ridding yourself of all beliefs, then please come back and tell me again how I'm dangerous because of some innocuous thoughts I have.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 9:59 pm Because I believe that objectivists [God or No God] can be dangerous. And have been down through the ages. What, the Jews in Nazi Germany should have been advised to simply voice their disagreements with the Fuhrer?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amI think it's odd that you assume you have to give them a general pejorative label and one that often has 'fulminating fanatical' or something close to that before it.

Do you see yourself as in a parallel situation as the Jews in relation to Nazis?

What have I said that entails this?

Same thing.

OK, I think that's nuts. You're actually identifying with Jews under Nazis in reaction to the people you are labeling objectivists here.

Sure, for some of the moral objectivists here you might try reasoning with with them.

So, not being able to reason with someone - as you evaluate the interaction - is the same as Jews dealing with Nazis.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amAlso I don't really see how you're not in this category. You're certainly disdainful and futher it seems people gain this label for not being drawn and quartered or not being fractured and fragmented. You certainly seem to consider them wrong to be certain and express this and decide this with enough certainty to label them insultingly.

Again, that's your take on my frame of mind.

Right, instead of actually responding to the point I made, you just label it. And in an obvious way. Of course what I write are my takes.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amIOW at a meta level of knowledge you think 'my way or you're wrong.' Your way being (supposedly) uncertain. You have an us them attitude. Sure, you're neither determinist nor free willer. But you still manage to have an us/them with the objectivists as the them.

Meta level? Take that up with BigMike, okay?

Not relevant.

"My way or the highway". "One of us or one of them", And, for some, that means the gulags and the death camps.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am My sense is that this is extreme polemics for a term you aim at Flannel Jesus and Phyllo for example. Yes, you don't say that they want to open gulags, but since someone gets called an objectivist for thinking you're wrong about something regarding determinism and free will and not being drawn and quartered, I think this is problematic.

No, from my vantage point, someone gets called an objectivist when they insist that anyone who does not share their own frame of mind regarding the morality of abortion or assumptions regarding free will, is wrong.

No, you aim it at people who think other people are wrong about non-moral issues.

Come on, when some here do consider my own fractured and fragmented frame of mind, a part of them might become concerned that it is also applicable to them. They have much to lose if my frame of mind begins to sink in, while I have much to gain if I can be convinced to embrace a frame of mind that dispenses with my current belief that...

Sure, it might. I notice how you go from 'might' to just simply stating this. And you have bragged without qualification about such things. Might slides into interpersonal acts.

1] my life is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] I am hopelessly drawn and quartered in regard to value judgments
3] my death = oblivion

It is precisely because their own objectivist dogmas allow them to make these things go away that, in my view, they are particularly antagonistic towards me.

You wrote all the mind reading in response to me saying you were engaging in personal attacks in threads where you complain about personal attacks. Yes, you often do it generally about other posters - so naming those you disagree with, perhaps, as here with some mindreading thrown in. But thanks for giving more evidence of what I was pointing out.

But: this is still no less an existential conjecture rooted subjectively in dasein. Though, sure, if you wish to believe it is much more than that...

You're such a bitch [n*****, Nazi, terrorist, pedophile]...Hey, what's wrong. I called you that knowing it was rooted dasein. LOL.

Yes, it's a judgment call. Subjective and subjunctive down to the bone at times. How I react to a particular post/poster may not be how others react. All we can do here is, to the best of our ability, grapple with closing the gap.

OK, explain to me how associating Flannel Jesus with gulags is a way to close the gap.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am Your way seems to include that people should be fractured and fragmented or they must prove there is a reason not to be. Your way or they are wrong. If they can't prove that determinism is the case, but they believe in it, then it's not your way. Likewise with free will. I'm openly unsure of which is the case and you are asking me to demonstrate why I am not fractured and fragmented.

Again, though, I flat out suggest that this is problematic and then some. With regard to something like the morality of abortion, you either believe that one side does provide us with the optimal or the only rational frame of mind or you recognize that both sides make reasonable points and that the "best of all possible worlds" seems to revolve around "moderation, negotiation and compromise".

Nothing there about fractured and fragmented or the other internal states that you think people need to justfiy why they are not feeling them.

