Steelman Challenge For Intellectual Rigor

Ayn Rand ought not to be included. Marx is arguable, he was a political theorist, not a philosopher as such.

Quoting Wayfarer

Ayn Rand ought not to be included. Marx is arguable, he was a political theorist, not a philosopher as such.

I was going to leave her out, but I needed at least one philosopher.

Speaks volumes.

Quoting Wayfarer

Speaks volumes.

Speaks no volumes.

Quoting Wayfarer

Marx is arguable, he was a political theorist, not a philosopher as such.

:up:

Quoting Garrett Travers

I was going to leave her out, but I needed at least one philosopher.

Immanuel Kant would've been enough if so.

Quoting Agent Smith

Immanuel Kant would've been enough if so.

Immanuel Can't.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Immanuel Kant

So, one of the key Kantian doctrines, synthetic apriority, had been largely formulated with the example of Euclidean geometry in mind that Kant used. But unfortunately, Kant's ideas were prior to the awareness that there could be what is non-Euclidean geometry: that is, hyperbolic, spherical and the many other we know from our contemporary perspective thanks to the discoveries of Gauss and Schweikart. So the perceived synthetic status of geometry is deflated to analytic status based on axioms and definition, and indeed the sides of a triangle really didn't have to add up to 180 degrees or whatever other purported synthetic facts we knew apriori. These were not in virtue of innate connection of predicate concepts but definition, reducing Kant's project to analytic apriority.

Reply to Garrett Travers :smirk:

Karl Marx —> statist; critical socioeconomist; not a philosopher

Immanuel Kant —> noumena (plurality) is self-contradictory by his own definitions.

Ayn Rand —> dogmatic sophist and ideologue; not even a bad philosopher (but shitty novelist).

Michel Foucault —> 'historical epistemes' constitute epochal (incommensurable) truths, which begs the question of the truth-value of "historical epistemes constitute epochal truths" ... (i.e. like "relativism" – if consistent, then relativism is relative; if inconsistent, then relativism refutes itself).

Quoting Kuro

So, one of the key Kantian doctrines, synthetic apriority, had been largely formulated with the example of Euclidean geometry in mind that Kant used. But unfortunately, Kant's ideas were prior to the awareness that there could be what is non-Euclidean geometry: that is, hyperbolic, spherical and the many other we know from our contemporary perspective thanks to the discoveries of Gauss and Schweikart. So the perceived synthetic status of geometry is deflated to analytic status based on axioms and definition, and indeed the sides of a triangle really didn't have to add up to 180 degrees or whatever other purported synthetic facts we knew apriori. These were not in virtue of innate connection of predicate concepts but definition, reducing Kant's project to analytic apriority.

You would pull the geometry out first go. Alright, let's go.

So then, what you'll have to do is describe how someone would concluded such a fact, moreso than simply stating as much. Which is to say, explain how your Gauss and Schweikart discoverd the complex nature of non-euclidean geometry without reference to any principles theretofore established by which to do so?

Quoting 180 Proof

Karl Marx

Marx is not only the most influential philosopher of the of the past two centuries, he is the person who first fully understood and posited the idea of the definition of the nature of the human-being as a relationship between separate aspects of his specific culture that is foisted upon his being without his consent. Which is fundamentally the nature of Capital accrual, and how those who accrue Capital maintain control of said Capital, while keeping those him, the one exploited for it, coerced into labor and traditions determined by them through enclosure, heavy taxation, and war. So, I'd say Marx is the first philosopher to posit something actionable, making him more of a philosopher than, say, any of you here, or any of the people you regard as philosophers. The navel gazers, in other words.

Quoting 180 Proof

Immanuel Kant

Noumena cannot be self-contradictory, as what ever is itself, is itself a priori. Thus, any human invested concept into a thing that is itself a priori is, by definition, a contradiction of its nature that he places on it, not a contradiction of itself. And is especially so if a thing in itself is ascribed the characteristic of being contradictory to itself.

Quoting 180 Proof

Ayn Rand

Sophist: a fallacious argument, especially one used deliberately to deceive.

P1. If humans need reason to survive
P2. and if to survive in accordance with his/her own point of statisfaction and standards, he/she must at all times produce by means by use of his/her reason
P3. and Capitalism is the only known system that respects all of a human's affects of their own actions and production
C. then Capitalism is the only system known to be conducive to the human's life, and is the only moral system

Name the fallacy.

Also, provide an example of a good book.

Quoting 180 Proof

Michel Foucault

To demonstrate the truth of that, given that humans aren't some sort of proposition, you're going to have to describe which epochal truth you have in mind that he highlighted, or described, and describe to me how it DIDN'T happen. Because A=A is, in fact, a factual statement, irrespective of whether or not it is begging the question.

Reply to Garrett Travers

Quoting Garrett Travers

So then, what you'll have to do is describe how someone would concluded such a fact, moreso than simply stating as much. Which is to say, explain how your Gauss and Schweikart discoverd the complex nature of non-euclidean geometry without reference to any principles theretofore established by which to do so?

I'm a little confused by the nature of your request here. Axioms and first principles are first principles for a reason, namely that they're not a "conclusion," a sort of proposition entailed by some prior set of propositions. Because had they been conclusions, they'd simply be a theorem of some prior proposition instead of an axiom. And if these propositions they're entailed from aren't axioms, then you just run the theorem game forever until you reach the axioms: the stopping points.

Our subjunctive mood would be that given different definitions & axioms, we get different theorems and therefore geometries, so there's little reason to not abandon the synthetic thesis because the analyticity is conspicuous.

Quoting Kuro

I'm a little confused by the nature of your request here. Axioms and first principles are first principles for a reason, namely that they're not a "conclusion," a sort of proposition entailed by some prior set of propositions.

Yeah, you know this specific topic in Kant I thought I might be able to pull off, but it's been kind of done and dusted for a while. The only thing I could challenge with, would be to say that irrespective of which axioms you discover or geometries you develop from them, any proposition posited with those axioms will be themselves predicated on synthetic truths that preceded them in practice. That, of course, analytically established axioms will produce analytical propositions.

Reply to Kuro

Do you really think Kant didn’t know about spherical geometry? And didn’t take care to qualify his postulates accordingly?

Reply to Garrett Travers :cry:

Quoting 180 Proof

:cry:

It's a game, damnit, just play along! lol

Quoting Garrett Travers

Capitalism is the only system known to be conducive to the human's life, and is the only moral system.

Found it: capitalism.

Below is an argument I'm kind of fond of.


1. Laissez-faire market forces reflect some set of human desires.
2. Said set of human desires includes immoral desires.
3. Laissez-faire market forces in part reflect immoral desires.

Reply to Mww Quoting Mww

Do you really think Kant didn’t know about spherical geometry? And didn’t take care to qualify his postulates accordingly?

Kant died in around the early 1800's. Bolyai made the first publication of non-Euclidean geometry around three or so decades afterwards. Gauss had the same ideas for the majority of his life in drafted notes but never published them for fearing controversy.

And these were top mathematicians. I'd suspect Kant didn't somehow discover non-Euclidean geometry decades before the mathematicians did, let alone keep it in his head despite discovering it especially when it offered such a strong challenge against a central doctrine of his work.

Mathematicians before this time (aside Gauss) thought that only Euclid's axioms could consistently capture geometry, in other words, that Euclidean geometry is the only geometry. This (mistaken) idea is what set ground for one of Kant's important ideas, which was corrected briefly after his death.

So yes, I "really" think that. In fact, I don't see what's so surprising or unusual about thinking that people generally don't discover things that were discovered after their death, because had they, they'd be the ones who actually discovered them, and for the reasons provided earlier I can't imagine anyone seriously thinking Kant, instead of Gauss, Bolyai & Schweikart is who truly discovered non-Euclidean geometry, especially considering not only the lack of evidence but the severe implausibility that comes along this sort of claim.

Reply to Kuro

You are correct with respect to the advent of a non-Euclidean axiomatic system. I misspoke by asking about spherical geometry, the determinant axioms of which Kant would not have known, when I should have been more calculating, by addressing spherical trigonometry, the distinguishing logical conditions of which he would. My fault....the subject was triangles, so I just figured, you know....spherical triangles. I find it absurd to think Kant didn’t comprehend a necessary difference between the two shapes.

