|
OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
|
|
Which posters are tools?
--------------------
|
Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
|
|
All of the people who hold unreasonable world views which don't hold up to criticism but decide to propagate their ideas anyway refusing to acknowledge they might be wrong. Refused to have a meaningful debate on the subject and just googles hot button words to links they've never read and don't understand as proof their claims "make sense." Because recently something making sense is now proof it's true!
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
Edited by Cognitive_Shift (06/11/15 11:25 PM)
|
OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
|
|
Dayum! That was harsh!

FLY for PRESIDENT 2016
--------------------
|
Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
|
|
That has been building up for some time.
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
|
OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
|
|
I feel your pain, brother. One cannot stem the onrushing tide of ignorance. Devolution is at hand.

--------------------
|
secondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss



Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 9 months, 6 days
|
|
Quote:
All of the people who hold unreasonable world views which don't hold up to criticism but decide to propagate their ideas anyway refusing to acknowledge they might be wrong. Refused to have a meaningful debate on the subject and just googles hot button words to links they've never read and don't understand as proof their claims "make sense." Because recently something making sense is now proof it's true!
A thousand times this^
When did people part ways from an honest, humble march toward truth? For too many posters it's a competition; a war between mine and theirs, us and them, my team and their team. MY beliefs must win the war against THEIR beliefs. MY beliefs are special because I hold them!! Why can't we just all be on the same team? Working hard, combining our talents,being accepting of our own and of other's shortcomings, finding the truth together, and improving everyone's lives in the process?? Stubbornness and competitiveness are enemies of the truth, and it seems there are too much of them floating around nowadays.
|
Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
|
|
Honesty to truth is recognizing it is representational apparatus, like a mirror. It is essentially a statement of A=A, the form closest to certainty, or "what is contained to its subject". (ie. It is a projected analysis, and a tautology and empty shell.)
There is possibly honesty and integrity in a mirror. There is also holding it in certain ways, which creates direction and purpose, and is something people invest in.
Quote:
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts...
Quote:
...What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.
Nietzsche - On Truth and Lies in a Non Moral Sense
|
secondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss



Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 9 months, 6 days
|
Re: do you believe science? [Re: Kurt]
#21796844 - 06/12/15 10:42 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
I love the poetic nature of your quotes but I think that we should go to great lengths to avoid thinking in this way. Scientific and philosophical 'truths' have saved lives and have gone a long way to alleviate suffering almost everywhere on the planet. To trivialize 'truth', and even to point out legitimate philosophical objections to otherwise reliable methods of inquiry, in this manner, is unethical. Or are ethics cleared off the table with the rest?
Take this part of your first quote for example:
"There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it."
This is a critique of all that is subjective. Everything we value, everything we could value, is apparently meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Tell me, what could we possibly care about other than the quality of the lives of all that are conscious? Nothing would have happened? WE happened! Some of us lived rich fulfilling lives. Some of us lived horrible, miserable lives. The subjectivity that humans experience, even if it is not an accurate representation of reality, is just as important as if it was. As far as we are concerned, the world does pivot around us. Consciousness is the only thing that can give anything meaning, even in theory. If there comes a day when all conscious creatures are gone, then on such a day, all meaning will have ceased to exist along with it.
I'm also interested to hear what you have to say about what happens when these critiques are turned on themselves? A critique of 'truth' or 'the human intellect' is a critique of the very sentence from which this critique originates. Are we to accept these critiques as true? Doesn't that defeat the point? Are we to hold the human intellects from which these critiques came in high regard? In accepting the above propositions, one has simultaneously rejected them.
I take your comments to mean different things than the quotes you posted. I'm actually quite fond of your mirror metaphor.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: Consciousness isn't a tool, consciousness is a part of biology. Unless you think your soft tissue is a tool too
Consciousness has ONE invariant feature in Phenomenology. It is Intentional. The conscious being always directs Consciousness, even if it is directed towards itself. In that sense, Consciousness is a tool. But Consciousness is not a "part of biology." That is basic scientific materialism. I do not consider Consciousness to be an epiphenomenon of biology, in fact as I have expressed ad nauseum on these forums, Consciousness, by names psychological, theological, mythological, or phenomenological is the Ultimate Substratum of Reality. It is the Transcendental Mystery whence space-time arose.