As for free will, however, that to me seems to be a futile endeavor given what none of us grasp -- can ever grasp? -- regarding how non-living matter became living matter became conscious matter became us. Sans God from my perspective. It's fascinating to think about and explore but as with the Flatlanders speculating about our third dimensional existence, how to actually would they or we pin it down?

Nothing there about fractured and fragmented or the other internal states that you think people need to justfiy why they are not feeling them.

Me? I'm "fractured and fragmented"/"drawn and quartered" in regard to both.

You're not? Okay, given a particular context like Mary and Jane and abortion above, explain to me why you are not.

I don't need to justify why I am not feeling the internal state you feel.
You think other people bear the burden of demonstating they don't have the emotional reactions you have.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am I don't need to justify my not having certain internal states. It's as if the onus is on others to demonstrate that your idea that we all actually should be drawn and quartered, fragmented adn fractured is false.

Come on, no one needs to justify anything to anyone here if

No, that's not what I am saying. I am saying that I do not bear any burden for justifying interal states. Of course, we are free to ignore requests for justification.

If I say, God exists, it is perfectly reasonable in a philosophy forum to think that the person asserting this bears a burden to justify it.

The fact that I am not feeling something is nothing like that.

If I told you you should feel fine or you shouldn't feel bad about it or whatever....

Then I bear a burden. Or to put it another way, there is some consensus that that is what we are doing. Supporting postions. Obviously no one can force anyone, but it makes sense given the context.

To justify my felt states implies I would know the causes for my lack of the same reaction you have to certain things.

I'd have to explain why I don't react like you do. It could have to do with all sorts of things including things I don't know about you. What if the difference has more to do with something that happened to you: guilt over past acts. Perhaps for whatever psychological/subcultural reasons you feel that you have to work everything out or certain things out, and resolve it permanently somehow, in ways I don't because my life was different. I don't know why we are different or why I don't have those particular psychological states in relation to abortion.

As I have noted time and again, anytime someone wants to sustain a civil and intelligent exchange, I won't be the first to make things personal.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 am OK, great. In recent posts you seemed to be aiming a kind of generalized response to a number of posters, not listed, who were objectivists. It didn't seem to fit some of the people you were disagreeing with, but great if that's your goal.

But for a fairly abstract ontological issue - determinsm vs. free will - it seems one needs 'proof', even though it is not clear that resolving this issue changes the way people interact with each other.

Exchanges regarding determinism and free will are as abstract as we make them.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amOf course concrete examples are imporant, I think, to making clear what abstract ideas mean/entail/are justified by. But my point here was that you have, it seems to me, a loose say of epistemological criteria for when you decide you know the motivations of other people and can confidently call them names, but when it comes to something like determinism you want 'proof'.

Okay -- click -- in regard to Mary and Jane, how is this applicable? What epistemological criteria would you employ in discussing her unwanted pregnancy as a moral issue?

I mention that free will and determinism don't change my reactions around abortion. I wrote about how you seem to have one set of criteria - an argument that should convince all rational people - when it comes to determinism vs. free will or pro/con abortion issues, but every low criteria when it comes to mindreading other people. And you jumped to asking me about abortion. One concrete situation - you labeling people and claiming to know their internal (and unexpressed) motivations - got shifted to a different concrete situation - Mary's abortion.

I try to grasp what you are saying here about me but it just doesn't compute...epistemologically? It's not justification that I am after so much as explanation: "This is why I think that abortion is either moral or immoral." And then the objectivists among us who also add, "and so should you".

That wouldn't explain why I don't have your internal states.

Again: your view about my view.

OK, so when you mindread other people or associate them with gulags, you feel fractured and fragmented about this, about your act of doing that?

Whereas my view is that it does not seem possible to have a wholly objective view either regarding the morality of abortion or the metaphysical parameters of the free will debate

I agree. And as far as either issue I can't explain why I don't feel feelings I don't feel. It would be as hard for me to explain why I don't like mint ice cream. It almost feels like a category error to expect people to explain why they don't feel what you feel aroudn these issues. I am sure some people will answer. I think there's like hubris involved, but possibly they used to feel torn apart and then didn't so they might have a notion about what changed in them.