It is reasonable to suppose he used planar figures and predications, without actually saying so, merely for simplicity, it being tacitly understood that any triangle, including those with spherical predicates known about since Greek mathematicians wrote of them, will still have but three sides and three interior angles, two sides together will be longer than the remaining side, and none of those conceptions alone will give a triangle as a constructed figure. Hence, synthetic apriority holds no matter the axiomatic set, and it becomes clear it makes no difference whatsoever that he didn't know non-Euclidean geometry.

It is worth remembering that Kantian transcendental philosophy has to do with objects in general, and not the specific empirical examples which only follow from them. In Kant, then, synthetic a priori is a condition in itself, respecting the connection of different conceptions to each other in judgements, for which an empirical example is nothing but a possible consequent.

So.....while it is true non-Euclidean geometry falsifies some Euclidean axioms, it is not true non-Euclidean geometry falsifies Kantian synthetic a priori judgements. Or, I must say, a more complete demonstration that it does, would be appreciated.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

1. Laissez-faire market forces reflect some set of human desires.
2. Said set of human desires includes immoral desires.
3. Laissez-faire market forces in part reflect immoral desires.

What are we defining as immoral?

Quoting Mww

So.....while it is true non-Euclidean geometry falsifies some Euclidean axioms, it is not true non-Euclidean geometry falsifies Kantian synthetic a priori judgements. Or, I must say, a more complete demonstration that it does, would be appreciated.

Not that Kantian Mathematics is my particular strong point, my focus is ethics, but the fact that falsifiablity can't be applied to the subject is kind of the issue. From what I can gather, this particular problem has been done and dusted for some time, in accordance with the fact that all geometry is indeed analytical. This isn't something people still adhere to as a position, and is impossible to subject to anything other than linguistic scrutiny. Which is kind of a first clue that there isn't much substance there. A priori synthetic knowledge is itself an interpolation of values into a given framework that requires us to work backward to conclude that, in accordance with that framework's vlues, the values contained within were already present and known to us. They weren't, these are just the symbols we give to phenomena to understand certain aspects of them that are not necessarily fixed. You can tell this by taking any a priori proposition and replacing a key term with the letter x. Unless you know what that value is, you have no clue what it is saying, meaning the proposition has to have prearranged symbols of meaning injected into it before one can conlude such a staetment to be "a priori synthetic knowledge."

Quoting Garrett Travers

What are we defining as immoral?

That's the question.

To my view, desires that reflect an exorbitant greed ought to be considered immoral.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

That's the question.

To my view, desires that reflect an exorbitant greed ought to be considered immoral.

Exorbitant greed isn't something that falls within laissez-faire. It's a human characteristic. But such a characteristic is present in all societies. In laissez-faire, such characteristics would not be institutionalized via a monopoly on force. And immoral market forces would be entirely subject to the moral response of the rest of society. Greed that is not predicated on either survival, or otherwise rational pursuit is always evil, because such actions can harm oneself, or others. When greed in such a market extends beyond harm of the individual, they will face backlash not only from customers, but also competition. Unlike today where our greedy corps are granted tax breaks, contracts, patent protections, regulatory protections, and access to millions of dollars in treasuries. Which one sounds more greed inclusive.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Exorbitant greed isn't something that falls within laissez-faire.

What is there to restrain it?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

What is there to restrain it?

You'll need to read the rest of my statement to figure that out. But, apart from that, a laissez-faire system does not necessarily imply an absence of a state that could be used to protect citizens from harm, only one that is limited in its direct access to influence the economy. Which is the proper place of government: no where near the labor, or products of the labor, of humans. With the only exception being the protection of the rights of every individual.

Quoting Garrett Travers

And immoral market forces would be entirely subject to the moral response of the rest of society.

The creation of government agencies to redistribute wealth is "the moral response of the rest of society."

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

The creation of government agencies to redistribute wealth is "the moral response of the rest of society."

"Redistribution" is a fake term that only means robbery backed by lethal force. Nothing else. It isn't a moral response to anything. Morality does not consist in violating the human consciousness. Robbing someone of their wealth does not create wealth, nor does it help the people to whom it is distributed. It simply creates the perception that robbery is a justifiable means of income, thus perpetuating an eternal system of government expansion, as we now see all over the world.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Robbing someone of their wealth does not create wealth, nor does it help the people to whom it is distributed.

I want to remind you that we're talking about wealth-accumulation motivated by immoral desires.

Redistribution of wealth accumulated immorally is hardly robbery. You might even call it justice.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I want to remind you that we're talking about wealth-accumulation motivated by immoral desires.

Wealth generation, correction there - it doesn't just get accumulated, it has to be generated- cannot be motivated by immoral desires, unless an organization is protected by a government. An organization after generating enough wealth, which requires the production of value that is determined by a democratic consensus via monetary votes, can then use such money to do something that is immoral, but that is when either force can be used to stop them from violations, or customers can boycott, and businesses can compete. The market will provide corrections in and of itself for harmful market activity, including the generation of unions and co-ops- yes, that's laissez-faire too. Which, mind you, is infinitely preferable in any variation, than state depridations and harmful activity. Businesses haven't committed genocide after all.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Redistribution of wealth accumulated immorally is hardly robbery. You might even call it justice.

Wealth accumulated immorally would imply violations of human rights. Theft, extortion, money laundering, etc. Businesses are predicated on, and generate wealth via the production of socially useful products and customer satisfaction standards. The only exceptions are state protected corps, and even they do this for the most part as often as they can to stay afloat. They just get away with a good deal more shady shit than they would in laissez-faire, because of said protections. So, you aren't thinking this through. You've been trained to hate business people- while wearing clothes, using computers, and shopping at grocery stores no doubt- by the people who want you to vote for them, who also happen to be protecting the behavior you abhor. You've proposed nothing that sounds anything like justice. And it may do some good to consider that the term justice, has absolutely no meaning. It is a completely relative term to anyone and everyone who uses it. My justice would be never violating my consciousness for as long as I live. Which is the first ethical principle, without which no ethical doctrine can call itself legitimate.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Wealth accumulated immorally would imply violations of human rights.

Of course. The exploitation of labor. Exorbitant profits and starvation wages. The usual.

Quoting Garrett Travers

this particular problem has been done and dusted for some time, in accordance with the fact that all geometry is indeed analytical.

“....Just as little is any principle of pure geometry analytical.....”
(CPR, B16)

Proper steelmanning, and even Socratic dialectics, needs to show how geometry/mathematics in Kant was not proof of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. That all geometry is analytical is beside the point, insofar as not all synthetic a priori cognitions are mathematical.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Of course. The exploitation of labor. Exorbitant profits and starvation wages. The usual.

There's nothing immoral about exorbitant profits. Wages aren't exploitation if labor is voluntary. All of that is garbage. Barrowed ideas from a plagiarist with unoriginal ideas, identifying the wrong problems. Where does this entitlement to other's property come from in you lefties spouting the words of a dead man whose ideas have cause mass genocide?

Quoting Mww

Proper steelmanning, and even Socratic dialectics, needs to show how geometry/mathematics in Kant was not proof of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. That all geometry is analytical is beside the point, insofar as not all synthetic a priori cognitions are mathematical.

That's a fine point. But, as I said, this particular topic, being mathematics not philosophy, isn't really my area. I'm reporting what is in the history on the subject. But, yes, completely fair.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Wages aren't exploitation if labor is voluntary.

Is labor voluntary when the laborer has to choose between starvation and working for starvation wages?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Is labor voluntary when the laborer has to choose between starvation and working for starvation wages?

From the perspective of the person offering labor through job creation? 100%. Those conditions are natural to man. Production is a rational pursuit, one in which the pursuer is entitled to the contents of his reason's product. You want to be angry about enclosure and being able to form communes free of private property claims? You blame the state that makes it so. Not the people who create jobs that you wouldn't have access to otherwise.

Quoting Garrett Travers

From the perspective of the person offering labor through job creation? 100%.

That's where we disagree. I would call it compulsory labor. Work or die.

Your view - and perhaps Rand's view as well - eschews compassion for the billions of unskilled laborers at the heart of all wealth-creation and - accumulation.

Reply to Garrett Travers

Thanks for the fair point, but nevertheless, synthetic a priori judgements are the very ground of transcendental philosophy. They are the prime refutation of Hume-ian empiricism.....that which should NOT be committed to the flames for its abstract reasoning.....and tacit support for Descartes’ rational, albeit problematic, subject/object duality.

For whatever that’s worth......

