Philosophy Now Forum

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:29 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 10:49 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 8:36 amDid you notice that my gnomicism, gnomicisity?, exceeded @biggy's?

I don't know what you mean by this, so this is the perfect opportunity to show biggy an example of what a real explanation looks like. What do you mean when you say your gnomicism, gnomicisity exceeds his?

On the other hand...

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 10:49 amWhat does that have to do with the text you quoted?

Which particular text? And, by all means, note the parts I got wrong by providing me with what you construe to be the one and only correct understanding.
 
Given a particular set of circumstances pertaining to your own interactions with others.

also...

...as I noted with iwannaplato, at least make an effort to compare and contrast my own  misunderstandings with your own corrections. 

So -- click -- when is he going to set me straight given particular misunderstandings on my part above?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 3:31 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:44 pm

(i) For many here, The Gap and Rummy's Rule are something they often come across in my posts. And all anyone who is not familiar with them needs to do is to ask me to explain them.
 
(ii) The Gap revolves around the assumption [my own] that 1] there's what you think you know about the things we discuss here [pertaining in particular to value judgments and conflicting goods] and 2] there's the gap between this and all that there is to know about them going back to...to what exactly? to Pantheism? to the Big Bang? to God? to the multiverse?

Or going even further out on the metaphysical limb, to a sim world? to a dream world? to something out of the Matrix? to solipsism? 

(iii)

What on Earth does that mean?

(iv) How about this...

When -- click -- I think of compatibilism, I always come back around to Mary above [or any woman confronting an unwanted pregnancy] who is told that she was never able not to have the abortion, but that she is still morally responsible for it.

What say you?

(v) As for being called a blind man, I have come to encounter reactions of this sort many times over the years. And I have come to conclude, in turn, that for many, what this really means is that I don't think like they do about something.

Exactly, for example. 

It's just that some here level particularly caustic and declamatory accusations regarding what I post.

The irony then being that I really do wish I could figure out a way not to think as I do!!

(i) A tad narcissistic, Old Man.  We shouldn't have to ask.

Over time here I have noted and explained what I mean by The Gap, Rummy's Rules and the Benjamin Button Syndrome. Three crucial components embedded "here and now" in my own moral and political philosophy. 

And of course we should ask others about things they post here that we do not understand.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm(ii) The history of ideas doesn't answer is/ought questions?  Nah, it never will, but there's common sense and good will.

See, there you go again: averring that is/ought questions will never be answered...as though this is actually something a mere mortal in a No God world can know! 

Now, I don't subscribe anymore to objective morality. But I would never argue that those here who do believe in it -- re God, deontology, idealism, ideology, biological imperatives, etc. -- are necessarily wrong. On the contrary, I'm always hoping that one day someone will succeed in deconstructing my own truly grim assumptions here.

On the other hand, where is the definitive argument, one bursting at the seams with all kinds of definitive evidence, able to demonstrate one way or another [and once and for all] the relationship between "I" and the human brain.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmAs epitomized by Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. 's all biology e'nnit?  All.  Morality, metaphysics, the lot.  We are so grandiose over so very little.  The extremes of philosophy, which are reached very rapidly, don't help in the slightest do they?

Okay, connect the dots between what you are trying to convey philosophically here and the manner in which it is pertinent to your own interactions with others socially, politically and economically. 

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmTalking of rapidly going to extremes, the further limb of 'a sim world? to a dream world? to something out of the Matrix? to solipsism?' is all bollocks isn't it. And coming back a little, our mewling and puking happens in, as a subset of, natural eternal infinity.  Why, in heaven's name, bring 'God' into it?

Same thing, in my view. It's not what you articulate here that I react to so much as the manner in which you seem utterly -- arrogantly? -- convinced that how you understand these things really is the optimal or the only rational assessment. 

As for this... 

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm(iii) & (v) You've rationally lost the capacity to believe non-consilient, non-consensus, non-sense, incoherent, unwarranted, unjustified, untrue beliefs.  You can no longer 'see' them. You're blind to them.  As you can't 'see' them, you can't believe them: seeing is believing.  You naturally yearn to be wrong.  You don't want to cease to exist as if you'd never been.  Despite the fact we all do every night, in the little death.  And I paraphrased a great line from The Police's King of Pain, you're therefore a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt.

As is often the case reading your posts, I'm not really sure at all what the points you subscribe to even mean. Bring them down to Earth please.

How about this...

In regard to a particular moral conflagration such as abortion or gun control, or homosexuality, how would you differentiate what is in fact objectively applicable to all of us from what seems to reflect instead the manner in which I root human morality in ever evolving historical and cultural and experiential contexts. Moral relativism, situation ethics, I'm right from my side, you're right from yours.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmAnadromously you said,

"Anadromous: migrating from salt water to spawn in fresh water"

So, we're salmon now?

I still recall when it all began to sink in for me some ago. Over time I came to think myself into believing...