But I don't see your reactions as the default or norm or the most rational emotional reactions (whatever that might mean) and so one ought to know, somehow???, why one deviates from it.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:19 amSo, here you could have a base for understanding how other people might have a view about determinism, not be fragmented and fractured over it but also not have proof.

Note to others:

Go ahead, give it a go. In regard to either morality or free will.

I was saying that one could feel fragmented and fractured about telling people what their real motivations are. Like one part of you could think you know and another part might think dasein is distorting your views so much you shouldn't even mention it, since it's often part of a negative judgement of them. Likewise associating them with Nazis -in an analogy that makes you the Jew - and gulags. One part of you might feel this is fair, the other might feel like this is going way to far and insulting people who have, as far as you know, not done a single thing like those people or the ones who came up with and ran the latter.

You could feel fractured and fragmented about the way you are concretely interacting with people, given what you don't know or might not know.

But no, you don't seem fractured and fragmented at all about insulting people this way and associating them with things you obviously consider evil - despite the problem of other minds and despite how some part of you might view it as rude hyperbole.

So, my point was that given there is room for you to be fragmented and fractured about how you feel about your own interpersonal behavior you don't. You're fine with that. Despite, obviously, not having proof that it's a fair or kind or justified way of interacting.

There you have it. You have a situation where you might feel fractured and fragmented, but you don't.

So, now you can explain to yourself why you don't in this situation and it might give you the insight you are expecting from others.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:30 pm That makes you an objectivist. You're a danger. Please sort your shit out first. After you have ceased being a danger, by ridding yourself of all beliefs, then please come back and tell me again how I'm dangerous because of some innocuous thoughts I have.

I wanted to highlight this exchange I just had with Iambigious.
Iambiguous....

I tell others what I mean when I use the word objectivism. Just as I do when I use the word dasein. And, over the years, I have cited any number of particular sets of circumstances in which my own understanding of these words is "for all practical purposes" made applicable.

Now, if you know someone convinced that they are wholly in sync with the "real me" and come in here disdainful of those who do not share their own conclusions regarding either moral, political and spiritual value judgments or explanations regarding the Big Questions -- "my way or you're wrong" -- what would you call them?

Me:

Why not simply disagree with their position?

Iambiguous:

Because I believe that objectivists [God or No God] can be dangerous. And have been down through the ages. What, the Jews in Nazi Germany should have been advised to simply voice their disagreements with the Fuhrer?

I ask him why not simply disagree with them and earlier suggested he call them people he disagree with.

His response is AS IF, this meant I would tell Jews in Nazi Germany to simply voice their disagreements with the Fuhrer.

He is actually compaing his situation arguing with people here with that situation. Our poor 'Jew'.

I need to spend some time away from this discussion and I will.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 7:25 pm Right. Ayn Rand believed in capitalism. Karl Marx believed in Communism. Adolph Hitler believed in the Final Solution. The Taliban believe in Allah. The Pope believes in Catholicism.

So, historically, what has often happened when those who believe in something gained power and had the capacity to insist that others must believe the same thing...or else? Again, I call them objectivists and, subjectively, I suggest that they are dangerous to those who believe instead in, say, democracy and the rule of law.

I'm just curious what you mean by "objectivist" and whether you think I'm an "objectivist" for trying to find answers to questions concerning religion and related matters that are 'true' and universal to all? I'm not suggesting Ayn Rand or any of the above had it right but just putting out an unqualified term like "objectivist" and not being specific as to what exactly an "objectivist" is in your usage of the term sort of confuses me. Or are you saying that human beliefs and ideas are necessarily subjective experiences without any such possibility as to possess 'universality' or 'truth'?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 11:09 pm I ask him why not simply disagree with them and earlier suggested he call them people he disagree with.

His response is AS IF, this meant I would tell Jews in Nazi Germany to simply voice their disagreements with the Fuhrer.

He is actually compaing his situation arguing with people here with that situation. Our poor 'Jew'.

I need to spend some time away from this discussion and I will.