Quoting Mww

Thanks for the fair point, but nevertheless, synthetic a priori judgements are the very ground of transcendental philosophy. They are the prime refutation of Hume-ian empiricism.....that which should NOT be committed to the flames for its abstract reasoning.....and tacit support for Descartes’ rational, albeit problematic, subject/object duality.

For whatever that’s worth......

Sure, of course. Had the criticism of Kant been directed at that, and not his math, I would have argued in response from his position. However, the one comment for Kant so far has been on math, lol.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

That's where we disagree. I would call it compulsory labor. Work or die.

Compulsory labor requires that others force you to work. If you being required to work in accordance with your nature, and the nature of the world demanding you use your reason to devise a framework of behavior to navigate it, that's not compulsory. That'd be like saying you have compulsory sight, that you're compelled to wear glasses. It's like... No, people make glasses so people in your position can see, and because of that, they're rich, and you're this way by nature, no one forced you. Deal with it. Same thing goes for labor. You are not forced to work by the people employing you, it's an absolutely absurd position.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Your view - and perhaps Rand's view as well - eschews compassion for the billions of unskilled laborers at the heart of all wealth-creation and - accumulation.

It does not eschew compassion, it negates humans being duty-bound to give it. And no, most wealth creation starts as individually conducted private enterprise. I do not, and neither did Rand, eschew any compassion for people genuinely trying to make their lives better. It's just, she holds that for compassion to be a virtue it must be applied to those you value as also representing your own, or being aligned with you own values. For example, I have no compassion for unskilled laborers who are satisfied with remaining that way. It's really more like selective compassion, than anything else. But, this compulsory-by-shame compassion that these left types preach, is simply evil. You have no idea what kind of people you could be providing compassion to. I have an unskilled laborer in-law in my immediate purview who just cheated on his wife and abandoned her over night with all of the bills, you gonna give him compassion? I have a cousin who's an unskilled worker who has abused her kids dementedly, they're not allowed to see her anymore, you gonna give her compassion? That's what we of the mind are highlighting. Not that compassion is to be dispensed with entirely.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I have no compassion for unskilled laborers who are satisfied with remaining that way. It's really more like selective compassion, than anything else.

Got it. Selective compassion.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Got it. Selective compassion.

That is correct.

Quoting Garrett Travers

That is correct.

Would you say Rand shares this view? Interested in a direct quote from Rand.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Would you say Rand shares this view? Interested in a direct quote from Rand.

I don't have a direct quote off mind. I believe she mentioned as much in a ninterview on one of Donahue's episodes with her. But, it's kind of a recurring theme in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. For example, Roark meets a young artist whose been beaten down by society whom he finds broken and defeated, and Roark sits with him all night while he cries. They become best friends and Roark pays for him to live and try to sell his artwork. Yes, 100% I believe Rand agrees with exactly my assessment, or did.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I believe Rand agrees with exactly my assessment, or did.

Thanks.

If you bump into a more corroborative Rand reference in the future, feel free to send it along.

:smile:

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Thanks.

If you bump into a more corroborative Rand reference in the future, feel free to send it along.

Let me go see If I can't find something for you.

Reply to ZzzoneiroCosm

Here's her from an article in Playboy years ago:

I regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty. If one feels compassion for the victims of a concentration camp, one cannot feel it for the torturers. If one does feel compassion for the torturers, it is an act of moral treason toward the victims.

But, it's a pretty recurring theme in multiple forms throughout her work.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Here's

Sweet, thanks

Quoting Garrett Travers

innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty.

I wonder if unskilled laborers would be considered innocent victims or morally guilty.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I wonder if unskilled laborers would be considered innocent victims or morally guilty.

Again, it depends on their behavior. How would you rank the people I described early? My in-law and my cousin? Let's just for argument's sake, accept that I told you the perfect truth. Are you gonna show them compassion as unskilled laborers?

Quoting Garrett Travers

My in-law and my cousin?

I don't see a reason to link their immoral behavior to their status as unskilled laborer. Those are separate things.

As a social worker and psychotherapist in training, yes, I feel compassion for all kinds of suffering, even suffering infused with immorality. Suffering is suffering.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I don't see a reason to link their immoral behavior to their status as unskilled laborer. Those are separate things.

As a social worker and psychotherapist in training, yes, I feel compassion for all kinds of suffering, even suffering infused with immorality. Suffering is suffering.

Right, whereas we assert that compassion is a morally valenced idea that requires that assessment. Unskilled worker is simply a characteristic, like hair color, or knowledge level on something. How you act morally is the standard by which compassion should be distributed. You wouldn't regard Hitler as subject for compassion, simply because he ended up an unskilled worker, or poor.

Quoting Garrett Travers

You wouldn't regard Hitler as subject for compassion,

Absolutely, I would. His was a life of intense suffering. Poor tyrant.

Obviously his deeds and ideology are the acme of immorality and ought to be denounced in the strongest terms.

But the suffering of the lost, deranged, delusional, inferior-feeling, man, Adolph - I feel a lot of compassion for the suffering individual I meet when I pick up Mein Kampf.

So no compassion for unskilled laborers because just because Hitler was an unskilled laborer doesn't mean he deserves compassion. OK got it.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Absolutely, I would. His was a life of intense suffering. Poor tyrant.

Obviously his deeds and ideology are the acme of immorality and ought to be denounced in the strongest terms.

But the suffering of the lost, deranged, delusional, inferior-feeling, man, Adolph - I feel a lot of compassion for the suffering individual I meet when I pick up Mein Kampf.

I don't. I regard it as a shame there's not a hell for that cock sucker to burn in forever. When I think of the small children naked and screaming, stuffed like fucking sauages in concrete building in Poland, with a deisel engine pouring fumes in to murder them, and then their naked and beaten brethren being forced to pull them all out, dead, and place them in trenches; only to be made a few months later, when the corpses of their people and family were stinking in the summer heat to be exumed, rotting, from the very ground they placed them in, piece by rotten piece, to be fed to a fire that would hide their crime because the Americans and Russians were coming... That kind of settles that for me. I just described to you a daily routine on the sands of Treblinka, sands that he walked on and oversaw.. But, sure. Compassion is a duty. My, my....

Quoting theRiddler

So no compassion for unskilled laborers because just because Hitler was an unskilled laborer doesn't mean he deserves compassion. OK got it.

Got it, ok.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Compassion is a duty.

Not a duty. Feelings of universal compassion are a reflection of a more studied or nuanced understanding of neurosis and psychosis.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Not a duty. Feelings of universal compassion are a reflection of a more studied or nuanced understanding of neurosis and psychosis

Go on...

Quoting Garrett Travers

Compulsory labor requires that others force you to work.

Does this include mind control?

Quoting Average

Does this include mind control?

If such is real. But, I was particularly highlighting that the concept of "starvation-wages" and "compulsory work" are not a thing when one volunteers to sign a labor contract. And that describes every worker in America, just about.

Reply to Garrett Travers okay I was just checking.

Quoting Garrett Travers

"starvation-wages" and "compulsory work" are not a thing when one volunteers to sign a labor contract.

It would seem somewhat incoherent to me if someone asserted that work could be compulsory, meaning involuntary, if you voluntarily agreed to work. Because in order for something to be voluntary it has to be free from compulsion. It’s almost tautological.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Go on...

Do you agree that folks with mental illness are victims of mental illness?

Quoting Average

It would seem somewhat incoherent to me if someone asserted that work could be compulsory, meaning involuntary, if you voluntarily agreed to work. Because in order for something to be voluntary it has to be free from compulsion. It’s almost tautological.

More contradictory than tautological. But, I've rarely seen anything more contradictory than the views that inform this kind of conclusion. It comes from a reading of history that did involve compulsory work, during the Enclosure Movement, when the commons were first shuttered by state expropriation and and declared ownership of land to be used for certain economic purposes regarding agricultural output. Such action, taking place after Charlemagne became Holy Roman Emperor, and the Feudal system really took off. In short, the state usurped land that had been the serf's one common commodity upon which to draw resources, for its own use, relegating humans to cut out pieces of land, know as "demesne." This process grew and grew until 18th and 19th centuries, after Mercantilism dawned on the world scene, which is an evolved form of Feudalism with lords chartering companies to be used as economic behemoths, which has now given birth to the modern economy that is, for some strange reason, referred to as "Capitalism." The difference is now, though, that people are at least respected in their property rights, which frees up the economy enough for people to create jobs, which you can voluntarily take employment with, based on your own standards for work. This freedom being mistaken for the wage-slavery and compulsory work that is no longer in existence.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Do you agree that folks with mental illness are victims of mental illness?