1] that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] that human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein.
3] that oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die

a) All I can do "here and Now" is to search for arguments [here and elsewhere] able perhaps to convince me that these assumptions are wrong.

b) Then the part where, if particular hard determinists are correct, neither one of us is able to post freely here of our own volition anyway. So, that lets both of us off the hook.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm1] Yep
2] Yep
3] Yep

Maybe, maybe, maybe is more my own prejudiced frame of mind here.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pma) Why? Nothing should convince you. No argument. Ever. You know this.

No, I don't know this at all. Instead, what I recall are all of the times in the past when I was convinced I had found the One True Path...over and again as new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge prompted me to change my mind.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmb) Basically, when push comes to shove, yes.

On the other hand, when push comes to shove, how would we go about demonstrating something like this? Posting here for instance. Push coming to shove, where does the autonomic brain end and the autonomous brain begin?

But then back to a point I have no idea regarding the meaning of: 

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmThe only way your axioms could be wrong, is if Intent, The Great Intender, proved them wrong.  They obviously can't and won't; they always would have done, unless our pre-transcendent existence is meaningless to them, apart from as breeding ground.  Which is contrived, apologetic bollocks.

My axioms? No way I would call them that. 

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 3:51 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 11:45 pmBut Rumsfeld went about it in a fancy way. Separating out the things that we do know we don't know from the things we don't even know that we don't know. When Rumsfeld sis it, the entire spectacle was a ruse to misdirect. I make no effort to endorse Biggie's use of the same idea, it looks equally haphazard and misused. But that's what I think of more or less every aspect of the man including all of his other ideas, and probably his trousers.

Again, in regard to the psycho-somatic relationship between the human brain and human autonomy, how could Rumsfeld's observation above not be profoundly applicable?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 10:03 am Who can get it through to Iambiguous's head that "Then the part where x" is not a complete sentence or thought.

Biggy, you have to actually say something the part to make it a complete sentence. If you're talking about Goldilocks, you can't just say "The part where she ate the mom's porridge". That's not a complete sentence. To make it a complete sentence, you have to say something about that part. "I LIKED the part where she ate the mom's porridge". That's a complete sentence. "The part where she ate the mom's porridge was very suspenseful". That's a complete sentence.

You have to say something about the part.

Pro tip: any time you're writing "the part where" in the future, maybe just consider not writing it at all.

Here's a recent example that's on this page: "Then the part where, if particular hard determinists are correct, neither one of us is able to post freely here of our own volition anyway"

What about that part? You didn't finish your sentence.

Funnily enough, if you just left out "the part where", it actually WOULD be a complete sentence. "If particular hard determinists are correct, neither one of us is able to post freely here of our own volition anyway." That's a complete sentence. Adding "then the part where" isn't doing you any favours, it's making you look like you didn't pass third grade English.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:04 am A sophisticated English speaker or writer is not bound to utterances that are sentences with subject and predicate.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 7:35 am
I already told you - there's nothing to explain, you just didn't reply to it.

If I quote a bunch of text from Plato's cave, and then write "Click - my favourite cereal is cinnamon toast crunch", nobody is going to explain to me what I didn't understand about Plato's cave. They're just going to say "bro, cinnamon toast crunch has nothing to do with Plato's cave".

What's there to explain? Your replies to the things you quote aren't about the things you quote. There's no relationship. You just say random things

You have lost your sanity.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:11 am
Then you are deterministically set in stone. Trapped by your own experience of yourself. Buttoned, battened down. You cannot make the final deconstruction from which there is no return, no reconstruction. That your 1-3 are self evident truth. Axioms. For which, rationally, there can be no doubt whatsoever. But you will not, can not, exercise epistemological reflection that to not see them as axiomatic leads to a Galerie de Glaces of contradiction.

Love would have made them impossible. Absolute meaning, purpose, significance would be more than grandiosity.

You have hope beyond forlorn hope. I'm glad.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm(ii) The history of ideas doesn't answer is/ought questions?  Nah, it never will, but there's common sense and good will.

See, there you go again: averring that is/ought questions will never be answered...as though this is actually something a mere mortal in a No God world can know! 

Now, I don't subscribe anymore to objective morality. But I would never argue that those here who do believe in it -- re God, deontology, idealism, ideology, biological imperatives, etc. -- are necessarily wrong. On the contrary, I'm always hoping that one day someone will succeed in deconstructing my own truly grim assumptions here.

On the other hand, where is the definitive argument, one bursting at the seams with all kinds of definitive evidence, able to demonstrate one way or another [and once and for all] the relationship between "I" and the human brain.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmAs epitomized by Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. 's all biology e'nnit?  All.  Morality, metaphysics, the lot.  We are so grandiose over so very little.  The extremes of philosophy, which are reached very rapidly, don't help in the slightest do they?

Okay, connect the dots between what you are trying to convey philosophically here and the manner in which it is pertinent to your own interactions with others socially, politically and economically.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmTalking of rapidly going to extremes, the further limb of 'a sim world? to a dream world? to something out of the Matrix? to solipsism?' is all bollocks isn't it. And coming back a little, our mewling and puking happens in, as a subset of, natural eternal infinity.  Why, in heaven's name, bring 'God' into it?

Same thing, in my view. It's not what you articulate here that I react to so much as the manner in which you seem utterly -- arrogantly? -- convinced that how you understand these things really is the optimal or the only rational assessment. 