Yes, it's absolute nonsense. There's not an ounce of it that comes anywhere near reasonable thought. Enjoy your break.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:33 pm Yes, this is the part that [to me] is the most mind-boggling. I think back on all of the extraordinary experiences I have had and my emotional reactions to them. Then, sure, I think, "is it really possible that all of that unfolded in a determined universe such that I had nothing to do with actually creating this reality other than in behaving autonomically [like a beating heart] given chemical and neurological cues in my brain?"

I agree, mind boggling. I think whatever is going on is mind boggling. If it's determinism, mind boggling. If we have free will, mind boggling. That there is a universe at all, mind boggling.

There you go.

All I can suggest is that you bring this up with Jane.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 am Huh. Why are you suggesting I bring it up with her? Have you brought it up with her?

My Mary aborted her Jane. But obviously no one had a greater stake here in regard to Mary's pregnancy than Jane. In a determined world she is aborted. Period. No ifs ands or buts. In a free will world, however, she might not be.

Though, sure, in a determined world she might not have been aborted. But who among us doesn't want to believe that one way or another at least we have some capacity to choose the behaviors in our life.

Given a free will world how is moral responsibility pertaining to abortion not profoundly rooted in dasein and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 am IOW you seem incredulous that dasein in a free will world will have effects on behavior. I don't know how you know this. If you are assuming this world is a free will world, you need to say this. But you've made it clear you don't know if there is free will or determinism in this world.

Incredulous: "(of a person or their manner) unwilling or unable to believe something."

In a free will world how can dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome not play a profound role in our lives?

As for assuming we do live in a free will world, that's what the "clicks" are for. Only I have no way of pinning down if the assumption itself is not wholly determined.

So, sure, in free will world, the number of abortions may rise and fall due to any number of social, political and economic factors.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amWhen I bring up caprice/whims....

No, not in my view. Pure caprice would revolve around Mary just flipping a coin or rolling the dice to decide whether to give birth. And if Jane were to ask her mom about her birth, Mary might tell her, "well, you are here because a friend of mine convinced me to give birth to you." Then there are the existential, rooted in dasein causes behind her friend choosing to do this.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amGreat. I just don't see what free will means if we are talking about causes. In your version of free will it seems like Dasein lead to choices. You call it predisposes us. Well, if that means partially determines, what's the other part but caprice. If it means totally determines, then it's determinism.

The caprice part revolves mostly around the Benjamin Button Syndrome: https://youtu.be/mTDs0lvFuMc

The part where we are ever embedded in a sea of variables we only have so much understanding and control over.

So, sure, in free will world, the number of abortions may rise and fall due to any number of social, political and economic factors.

You lose me here. And please scrap the X. What in particular relating to abortion do you construe as being applicable to me?

I don't think you have a clear position on abortion.[/quote]

But that's my point. In the OP here for example: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

It's the whole point from my end! Given a free will world how is moral responsibility pertaining to abortion not profoundly rooted in dasein and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome? This is precisely where the moral objectivists among us refuse to go in my opinion. Even in assuming human autonomy they want to believe that in using the tools of philosophy or one or another political ideology or their own take on nature [re Satyr], rational men and women can "deduce" the wisest, most virtuous and deontologically sound behaviors. Or, for others, one or another God.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amI don't understand the Benjamin Button Syndrome. I've seen the film, but I don't know what this has to do with free will/deteminism.

Not the film in its entirely, just the clip above. How can anyone watch that and not grasp how, in a free will world, there are countless variables in our lives that we are either unaware aware of or are unable to control. Yet they can have a profound impact on the course of our lives.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amAs far as the rest: have Big Mike and Phyllo said that using the tools of philosophy rational men and women can deduce the most virtuous and deontologically sound behaviors? Has Flannel Jesus? I certainly don't think that.

Your take on them and mine are clearly different. Though in regard to either the morality of abortion or Mary's capacity to freely choose one, let them weigh in here with me. Where do they fit themselves along the line between moral and metaphysical objectivism at one end and a fractured and fragmented frame of mind on the other end. How about you?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amt seems like Big Mike is convinced we can deduce determinism and that this implies certain things about how we view people doing stuff we dont like. Perhaps he has laid out what the most virtuous and deontologically sound behaviors are in general, I don't know. Perhaps the others have. I understand they may have opinions aobut these things, but I missed them taking this kind of overarching position.