Yes. If we're talking neurological disorders.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yes. If we're talking neurological disorders.

So you accept that it's rational to feel compassion for folks with mental illness?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

So you accept that it's rational to feel compassion for folks with mental illness?

I do.

Quoting Garrett Travers

More contradictory than tautological.

I agree that it would be a contradiction to assert the voluntary work is compulsory work. What I meant by tautological was that voluntary work is automatically not compulsory.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I do

Do you accept that Hitler had a mental illness?

Quoting Average

I agree that it would be a contradiction to assert the voluntary work is compulsory work. What I meant by tautological was that voluntary work is automatically not compulsory.

Yes. As all propositions that are both valid, and sound are tautological, so too is the this presentation to you. It is voluntary, because it's voluntary. A=A. See how A=A is tautological? That's a logical truism. Everything that is true is tautological. How do I know if something is true? I'm looking at, it's right there. How do we know the sun is really there? Because it is self-evidently emergent in the universe. A=A.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Do you accept that Hitler had a mental illness?

Yes.

Reply to Garrett Travers I don’t know if it makes sense to use mathematical symbols like the one for equality in the context of epistemology. 2+2=4 but I don’t know what A=A means.

Quoting Average

I don’t know if it makes sense to use mathematical symbols like the one for equality in the context of epistemology. 2+2=4 but I don’t know what A=A means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity

Reply to Garrett Travers I’m familiar with the law I’m just not on board with the way it is represented Or symbolized.

Right, such is clear from the "how do we know what we know" discussion. Unfortunately it is something that simply cannot be argued with. Not in any falsifiable manner. But, exploring that is all perfectly good and well.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Not in any falsifiable manner.

I’m not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make about falsification. Are you referring to my mirage hypothesis?

Quoting Average

I’m not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make about falsification. Are you referring to my mirage hypothesis?

No, I'm saying that if an assertion about a fact of the world cannot be placed under the scrutiny of falsification, meaning it can be tested in a manner that has the potential to dispprove it in one or more ways, then it isn't science, per Karl Popper, and should thereby be dismissed from one's philosophical approach until such a time that it can.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Do you accept that Hitler had a mental illness?
— ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes.

My dear fellow, were you under the impression that this confirmation of mine ended our line of discussion on the topic?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yes.

Okay, that gives us this syllogism:

It's rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness. Hitler had a mental illness. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

It's rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness. Hitler had a mental illness. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

It is rational. But, only on that basis. You seem to be forgetting something, so I'll turn the question around to see what you say:

Is it rational to have compassion for mass murderers?

Just a confirmation or a denial will do.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, I'm saying that if an assertion about a fact of the world cannot be placed under the scrutiny of falsification, meaning it can be tested in a manner that has the potential to dispprove it in one or more ways, then it isn't science, per Karl Popper, and should thereby be dismissed from one's philosophical approach until such a time that it can.

What assertion are you referring to though? Is it the assertion that a thing isn’t what it is?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

It's rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness. Hitler had a mental illness. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

Proper form would look like this:

If it's rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness, then it is rational to have compassion for Hitler as someone who suffered from a mental illness.
It is rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness,
Therefore it is rational to have compassion for Hitler as someone who suffered from mental illness.

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Modus Ponens

Quoting Average

What assertion are you referring to though? Is it the assertion that a thing isn’t what it is?

The one about it not being compulsory, because it is voluntary. But, logically, any valid proposition, or sound proposition is tautological.

Reply to Garrett Travers oh ok thanks for clarifying.

Quoting Average

oh ok thanks for clarifying.

Does that makes sense? Or, still a little confusing?

Reply to Garrett Travers no the only part that confused me was the introduction of the whole a thing is what it is and couldn’t possibly be what it isn’t concept. That concept traditionally being represented by A=A.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Proper form would look like this:

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

It's rational to feel compassion for people with mental illness. Hitler had a mental illness. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

Tidied up a bit:

(You've already accepted the premises.)

P1. It's rational to feel compassion for a person with mental illness.
P2. Hitler was a person with mental illness.
C. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

P1. It's rational to feel compassion for a person with mental illness.
P2. Hitler was a person with mental illness.
C. Therefore, it's rational to feel compassion for Hitler.

This is improper, but no worries I get the gist. Yes, I accept the whole argument as valid.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yes, I accept the whole argument as valid.

Good.

On to the unskilled laborer.

If an unskilled laborer - in light of mental illness and lack of access to mental health services - is inhibited from self-development and career advancement, is it rational to feel compassion for him?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Good.

On to the unskilled laborer.

If an unskilled laborer - in light of mental illness and lack of access to mental health services - is inhibited from self-development and career advancement, is it rational to feel compassion for him?

Yes. I think I've already confirmed this position.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yes.

Okay. So there's more room for compassion in your view than I originally thought.

Mental illness rates among the impoverished are about twice that of the rest of us.

Quoting Garrett Travers

How do I know if something is true? I'm looking at, it's right there. How do we know the sun is really there? Because it is self-evidently emergent in the universe.

The only problem I have with this is that I have no way of knowing if I’m really looking at something that actually exists because I could be hallucinating or dreaming etc. I know we already discussed this and I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Plus this is a discussion devoted to an entirely different purpose and I don’t want to ignore that.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Is it rational to have compassion for mass murderers?

This is the same as the Hitler example.

If the mass murderer has a mental illness, it's rational to feel compassion for him.


Seeing the wild, deranged, shell-shocked eyes in the courtroom of that nutso Joker dude who shot up the Batman crowd in Colorado - my emotional systems responded with profound compassion.

Obviously, we have to hold mass murderers accountable for their evil deeds. But provision of inpatient mental health services seems far more rational to me than locking them up and throwing away the key.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Okay. So there's more room for compassion in your view than I originally thought.

Mental illness rates among the impoverished are about twice that of the rest of us.

I know, I've met them. Again, neither my view, nor Rands view are dismissive of natural inhibitors as far as compassion goes. Just that such does not ever make it my duty to provide for them. I'll explain that and Hitler below:

Hypothetical Syllogism

If humans are the source of reason, then they are the source of morality.
If they are the source of morality, then they are inviolable.
Humans are the source of reason, therefore the human is inviolable.

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If a person is a mass murder, then it is irrational to have compassion for him/her.
If it is irrational to have compassion for him/her, then compassion for him/her is not moral.
Hitler is a mass murder, therefore it is immoral to have compassion for him.

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Cognition: the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience.
Reason: the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way.
Rationality: the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic.
Ethics: the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
Principle: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.
Morality: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

You'll notice the order of these definitions is provided to highlight the order in which they arise out of human cognition. They'll correspond to my syllogisms. Tell me what you think. You see if humans are the source of ethics, no action can be justified to to violate a human, as to do so would violate ethics. And when you're Hitler and you violate millions, I don't care about your mental illness.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

This is the same as the Hitler example.

If the mass murderer has a mental illness, it's rational to feel compassion for him.


Seeing the wild, deranged, shell-shocked eyes in the courtroom of that nutso Joker dude who shot up the Batman crowd in Colorado - my emotional systems responded with profound compassion.

Obviously, we have to hold mass murderers accountable for their evil deeds. But provision of inpatient mental health services seems far more rational to me than locking them up and throwing away the key.

Let's not be silly. Defer to my syllogisms.

Quoting Average

The only problem I have with this is that I have no way of knowing if I’m really looking at something that actually exists because I could be hallucinating or dreaming etc. I know we already discussed this and I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Plus this is a discussion devoted to an entirely different purpose and I don’t want to ignore that.

Well, I'll tackle it one more time. You have no reason to suggest you aren't seeing it. What would constitute evidence of you having hallucinated something?

Quoting Garrett Travers

You have no reason to suggest you aren't seeing it. What would constitute evidence of you having hallucinated something?

Good question. I need to think about it.

Quoting Average

Good question. I need to think about it.

Yes, and while you do, think about all the stimulatory evidence you get every waking moment of your life that you are in fact not hallucinating. Then think about what constitutes empirical, scientific evidence, then compare what ever you come up with as hallucination evidence, with empirical evidence. Then get back to me.