In regard to a particular moral conflagration such as abortion or gun control, or homosexuality, how would you differentiate what is in fact objectively applicable to all of us from what seems to reflect instead the manner in which I root human morality in ever evolving historical and cultural and experiential contexts. Moral relativism, situation ethics, I'm right from my side, you're right from yours.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pma) Why? Nothing should convince you. No argument. Ever. You know this.

No, I don't know this at all. Instead, what I recall are all of the times in the past when I was convinced I had found the One True Path...over and again as new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge prompted me to change my mind.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmb) Basically, when push comes to shove, yes.

On the other hand, when push comes to shove, how would we go about demonstrating something like this? Posting here for instance. Push coming to shove, where does the autonomic brain end and the autonomous brain begin?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 9:22 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 3:51 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 11:45 pmBut Rumsfeld went about it in a fancy way. Separating out the things that we do know we don't know from the things we don't even know that we  don't know. When Rumsfeld sis it, the entire spectacle was a ruse to misdirect. I make no effort to endorse Biggie's use of the same idea, it looks equally haphazard and misused. But that's what I think of more or less every aspect of the man including all of his other ideas, and probably his trousers.

Again, in regard to the psycho-somatic relationship between the human brain and human autonomy, how could Rumsfeld's observation above not be profoundly applicable?

Because it's trivial, banal, obvious. The Rumsfeld Matrix is just not profound in general. Click motherfucker.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 10:49 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:11 am
Then you are deterministically set in stone.  Trapped by your own experience of yourself.  Buttoned, battened down.  You cannot make the final deconstruction from which there is no return, no reconstruction. That your 1-3 are self evident truth.  Axioms.  For which, rationally, there can be no doubt whatsoever.  But you will not, can not, exercise epistemological reflection that to not see them as axiomatic leads to a Galerie de Glaces of contradiction.

Love would have made them impossible.  Absolute meaning, purpose, significance would be more than grandiosity.

You have hope beyond forlorn hope.  I'm glad.

Click.

Let's get back to these points. Points in my view you really didn't touch on at all:

1]

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pm(ii) The history of ideas doesn't answer is/ought questions?  Nah, it never will, but there's common sense and good will.

See, there you go again: averring that is/ought questions will never be answered...as though this is actually something a mere mortal in a No God world can know! 

Now, I don't subscribe anymore to objective morality. But I would never argue that those here who do believe in it -- re God, deontology, idealism, ideology, biological imperatives, etc. -- are necessarily wrong. On the contrary, I'm always hoping that one day someone will succeed in deconstructing my own truly grim assumptions here.

On the other hand, where is the definitive argument, one bursting at the seams with all kinds of definitive evidence, able to demonstrate one way or another [and once and for all] the relationship between "I" and the human brain.

2]

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmAs epitomized by Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. 's all biology e'nnit?  All.  Morality, metaphysics, the lot.  We are so grandiose over so very little.  The extremes of philosophy, which are reached very rapidly, don't help in the slightest do they?

Okay, connect the dots between what you are trying to convey philosophically here and the manner in which it is pertinent to your own interactions with others socially, politically and economically.

3]

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmTalking of rapidly going to extremes, the further limb of 'a sim world? to a dream world? to something out of the Matrix? to solipsism?' is all bollocks isn't it. And coming back a little, our mewling and puking happens in, as a subset of, natural eternal infinity.  Why, in heaven's name, bring 'God' into it?

Same thing, in my view. It's not what you articulate here that I react to so much as the manner in which you seem utterly -- arrogantly? -- convinced that how you understand these things really is the optimal or the only rational assessment. 

4]

In regard to a particular moral conflagration such as abortion or gun control, or homosexuality, how would you differentiate what is in fact objectively applicable to all of us from what seems to reflect instead the manner in which I root human morality in ever evolving historical and cultural and experiential contexts. Moral relativism, situation ethics, I'm right from my side, you're right from yours.

5]

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pma) Why? Nothing should convince you. No argument. Ever. You know this.

No, I don't know this at all. Instead, what I recall are all of the times in the past when I was convinced I had found the One True Path...over and again as new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge prompted me to change my mind.

6]

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 4:53 pmb) Basically, when push comes to shove, yes.

On the other hand, when push comes to shove, how would we go about demonstrating something like this? Posting here for instance. Push coming to shove, where does the autonomic brain end and the autonomous brain begin?

Just out of curiosity, ought I to perhaps take your posts as basically tongue in cheek?

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 10:56 pm Click.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:17 pm
Yep, looks like another one has bitten the dust. Hell, by now even my notches have notches!

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:04 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 9:22 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 3:51 am

Again, in regard to the psycho-somatic relationship between the human brain and human autonomy, how could Rumsfeld's observation above not be profoundly applicable?

Because it's trivial, banal, obvious. The Rumsfeld Matrix is just not profound in general. Click motherfucker.

Click motherfucker?

And, from my own rooted existentially in dasein point of view, anyone naive enough to actually believe the things we don't even know that we don't even know yet about the human brain here is "trivial, banal, obvious"...?!