My BigMike, on the other hand, seems to embrace a no free will determined universe. But one in which his own arguments "somehow" become the right ones. There I can't distinguish him from a libertarian.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amWho do you consider objectivists here in this thread, in the last 10 pages of discussion?
Do you think it makes sense to associate these people with the gulags and if so why?

Click.

If anyone on this thread believes that they are in sync with the real me in sync further with the right thing to do or the right way to understand something pertaining to moral and political value judgments and the Big Questions, then I constriue them to be objectivists. Though in regard to the either/or world -- mathematics, science, the empirical world around us, logic etc., -- I am an objectivist myself.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:05 amHave they made it clear that.....

in using the tools of philosophy or one or another political ideology or their own take on nature [re Satyr], rational men and women can "deduce" the wisest, most virtuous and deontologically sound behaviors.

Let's ask them.

Given a particular context.

ME:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 9:38 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:35 pm That's not how anyone else uses the term. Just someone thinking they're correct isn't enough to qualify someone as an "objectivist", and criticizing them for being an "objectivist" just because they think they are correct about something is inherently hypocritical, because in the act of criticizing you show that you yourself think YOU are correct about something - that you are correct to disprove of them thinking they are correct, and they are incorrect in being an "objectivist".

Well, given free will, that's why over and over and over again I suggest that we take what we believe particular words mean philosophically "in our heads" out into the world of actual human interactions and explore the meaning given particular sets of circumstances.

Here on this thread [for me] Mary aborting Jane. If some do believe that their own argument regarding either the morality of abortion or their own take on free will, determinism and compatibilism reflects the most rational manner in which to think about the existential relationship between Mary choosing an abortion and her moral responsibility, well, if not an objectivist, what would you call them?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:35 pmSo, I mean, if that's what you want the word "objectivist" to mean, you can't criticise someone for being an objectivist without yourself becoming an objectivist.

I don't agree. I am fractured and fragmented in regard to both the morality of abortion and in regard to free will. Given both "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule"...pertaining to those things here that we don't even know that we don't know about regarding this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:35 pmBut really, the label is entirely pointless. It doesn't provide any value to the conversation, it's a confusion and a red herring. If you think I'm incorrect about something, don't waste time calling me an objectivist, tell me what I'm incorrect about and why. I'm a philosopher, I'm used to being wrong. Skip the (entirely misused) label and tell me why I'm wrong

Right, pointless. On the other hand, down through history there have been any number of folks [God and No God] who, once in power, acted out their own rendition of "right makes might". Think sharia law, the Inquisition, the Crusades, fascism, Communism and on and on.

For example, what would you call these folks now in power:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... e-divorce/

"Divorced and remarried, these Afghan women are outlaws under Taliban rule
Taliban law has voided thousands of divorces, experts say, and many remarried women are now considered adulterers"

Though, sure, given free will, if you deem it ridiculous to call these religious fanatics objectivists, fine. Use your own name.

HIM:

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:26 pm You have lost your mind. If you think the thing wrong with the Taliban is that philosophically they think they're correct about something, and therefore anybody who thinks they're correct about anything is now comparable to the Taliban, you have fully lost it. You're so far removed from any reasonable thought, I don't know what to tell you other than get some sleep, or maybe professional help.

And if you think you're CORRECT to call them objectivists, then that makes you an objectivist and therefore basically a Muslim terrorist.

I rest my case!!!

And so does Nature apparently.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 8:57 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 6:56 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 4:39 pm
Yes, determinism for Sam Harris encompasses all those things.

They generally don't need to distinguish between fate, destiny, and determinism, because their audience generally is not confused by these concepts. The audience knows generally what determinism means, there's no need explicitly to contrast it against fatalism.

Well, if Harris is convinced that everything he thinks, feels, says and does was, is and will be such that no distinction need be made between fated, destined and determined, then how is that not the case as well for those either confused or not confused by what he argues? It's not what anyone in the audience claims to know or not to know about him and his views but the fact that what they do claim to know or not know is in turn fated, destined, determined to be only that which their brains compel them know or not know.