Reply to Garrett Travers your question makes me remember a logical fallacy. I think it might be a form of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Keep in mind that I’m not saying I am hallucinating just that I don’t know if I am or not.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Let's not be silly.

Not sure what's ringing silly to you but I'm certain nothing silly has been said. :smile:

I'm off work the next two days so I should have some time soon to look at your syllogism.

Quoting Average

your question makes me remember a logical fallacy. I think it might be a form of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Keep in mind that I’m not saying I am hallucinating just that I don’t know if I am or not.

Excellent thinking

The argument from ignorance fallacy: It says something is true because it has not yet been proved false. Or, that something is false if it has not yet been proved true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false. It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false.

The assumption of a conclusion or fact based primarily on lack of evidence to the contrary. Usually best described by, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Now, there's an element to this fallacy that makes my statement to you not an argument from ignorance. What do you think that is?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Not sure what's ringing silly to you but I'm certain nothing silly has been said.

We'll go over it, my friend. It's pretty silly, but not stupid. Just.. Unfinished, as it were.

Reply to Garrett Travers all I know is that you said “ You have no reason to suggest you aren't seeing it.” which seemed fishy but now you’ve got me curious. What is the element to the fallacy that makes this not an argument from ignorance?

Quoting Garrett Travers

It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false.

Maybe the element is somewhere in here.

Quoting Average

all I know is that you said “ You have no reason to suggest you aren't seeing it.” which seemed fishy but now you’ve got me curious. What is the element to the fallacy that makes this not an argument from ignorance?

It's not a an argument from ignorance, because I have no burden of proof. I simply suggested to ask yourself what the evidence suggests, and to test the quality between the different types of evidence. Now, had you said: "I clearly hallucinated, or, I clearly did not hallucinate." And I asked for proof, this still wouldn't be the fallacy. The fallacy would only occur, if I said; "there you go, there's your answer." Either for, or against hallucination, based either on presence of evidence, or no presence of evidence.

Quoting Garrett Travers

It's not a an argument from ignorance, because I have no burden of proof. I simply suggested to ask yourself what the evidence suggests, and to test the quality between the different types of evidence.

I agree that you don’t have any burden of proof but what kind of test do you have in mind? I can’t think of any way to test for this kind of phenomenon.

Quoting Average

I agree that you don’t have any burden of proof but what kind of test do you have in mind? I can’t think of anyway to test for this kind of phenomenon.

That's because there's no way to. Which means the idea that it is a question in your mind, is as irrational as having the question of whether you've been to North Korea, or not in your mind. You can test for both equally. There's your proof. Not that there's no evidence, but you can't even search for it. It's a negative proof. There is no way to test it. And there never will be.

Quoting Garrett Travers

If they are the source of morality, then they are inviolable.

This premise needs support or fleshing out. As is, it doesn't make much sense; the second clause doesn't follow from the first.

Quoting Garrett Travers

If a person is a mass murder, then it is irrational to have compassion for him/her.

If a person is a mass murderer [and is not a person with mental illness] then it is irrational to have compassion for him/her.

You've already conceded that it's rational to have compassion for a person with mental illness.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

If a person is a mass murderer [and is not a person with mental illness] then it is irrational to have compassion for him/her.

You've already conceded that it's rational to have compassion for a person with mental illness.

We'll get there, first I need to know if you accept the argument as valid. I don't mean true, I mean valid.

Reply to Garrett Travers

I'm not a logician but it looks valid to me.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I'm not a logician but it looks valid to me.

No worries, I had to jump back into myself after dealing with jackass on the other thread. But, yes, it is valid. Now, even if it is sounds, as I would regard both mine and yours to be, a syllogism is really only predicated on its own variables. So, I can literally use one or the other to negate one or the other. Make sense?

Quoting Garrett Travers

So, I can literally use one or the other to negate one or the other. Make sense?

Seems to make sense. Have to see how it plays out.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Seems to make sense. Have to see how it plays out.

Yes, it's easy:

If murder and mental illness are both factors in applying compassion, then neither can be asserted as the sole predicated in applying compassion when both are present in an individual.
Murder and mental illness are both factors in applying compassion.
Therefore, neither can be asserted as the sole predicated in applying compassion to Hitler.

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So, where do you think people go when logic fails as a definitive way to conclude something of this nature? As I have shown it does easily. Also quite simple:

If multiple factors for applying compassion exist, then a selective application of compassion is required.
Multiple factors for applying compassion exist.
Therefore, a selective application of compassion is required.

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Meaning, selective compassion is both a valid, and sound argument.

Quoting Garrett Travers

If murder and mental illness are both factors in applying compassion...

All that makes sense logically. But I don't agree that murder is a factor when applying compassion. To my view, all human beings, even all creatures, are deserving of compassion.


I regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty. If one feels compassion for the victims of a concentration camp, one cannot feel it for the torturers. If one does feel compassion for the torturers, it is an act of moral treason toward the victims.

Rand

A person with moral guilt would be just as deserving of compassion as a person without moral guilt if there were such a creature. Happily, no person without moral guilt exists so Rand's argument is easy to reject. Rand's view above strikes me as cold-hearted.

For a taste of the obverse view, I'd suggest Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who spent time in the Nazi camps. His book is considered a masterpiece of psychology, translated into 24 languages.

Quoting 180 Proof

if consistent, then relativism is relative; if inconsistent, then relativism refutes itself)

So the argument goes. If all truths are relative, then also relativism is relative. But relativism speaks *about* truths. About their nature. It doesn't speak about its own truth. It's an approach. Like absolutism.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

All that makes sense logically. But I don't agree that murder is a factor when applying compassion. To my view, all human beings, even all creatures, are deserving of compassion.

Right, which as we established, is irrational.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

A person with moral guilt would be just as deserving of compassion as a person without moral guilt if there were such a creature. Happily, no person without moral guilt exists so Rand's argument is easy to reject. Rand's view above strikes me as cold-hearted.

It's not cold hearted, it's simply not irrational. The thing about it is, we've established logically that such is irrational, and you simply hold to your emotional assessment of it. So, let's try a different application. DOes everybody deserve to have their minds free from the initiation of force?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

For a taste of the obverse view, I'd suggest Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who spent time in the Nazi camps. His book is considered a masterpiece of psychology, translated into 24 languages.

I'm incredibly familiar with him, he's among my favorites.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Right, which as we established, is irrational.

I don't remember establishing that. Where was it established?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I don't remember establishing that. Where was it established?

In the syllogisms:

If multiple factors for applying compassion exist, then a selective application of compassion is required.
Multiple factors for applying compassion exist.
Therefore, a selective application of compassion is required.

Quoting Garrett Travers

If multiple factors for applying compassion exist, then a selective application of compassion is required.
Multiple factors for applying compassion exist.
Therefore, a selective application of compassion is required.

I agreed that this syllogism was valid and then challenged its soundness by asserting that all human beings are deserving of compassion. That's where we are.

I can support my view that all human beings are deserving of compassion by asserting that all human beings are suffering creatures and all suffering creatures are deserving of compassion.

Reply to EugeneW Is what relativism says "about truth" true or not? Is it an "approach" which matches truth-makers to truth-bearers or not? Is relativism a "relative approach" or not? :chin:

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I agreed that this syllogism was valid and then challenged its soundness by asserting that all human beings are deserving of compassion. That's where we are.

But, you haven't challenged it's soundness, you've merely proclaimed it's not sound. Now, I'm not a logic Nazi, so you don't have to go in that direction. But, simply stating as much isn't enough.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

I can support my view that all human beings are deserving of compassion by asserting that all human beings are suffering creatures and all suffering creatures are deserving of compassion.

Suffering does not imply compassion. It's simply a conclusion you've drawn due to how you feel. Which is cool, but it doesn't seem to be rationally chosen as a principle. Especially now if we're actually validating the syllogism by adding another factor besides mental illness. Plus, many, many people suffer because they cause they're own suffering. Some people actually initiate the application of means that induce suffering, or even suffering and death. Not only does suffering not imply compassion, but compassion moves further away as an application as more variables are incorporated. But, let me ask again: does every human deserve to be free from the application of force at all times?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Suffering does not imply compassion. It's simply a conclusion you've drawn due to how you feel. Which is cool, but it doesn't seem to be rationally chosen as a principle. Especially now if we're actually validating the syllogism by adding another factor besides mental illness. Plus, many, many people suffer because they cause they're own suffering.