I am a Platonist inasmuch as the Forms, the Eternal Ideas, are encoded into the Great Chain of Being which began when the Primal Plasma cooled into Positive and Negative particles, protons and electrons, thence into Hydrogen, then into stars from which all known elements were born, matter, organic molecules, amino acids, proteins, viruses, bacterium, multicellular organisms, etc., etc....Consciousness...Self-Conscious sentient Homo sapien sapiens. I'm a philosophical Idealist in that consciousness is present throughout space-time in a mysterious, spacially and temporally unextended way. Buddhist Sunyata. The Superessential Godhead. Panentheism.
Shape a quartz crystal just so, it resonates at a particular frequency. Put a coil of copper wire and a length of the same, in line with a point of pencil graphite on a safety pin touching a rusty (oxidized) razor blade, attach an ear bud, and you will receive radio signals. Arrange a piece of steel North-South and strike it with a steel hammer, and the steel becomes magnetized. The radio signals are not produced by the copper, steel, and graphite, and neither is magnetism produced by hammered steel. The radio waves and the magnetism surround and interpenetrate, but do not originate with the matter. Likewise with our nervous system, which I view as a receiver not a creator. Matter is not the creator of higher forms of existence, biology is the 'clay' which the "Creative Intelligence" (Consciousness, Huxley's "Mind at large") uses to mirror and express itself for purposes unknown. Just my own philosophical preference.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
|
|
Well, I know it is an old idea, at least as old as Plato, but I am not sure how people even begin to think that there is a virtued basis to knowledge. Hence a fascination with "purity" of truth, is what I would I say I am critical of.
My response was partly to how people here are opining about their values, which to me is all pretty much the same in the end.
People who can't let their projected ideas (often with such practical or stereotypical human motivations as their appeal) of the world stand to critique, are not any more questionable than the people saying that the world mirrors propositional analysis in a general way. Both these human gestures, however you like to characterize them (and with whatever impressionistic caricatures that may be found fitting) are in my view equally projectional and dogmatic.
I would say this critique doesn't fold in on itself (a good turn of phrase); it is not epistemelogical nihilism in other words, because it doesn't exclude the possibility of recognizing a narrow use of human reason as something which as Wittgenstein put it "takes care of itself" as logos.
If you take the notion of the mirror analogy, but as I also see it, logical analysis is conditionally ascribed, and even on examination fractured, leading to what, as Nietzsche impressionably put it, would be a much more narrowly circumscribed practical basis of reasoning or thinking than what is suggested in the platonic ideal, or especially in the modern Cartesian ideal of certainty (Two grand rationalists, you'll note).
So Second order, hopefully this comes close to helping to clarify some of your questions.
If I could put one to you, it would be of why you are arguing for a contingent practical ethical basis for what if I am not mistaken, you regard as the universality of reason as analysis? I am not sure if that characterizes your position, correct me if I'm wrong. Here is my question in my own terms.
What if from a basis of assuming that personal integrity is the only realistic basis of ethics (my position, which includes that sincerity may be the fundamental basis of propositions) it was seen that stacking these possibly differently motivated kinds of arguments may seem to just be something of a tell, in either case of ethics or epistemology?
Philosophers like Nietzsche have argued that truth is authenticity, as in telling the truth, and that we tell a story about this, that is about as impressionable as it is melodramatic. (with a less skeptical wit, Heidegger argued for truth as the Greeks called Aleithia of unconcealing) Nietzsche's point is not about subjectivity or objectivity. It is of how we fall in love with our aura of our reflections. That is my interpretation (The rest of the essay is pretty entertaining, insightful and bombastic as well).