You speak of what they need as though that is not also what they were only ever able to need. Back to Schopenhauer's, "you are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want." Which, from my frame of mind, means that you were never really free at all...not as a libertarian would construe it. There is only the psychological illusion of being free to do what you want.

Harris comes off as someone intent on winning the debates, but what does winning and losing really mean when the winners and the losers themselves are fated, destined, determined to be only as they must be in the only possible world?

I concur that the concept of winning or losing a debate is irrelevant given that the result was predetermined. However, winning or losing a debate is not the only reason to participate in one. Moreover, your claim that Harris comes off as someone intent on winning the debates is, presumedly, your own subjective opinion.

No, not just the concept of winning or losing, but the actual reality of winning or losing in turn. Same for all of the reasons one might have for debating. Same for anything that any of us claim.

Same for subjective opinions. If I am compelled to opine only as I must opine then from nature's point of view, it's an objective opinion. Only here the truly tricky thing is that we have no idea if nature has a point of view. The material laws of matter might be said to be ontological component of nature, but does it as well "somehow" have teleological component to?

Is this the latest freewill thread? Kay.

if u say 'determined behavior is goal oriented' (that's your criteria like dennett) then yes, humans are determiners. but if us say 'the universe has no teleology and humans are part of the universe', then your humans have no teleology and are not determined becuz the phenomena that makes conscious, self-aware deliberating behavior - what we wanna call immanent and not transitive cause, 'agency' - is just part of that non teleological process the universe is going through. anything by defintion that is eternal can have no ends, and where there are no ends there are no designs, no plans, no final state, no terminus. so unless u got an agency that transcends space/time, u don't, can't, have a freewill; an immanent cause that is not dependent on substance to exist. that is, a thing that is its own cause and must exist, rather than being a temporary form or mode of existence as a particular thing with properties... something that could only be a transitive cause. an effect or effected first, and then having the power to be a cause once coming into existence.

and if you've got this transcendental agency with freewill, u gotta explain how a non-corporeal entity can make causal contact with corporeal things... and u can't tell me it's in the pineal gland mmkay?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 5:51 am Is this the latest freewill thread? Kay.

if u say 'determined behavior is goal oriented' (that's your criteria like dennett) then yes, humans are determiners. but if us say 'the universe has no teleology and humans are part of the universe', then your humans have no teleology and are not determined becuz the phenomena that makes conscious, self-aware deliberating behavior - what we wanna call immanent and not transitive cause, 'agency' - is just part of that non teleological process the universe is going through. anything by defintion that is eternal can have no ends, and where there are no ends there are no designs, no plans, no final state, no terminus. so unless u got an agency that transcends space/time, u don't, can't, have a freewill; an immanent cause that is not dependent on substance to exist. that is, a thing that is its own cause and must exist, rather than being a temporary form or mode of existence as a particular thing with properties... something that could only be a transitive cause. an effect or effected first, and then having the power to be a cause once coming into existence.

and if you've got this transcendental agency with freewill, u gotta explain how a non-corporeal entity can make causal contact with corporeal things... and u can't tell me it's in the pineal gland mmkay?

Amazing. I have to say that I was almost turned off by the way you write. But after "translating" your post sentence by sentence, I have to say that I agree with you completely. My approval, though, depends on that my "translation" is correct. I translated your term "determiner" to mean "first mover" or "primus motor". If I got that right, then "Yeah, thumbs up!"

I concur that the concept of winning or losing a debate is irrelevant given that the result was predetermined.

Irrelevant to who?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:08 pm

I concur that the concept of winning or losing a debate is irrelevant given that the result was predetermined.

Irrelevant to who?

When the outcome of a debate is predetermined, the result is already fixed, and therefore, the concept of winning or losing becomes meaningless. In such a scenario, the participants may still engage in the debate for other reasons, such as to hone their debating skills, showcase their knowledge, or fulfill an obligation, but the outcome of the debate will not be a factor in determining success or failure.

Winning and losing are events which lead to other events.

Winning can be a step to getting money, prestige, fame, influence ...

Losing is a step to something different.

So not irrelevant.