So your position is: some suffering creatures are undeserving of compassion. To which I would say:

Quoting Garrett Travers

It's simply a conclusion you've drawn due to how you feel. Which is cool, but it doesn't seem to be rationally chosen as a principle.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

To which I would say:

It's simply a conclusion you've drawn due to how you feel. Which is cool, but it doesn't seem to be rationally chosen as a principle.

Yes, and you'd be irrational because this is valid:

If multiple factors for applying compassion exist, then a selective application of compassion is required.
Multiple factors for applying compassion exist.
Therefore, a selective application of compassion is required.

Again, keep your standard. Do humans deserve to be free from the application of force at all times?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Not only does suffering not imply compassion, but compassion moves further away as an application as more variables are incorporated.

These variables are your own, and not my variables.

Yes, it's true, as you incorporate more variables you move further and further away from feeling compassion for all suffering creatures.

The only variable in my position is the question of suffering.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

These variables are your own, and not my variables.

Yes, it's true, as you incorporate more variables you move further and further away from feeling compassion for all suffering creatures.

The only variable in my position is the question of suffering.

I get that. And it's IRRATIONAL.

Quoting Garrett Travers

If multiple factors for applying compassion exist,

In the case of a person like you, multiple variables are incorporated. (It's too strong to say they exist, because to my view they don't exist as variables.)

Quoting Garrett Travers

I get that. And it's IRRATIONAL.

This hasn't been established no matter how large and dark your font gets.

Set it out, if you can.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

In the case of a person like you, multiple variables are incorporated. (It's too strong to say they exist, because to my view they don't exist as variables.)

Right. So, Putin, Jeff Bezos, and Brionna Taylor. No differentiating factors of compassion application?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Right. So, Putin, Jeff Bezos, and Brionna Taylor. No differentiating factors of compassion application?

Right. All are suffering creatures.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Right. All are suffering creatures.

Cool, so we've got compassion for Hitler, Putin, Bezos, and Taylor.

Do all people have a right to be free from the application of force?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Do humans deserve to be free from the application of force at all times?

Of course not.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I'm incredibly familiar with him, he's among my favorites.

Have you read Man's Search for Meaning? Lots of wisdom in there, if you have a love of wisdom.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Of course not.

Unbelievable. I have no words.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Have you read Man's Search for Meaning? Lots of wisdom in there, if you have a love of wisdom.

Yep, love the guy.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Unbelievable. I have no words.

Maybe you need to define force. But to my view, arresting and incarcerating a criminal is an application of force.

So while I feel compassion for the criminal as a suffering creature, I would insist he be removed from polite society for obvious reasons.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yep, love the guy.

What do you take to be the central thesis of the book?

It might be interesting to look at how the book is received by two very different personalities. If you're interested, I'll start a thread on it. Might start one anyway.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Maybe you need to define force. But to my view, arresting and incarcerating a criminal is an application of force.

Unwelcomed contact between humans and their property.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

So while I feel compassion for the criminal as a suffering creature, I would insist he be removed from polite society for obvious reasons.

You see, the only real criminal in the world, is the person who initiates the use of force against other people and their property. Such violates reason, thought, and cognition. The place where compassion comes from, where morality comes from. Applying enough force to stop that violation is the only justufiable application of it.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

What do you take to be the central thesis of the book?

It might be interesting to look at how the book is received by two very different personalities. If you're interested, I'll start a thread on it. Might start one anyway.

That's a good question, may have to think a bit. I'd say that the core theme is that it isn't pleasure, or happiness, or flourishing that actually keeps you going, keeps you moving forward, especially in the face of imminent death. It's your values, your meaning. We formulate those life saving values through deep, substantial experiences with people and the world. And that's why you haven't killed yourself if you're visiting his office to get psychological help. Small digest there. I'm an enormous proponent for logotherapy. I kind of did it myself, for myself.

Quoting 180 Proof

EugeneW Is what relativism says "about truth" true or not?

Neither. Like absolutism it is an approach to truth, not a truth on its own. It just says all objective truths are subjective.

[quote=Hitchen's Razor]What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.[/quote]

Reply to EugeneW So it's wholly arbitrary – "subjective" as you say – whether or not one adopts "relativism as an approach" to truth? :eyes:

[quote=Ibn Sina]Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.[/quote]

... all objective truths are subjective

An exemplary self-refuting statement. :roll:

[quote=Humpty Dumpty]When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.[/quote]

Quoting 180 Proof

So it's wholly arbitrary – "subjective" as you say – whether or not one adopts "relativism as an approach" to truth? :eyes:

It's not wholly arbitrary. Every truth, once adopted, has its own way of proving thing objectively true.

Quoting 180 Proof

. all objective truths are subjective
An exemplary self-refuting statement

If you adopt a truth like yours, yes. But outside of it, no. Every truth has is own measure of truth or not true. And I know where you wanna go. But what if some proclaim an obvious fantasy for truth...

Reply to EugeneW Why would one adopt any truth if every truth is "subjective"?

Reply to 180 Proof

People want objectivity. Even if its subjective. Who is the arbiter? Reality? That's circular.

Why is it so difficult to believe there can be more than one objective reality?

Reply to Garrett Travers You say that we are our brains. We have no awareness of the neural processes going on in our brains which determine all our thoughts. words and actions. It seems to follow from this deterministic view that we are no more morally responsible for any of our actions than the tiger, the lightning or the tsunami are for theirs.

So, on the physicalist assumption of determinism there is no rational justification for punishing (as opposed to restraining) anyone. whether mentally ill or not, for their actions, any more than there is rational justification for wanting to punish the tiger for killing your family.

I am relating this to the idea that compassion would be the rational realization that no one deserves punishment (on the assumption of your kind of determinism, that is ).

Quoting EugeneW

People [s]want[/s] objectivity. Even if its [s]subjective[/s].

Objectivity denotes subjectivity / point-of-view/ language / gauge–invarant statements (e.g. "2+2=4" or "At sea-level, water boils @ 212° F (100° C)" ... irregardless of anyone's "subjective beliefs, etc") Whether or not such subjectivity-invariant statements are determined to be true or not true is a matter of experimental or ostensible testing against relevant evidence (facts). When you say, Eugene, in effect that "objective = subjective" you are asserting a contradiction (i.e. necessary falsehood) and therefore spouting nonsense.

[quote="EugeneW;661617"... ]objective reality?[/quote]
The term "objective reality" is, on one hand, redundant and, on the other hand, an unwarranted conflation of epistemology (maps) and ontology (territory). There are many ways to talk about the world. There are many worlds in the universe. There is 'possibly' many universes in the vacuum. Even many vacua ... That is aspect-pluralism (e.g. irrealism ~ N. Goodman), however, not "relativism".

Quoting Janus

You say that we are our brains. We have no awareness of the neural processes going on in our brains which determine all our thoughts. words and actions. It seems to follow from this deterministic view that we are no more morally responsible for any of our actions than the tiger, the lightning or the tsunami is for theirs.

A cool thought, interesting. But, no. Human's generate new conceptualizations of their own behavior in accordance with data that is acrrued in a recurrent manner at almost all times. Meaning, not only is your cognition being constantly updated to refined behavior, but the quality of the conceptualizations are as well. So, the only thing that is completely determinant are the processes themselves, not what the processes produce in executive action. Meaning, you are most certainly responsible for your actions. This sort of thing isn't happening in animals that we know of. I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there, could be an issue.

Quoting Janus

So, on the physicalist assumption of determinism there is no rational justification for punishing (as opposed to restraining) anyone. whether mentally ill or not, for their actions, any more than there is rational justification for wanting to punish the tiger for killing your family.

I will say, though, I made no argument for punishing anyone. I made an argument for selective distribution of compassion, and a highly exclusive distribution for the initiation of force. Which included the standard that only enough force is justified to stop the use of force as a violation. Not punishment.

Quoting Garrett Travers

But, no. Human's generate new conceptualizations of their own behavior in accordance with data that is acrrued in a recurrent manner at almost all times.

No, on the physicalist presumption those "new conceptualizations" are just further neural processes caused by prior neural processes. The brain is not a moral agent. If the brain is responsible for all thought, speech and action then there is no rationally supportable moral responsibility.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I will say, though, I made no argument for punishing anyone. I made an argument for selective distribution of compassion,

Sure, but it is compassion (in this case based on the realization of the determinist than on that view no one is morally culpable) that would lead to refraining from believing that punishment is deserved.