This is what everybody ends up arguing about, as some great and claimable intellectual sincerity, the great pursuit of truth - usually from built up positions or in the fun house of dialogue, as if it had something of essential in content in hand, through all this. I don't believe this, and I don't believe the crystalline and pure and reflective value of truth, itself, you could say. I don't think its claimable, and its an illusion, even if like Nietzsche says, an impressionable one.
We tell false gold from true gold; I can go that far, though this already begs certain questions, which we could always be candid enough to ask. My pointed question would be this; that while we have various considerations, how do we consider the proposal of propositions mirroring nature?
So that would be my basic question for you or anyone arguing for the basis of propositionality in general, beyond the modicum of honesty or sincerity. I think what I find is people are quick to impress this as moral (or intellectual degenerency of anyone who does not think the same).
I find the prospects of an epistemic project to be compelling in a certain context, and for this reason I also find certain conscionable emphasis in how this notion of truth (especially in regards to my epoch and culture) is often not recognized as the narrow simulacrum of reality, which it just as often is.
As opposed to what analytic philosophers have called the "state of affairs" of philosophy, (the appeal to propositions mirroring reality) I would not call my position subjectivist (of course this is how the position is said to fold back on itself, because that is how it is constructed), but of perspective.
The wiki on perspectivism represents that position well enough in relavence of propositions. I think the implied point is that it is a way of standing for something that is not prescribed by categorical imperatives of reason, or universal logos:
Perspectivism (German: Perspektivismus) is the term coined by Friedrich Nietzsche in developing the philosophical view (touched upon as far back as Plato's rendition of Protagoras) that all ideations take place from particular perspectives. This means that there are many possible conceptual schemes, or perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made. This is often taken to imply that no way of seeing the world can be taken as definitively "true", but does not necessarily entail that all perspectives are equally valid.
This is not such an onslought of craziness I think.
You appeal to ethics first, at least in your post Second Order. I think that is commendable, and I myself believe that sincerity can grant lucidity in what you or any person says. That is what I'd even argue. I wouldn't say that reason can't relate to ethics in any kind of way. But as for this being any particular or set kind of way, I think I'd disagree with this. The purity of truth, logic, (something Wittgenstein himself clucked about) though that is what it is, is an illusion.
I think Aristotle's statement "all men and women's conscious actions seek some form of good", may bear the suggestion of a practical basis of ethical thinking, but that doesn't imply any starting point is given in any domain. It may be that people's sought form of good is inherently at odds with others'.
Speaking of something practical, and real or at least in an epistemelogical domain: Believing certain things, may be practical, and realizable, but this doesn't make it any less of a projection. I would say the utility of truth bearance, such as in the given concrete examples you appealed to of evoking technologies, and mechanics of some redeemable value for humanity, is for whatever its worth, not what you appeal to as accurate reflection of "what is", nature. That would be my criticism, or one way knowledge is not a virtue, and is in some ways clearly demonstrating this too (at least to some minds).
Then again this of course is based on my own perspective for the most part, or namely based on my own naturalistic assumptions, which aside from these particular questions I put, may fold in. I would say it enfolds, as much as I see that enframing and "progress" in dialogue is ceaselessly and uncritically arising as something of value. The value of truth as such. The great progress of dialogue. Is this what we look upon? Well where to?
I am not necessarily always able to put a position in the form of some idealized conjecture, as what rationale may be followed to some end, or in terms of what I think "the nature" of the world is. But I think we may just have open ended questions, and that's what I come to.
What we can know as certain as projected beyond uncertainty, and categorically opposed to it, or vice versa are not generally projected bases I tend to think in. This doesn't mean I don't value epistemology, and I would say to the contrary: How is epistemology grounded? Many have asked. I think many people get lost in the technicality and fun house of discussion. Maybe some sincerity or modesty helps people get around, but that is as far as I'll go to say and really I think there are broader questions, beyond these narrow human ones.