You said you wished there was a hell so that Hitler could get the eternal punishment he deserves. Do you think that sentiment is rationally justified?

Quoting 180 Proof

When you say, Eugene, in effect that "objective = subjective" you are asserting a contradiction (i.e. necessary falsehood) and therefore spouting nonsense.

If I would write it like you do, objective=subjective, yes. But I don't. For you there is a contradiction because it contradicts your objective reality. But that's not the only objective reality. The today's temperature is 12 degrees for everyone who adopts that standard. The reality that can be experimentally verified is totally irrelevant and nonsensical for who's not interested in it.

Quoting Janus

No, on the physicalist presumption those "new conceptualizations" are just further neural processes caused by prior neural processes. The brain is not a moral agent. If the brain is responsible for all thought, speech and action then there is no rationally supportable moral responsibility.

Again, it isn't the neural processes that are important in this particular regard, it is what the processes produce. Among those data computing processes is executive functions, judgement, and value placement. All of this informs one's actions. This is the domain of ethical deliberations:

"Executive functions (EFs) include high-order cognitive abilities such as working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, planning, reasoning, and problem solving. EFs enable humans to achieve goals, adapt to novel everyday life situations, and manage social interactions. Traditionally EFs have been associated with frontal lobe functioning."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/executive-function

Quoting Janus

Sure, but it is compassion (in this case based on the realization of the determinist than on that view no one is morally culpable) that would lead to refraining from believing that punishment is deserved.

I think the fact that reason is still a factor leads one to conclude the same. Punishment provides no benefit to anyone. It is nothing more than the assuaging of an aggressive urge, a mistaken conclusion that someone else's consciousness is somehow the punisher's property. Which is never the case.

Quoting Janus

You said you wished there was a hell so that Hitler could get the eternal punishment he deserves. Do you think that sentiment is rationally justified?

No, that's just my emotions talking. I'm pleased with him simply not being on earth to violate the human consciousness anymore. But, I do not regard him as someone who can be pittied, or shown compassion by any person that is thinking rationally on the subject.

Quoting 180 Proof

There are many ways to talk about the world. There are many worlds in the universe. There is 'possibly' many universes in the vacuum. Even many vacua ... That is aspect-pluralism

As seen in scientific realism. But that's not the only realism. Many universes in the vacuum? What vacuum? Eternal inflation is a fantasy.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Among those data computing processes is executive functions, judgement, and value placement.

All rigidly determined by nothing but the brain according to you. High-sounding talk about "executive functions" doesn't change the entailments of the deterministic physicalist view. I'm not arguing about the soundness of the view itself, I am taking no stand on its truth or falsity; I'm just laying out what the view entails. On that view there is no "you" that could be responsible: it is an illusion.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, that's just my emotions talking.

Oh well, according to your own view, that cannot be helped.

Quoting Janus

All rigidly determined by nothing but the brain according to you. High-sounding talk about "executive functions" doesn't change the entailments of the deterministic physicalist view.

This is emotion speaking. Biological determinants that produces executive functions and endless data computation, would never imply an absence of ethical responsibility. It's sepcifically just that very executive function and endless data computation that makes everyone responsible for their actions. This is because your neural processes are able to produce "high-level cognitive functions that foster goal-directed behavior and are a pre-requisite for sustained focusing, regulation of attention resources and automatic responses, and rapid and flexible adjustment to the changeable requests of the environment." However, that's not all. They're advanced enough to "sustain more complex cognitive functions—such as reasoning, planning, decision-making, creativity, and problem solving." So, what you're gonna have to do to make your point, is negate that such is an accurate description of consciousness. Otherwise, I'll need to take your admission that I'm correct.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01519/full

Quoting Janus

I'm not arguing about the soundness of the view itself, I am taking no stand on its truth or falsity; I'm just laying out what the view entails. On that view there is no "you" that could be responsible: it is an illusion.

That is correct, if one wishes to play fantasy-planet and dismiss the science that shows us what the brain is capable of, including reasoning and conceptualization. Not in the real world though. It's more appropriate to say "I'm not arguing anything, merely speaking and doing so with condescension for no apparent reason."

Quoting Janus

Oh well, according to your own view, that cannot be helped.

No, just the one you'd like me to make an argument for, so that you'd have a point to you wasting my time on this antiscientific attempt at a gotcha. Didn't work.

Quoting EugeneW

The reality that can be experimentally verified is totally irrelevant and nonsensical for who's not interested in it.

Hmmm.... Tell that to the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Not being interested in reality doesn't mean it can't harm or kill you.

Quoting Tom Storm

Hmmm.... Tell that to the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Not being interested in reality doesn't mean it can't harm or kill you.

Yes, Tom. That's right. The people of Nagasaki didn't give a shit about quantum potentiality in the realm of objective considerations. They were vaporized.

Quoting Garrett Travers

This is because your neural processes are able to produce "high-level cognitive functions that foster goal-directed behavior and are a pre-requisite for sustained focusing, regulation of attention resources and automatic responses, and rapid and flexible adjustment to the changeable requests of the environment." However, that's not all.

There is no "you" over and above ""high-level cognitive functions that foster goal-directed behavior and are a pre-requisite for sustained focusing, regulation of attention resources and automatic responses, and rapid and flexible adjustment to the changeable requests of the environment." to be responsible for their well or ill-functioning, on you view, so I still see no rational sense in your position, I'm afraid.

You're wrong to think I'm attempting a "Gotcha"; I'm just telling you I can't make sense of your view and why. If you can't handle that without taking it personally or being able to explain yourself more convincingly the problem lies with you. It has nothing to do with science; it tells us nothing about moral responsibility. You're getting your categories mixed up, apparently.

Quoting Janus

There is no "you" over and above ""high-level cognitive functions that foster goal-directed behavior and are a pre-requisite for sustained focusing, regulation of attention resources and automatic responses, and rapid and flexible adjustment to the changeable requests of the environment." to be responsible for their well or ill-functioning, on you view, so I still see no rational sense in your position, I'm afraid.

Nobody.... Ever said there was some... "you."...?

No, "you" are the whole unit. Your brain produces executive functions that allow itself to witness, record, project, plan, and initiate for future action in accordance with sensory data accrual. Or, "superior-pattern-processing," as one great researcher put it. The "you" that you're mentioning as some sort of bizarre requirement for ethics, is just your brain that's also doing everything else. And right now, your brain is talking to someone who has provided you some current research in neuroscience that can help you understand the whole thing. Here's some more. My argument is consistent and supported by neuroscience. As usual: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303502619_Is_Self-Consciousness_Equivalent_to_Executive_Function#:~:text=Consciousness%20can%20be%20understood%20as,consequences%20of%20one's%20own%20behavior.

Reply to Garrett Travers The point is that if you are nothing but your brain then you are entirely limited by its capacities and proclivities. Your brain does what it does and what it causes your body to do may be, on a normative view, morally sound or unsound, but either way it cannot be helped because the brain is what it is with whatever capacities and proclivities it has to become what it becomes. It is, on your view, however you want to spin it, merely a natural process, and hence it makes as much sense to hold it morally responsible as it does to hold any other natural process morally responsible; i.e. none at all.

I'll put it another way; on this view of yours you have no control over whether your brain's "executive function" causes you to do good or evil, as they are normatively understood. The brain you've got, is the brain you've got (or the brain you are is the brain you are).

Quoting Janus

The point is that if you are nothing but your brain then you are entirely limited by its capacities and proclivities

That's not a point. The brain is also not limited by such, but has the capacitance for conceptualization which gives rise to Ethics.

Quoting Janus

Your brain does what it does and what it causes your body to do may be, on a normative view, morally sound or unsound, but either way it cannot be helped because the brain is what it is with whatever capacities and proclivities it has to become what it becomes.

No, you're just used to thinking of the mind and brain as separate. But, you're not reading what I am saying to you and what the science says. You (ARE) your brain. You (DO) produce actions and theorizations of actions that are normative, and can indeed be helped, changed, practiced, corrected, recalibrated, and aligned with the actions of other creatures of consciousness. The only thing that changes with the acceptance of my position, is the knowledge of what's happening, as far as we are aware of such. Nothing more.

Quoting Janus

It is, on your view, however you want to spin it, merely a natural process

There's no such thing as "merely a natural process." This is a reduction.