I would say I am a pragmatist, athough I would again clarify that that doesn't mean I value what is practical in self evident or logical way. So, to perspective. Anyway, what I'll say with regards to the priorities you have mentioned, is that I appreciate the exchange of philosophy and inquiry, to the extent my gadfly of a conscience allows it...thanks for reading!
Edited by Kurt (06/12/15 11:48 PM)
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,808
|
|
Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: All of the people who hold unreasonable world views which don't hold up to criticism but decide to propagate their ideas anyway refusing to acknowledge they might be wrong. Refused to have a meaningful debate on the subject and just googles hot button words to links they've never read and don't understand as proof their claims "make sense." Because recently something making sense is now proof it's true!
Amen to that! I've had a 6 hour discussion with a creationist over the last 2 nights and was told some tremendously silly things. To me it seems that those who hold unreasonable world views, view the world from a subjective perspective instead of an objective one which is why it's so difficult to use objective reality to influence theirs.
He eventually told me that this website was good evidence for creationism. http://www.antievolution.org/cs/mclean_akridge_depo_1
One example is a claim that the suns rate of decay is constant and therefore would be touching the earth a few million years ago.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (06/12/15 08:19 PM)
|
secondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss



Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 9 months, 6 days
|
Re: do you believe science? [Re: Kurt]
#21800814 - 06/13/15 05:06 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
You make absolutely no effort to talk to people on their level do you? Haha. Don't take that personally, it's just a comment that stems from my lack of vocabulary and comprehension. I'll try my best to respond to your concerns, under the assumption that I even understood them haha:
Anyone who takes philosophy seriously will occasionally come across a argument, observation or theory that rocks their world. These leave a memorable impression on us and tend to alter the way we think and perceive the world. For myself, I encountered one of the most impactful of these whilst reading "Beyond Good and Evil" in the chapter "On the Prejudices of Philosophers":
Quote:
"And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than "truth" such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations, special kinds of maiserie, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Although it may seem fairly pedestrian to most, I found this paragraph so profound that it remained as a caveat at the back of my mind ever since. I understand, by your post, that your intention was to magnify the very same shortcoming of the human perspective: that reasoning/logic is, at its core, mere intuition. That our attempt to separate values from reasoning is destined to fail, because the only means by which we can firmly ground reason, is by using further reason, and we are left but nothing to say other than "I value reason." Am I understanding your central point?
I didn't entirely agree with, or entirely understand your use of perspectivism to avoid the argument folding in on itself. If reason is used to criticize reason, and reason wins, then reason also loses. Isn't this just one value judgement over another?
I entirely agree with your main critique, and it unsettles me now as much as it did when it was first brought to my attention by another "gadfly of a conscience": Nietzche (you would have made him proud haha). What do I have to say in reply? Without my reason, I am lost for words. I suppose I make a half-assed effort to simultaneously say "Well it's better than nothing.." and "Okay, so where do we go from here?"
I think the following quote is too apt not to post:
Quote:
“If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”
-Sam Harris
I join him in his stubborn, hopeless attempt to hold dearly to our precious reason. My precioussssss. A few years ago I talked with a metaphysics professor who, after an almost circular discussion, decided to level with me. He said (almost verbatim, although i can't remember exactly) "Eventually you've got to bite the bullet somewhere. How much work you do as a philosopher really just comes down to how big of a bullet you are willing to bite." (Another thought that had a lasting impression on me)
I am glad you hit such deep philosophical bedrock, as it's not very often people are willing to have these sorts of discussions. For now, I'll leave my stance at an only mildly comfortable "isn't seemingness a good enough basis for reason?"
|
LSDreamer
Materialist



Registered: 03/11/08
Posts: 10,052
Last seen: 7 years, 8 days
|
|
Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: All of the people who hold unreasonable world views which don't hold up to criticism but decide to propagate their ideas anyway refusing to acknowledge they might be wrong. Refused to have a meaningful debate on the subject and just googles hot button words to links they've never read and don't understand as proof their claims "make sense." Because recently something making sense is now proof it's true!
Preach it, brother! This place can be just a little bit mad sometimes
--------------------
|
|