Quoting Janus

it makes as much sense to hold it morally responsible as it does to hold any other natural process morally responsible; i.e. none at all.

Yes, in lala-land, where we put our fingers in our ears and stick our tongues out. But, not here where natural processes give rise to self-correcting behavior and perpetual data integration that generate concepts. No, that's not what you're being told. You just want to believe it no matter what you're shown.

Quoting Janus

I'll put it another way; on this view of yours you have no control over whether your brain's "executive function" causes you to do good or evil, as they are normatively understood.

That's specifically covered in executive function. You ARE the brain directing itself. That "you" is the brain producing "you" to do just that. You're are not understanding this. Get rid of the dualist bullshit and read what I'm saying to you.

Quoting Janus

The brain you've got, is the brain you've got (or the brain you are is the brain you are).

He who goes in circles becomes a wheel.

Quoting Garrett Travers

But, not here where natural processes give rise to self-correcting behavior and perpetual data integration that generat concepts. No, that's not what you're being told. You just want to believe it no matter what you're shown.

This is a gross generalization. Some brains may be what we might call normatively functional and others not. If a brain is normatively dysfunctional then what to do? What is the person who has or is that brain to do about their normative dysfunctionality?

You haven't provide any argument for your position or any cogent explanation of it, that I can see. And now you're resorting to insults; always a bad sign.

Quoting Janus

This is a gross generalization. Some brains may be what we might call normatively functional and others not. If a brain is normatively dysfunctional then what to do? What is the person who has or is that brain to do about their normative dysfunctionality?

Yes, they call that executive dysfunctionality. Normally associated with trauma. And it depends on the nature of the issue. Once memory is damaged you have a real problem in the normative realm. But, drawing the line is difficult, it's the most complex system in the universe. But, as far as people like Hitler? No, he knew what he was doing. His mental illness was not of the neurological kind, but of the emotional. And no, that's not a generalization. Some people fall outside of this box for whatever reasons. But, this is intrinsic to our species.

Quoting Janus

You haven't provide any argument for your position or any cogent explanation of it, that I can see. And now you're resorting to insults; always a bad sign.

No, not insult, you just keep going round and round. And simply saying I haven't made an argument isn't an argument. I have given you plenty of sources on the subject, let's try it again: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303502619_Is_Self-Consciousness_Equivalent_to_Executive_Function#:~:text=Consciousness%20can%20be%20understood%20as,consequences%20of%20one's%20own%20behavior.

Argument:

If the individual human brain produces consciousness, then the individual brain produces morality. Being part of nature is not relevant to functions that allow for: “metacognitive executive function” (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), including self-awareness, the temporality of behavior, metacognition, working memory, abstraction,problem solving, and similar complex intellectual processes, and (b) “emotional/motivational executive function” (orbitofrontal and medial frontal lobe), which isrelated to the ability to coordinate cognition and motivation, including the ability tocontrol emotions and behavior." These are the characteristics that allow for morality, not negate it.

There you go, the argument, once more, with some (the same) science to back it up. Do not tell me I haven't made an argument again, or I will stop responding

Quoting EugeneW

The reality that can be experimentally verified is totally irrelevant and nonsensical for who's not interested in it.

Of course it is ... :lol:

Reply to Garrett Travers :up: :up:

Quoting Garrett Travers

That's a good question, may have to think a bit.

The central thesis of the book is: there is life-meaning in suffering.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

The central thesis of the book is: there is life-meaning in suffering.

Yes, to put it a bit more succinct than I.

Quoting 180 Proof

The reality that can be experimentally verified is totally irrelevant and nonsensical for who's not interested in it.
— EugeneW
Of course it is ... :lol:

What a funny way to assert a fact of reality for those that are not interested.

Reply to Garrett Travers :smirk:

Reply to 180 Proof :cool:

Reply to Garrett Travers The Dunning-Kruger kids are always the last to know.

Reply to 180 Proof Where do the mystics keep churning these guys out of? Fucking Rivendell??

Reply to Garrett Travers "Narnia".

Reply to Tom Storm

That's exactly the reason they're not interested in that reality.

Quoting 180 Proof

The reality that can be experimentally verified is totally irrelevant and nonsensical for who's not interested in it.
— EugeneW
Of course it is ... :lol:

:rofl:

All that remains if arguments don't work anymore. Laughing.

Quoting EugeneW

All that remains if arguments don't work anymore.

It's not possible to argue against assertions of non-existent substance that is claimed no evidence is needed for. You're not arguing here, on this. You're just saying things.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Where do the mystics keep churning these guys out of? Fucking Rivendell??

Where do the scientific realists keep churning guys like you out? Heterotic string theory in 26 dimensions?

Quoting EugeneW

Where do the scientific realists keep churning guys like you out?

Reality.

Quoting Garrett Travers

It's not possible to argue against assertions of non-existent substance that is claimed no evidence is needed for. You're not arguing here, on this. You're just saying things.

I just ignore scientific reality. Precisely because I know about it. What's to argue?

Quoting Garrett Travers

Reality.

So do the mystics.

Quoting EugeneW

I just ignore scientific reality. Precisely because I know about it. What's to argue?

A point of any kind would suffice, really.

Quoting Garrett Travers

A point of any kind would suffice, really

Then you have to accept that reality first.

Quoting EugeneW

So do the mystics.

No, because "I just ignore scientific reality." See how you just make things up?

Quoting EugeneW

Then you have to accept that reality first.

No, that's what you have to do, or you'll continue being dismissed.

Quoting Garrett Travers

They were vaporized

And what vaporized them?

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, that's what you have to do, or you'll continue being dismissed

Now you are threatening me? Good argument!

Quoting EugeneW

And what vaporized them?

If you can answer your own question without drivel, I will stop dismissing you.

Quoting EugeneW

I don't have to accept your reality.

You already have accepted it. Evinced by your responding to me.

Quoting Garrett Travers

You already have accepted it. Evinced by your responding to me.
now

I haven't accepted it. But I can talk about it.

It's not that difficult to transform reality in a scientific materialistic picture. It's just an empty picture.

Quoting EugeneW

I haven't accepted it. But I can talk about it.

No you can't. You can't talk in reality without accepting that you know what you're about to say, or that your tech will work, or that this is the right website, or that you're awake to do so, or that you're sufferbale location. Everything you're doing is predicated on a reality that is accept by you before you even begin with your nonsense.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No you can't

Yes I can. :lol:

Quoting EugeneW

Yes I can.

No, you can't.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Everything you're doing is predicated on a reality that is accept by you before you even begin with your nonsense.

So says your nonsense.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, you can't.

Yes I can. :lol:

Quoting EugeneW

So says your nonsense.

You believed my nonsense was real before sending that.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, you can't

No point in arguing with someone convinced of their own reality. Their collective motion of particles are determined. :lol:

Quoting Garrett Travers

You believed my was nonsense was real before sending that

Your was nonsense has never been real.

Quoting EugeneW

never been real.

Statement of reality.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Statement of reality.

For your information: never is a negation.

Quoting EugeneW

never is a negation.

That's a cool fact of reality.

I like this. Science admirers who don't know how to argue away what's not scientific.

Quoting Garrett Travers

That's a cool fact of reality.

In every reality never exists.

Quoting EugeneW

In every reality never exists.

Just the one you exist in.

A parallel collective running of ion currents in my brain made me say all this. What reality...

Quoting EugeneW

don't know how to argue away what's not scientific.

You've presented no argument.

Quoting EugeneW

A parallel collective running of ion currents in my brain made me say all this. What reality...

This is still not argument.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Just the one you exist in.

Indeed. And that's very different from the scientific.

Quoting Garrett Travers

This is still not argument.

An argument is needed in your reality. Not in mine.

You seem rather hot about it. What do you know about elementary particles?

Quoting EugeneW

An argument is needed in your reality. Not in mine.

Oh, I see. I would suggest not Neoplatonism.

Quoting EugeneW

What do you know about elementary particles?

They're really, really little. Like, teensie.

Reply to Garrett Travers

In fact they can extent all over space. What has neoplatonism got to do with this thread? You act like the church once acted vis a vis Galileo. Except, the church was rational.

Quoting EugeneW

In fact they can extent all over space.

So, you accept a fact of science describing the nature of a domain of observence within reality?

Quoting EugeneW

church was rational.

.....

I'm challenging your intellectual rigor. For sure you now write about me saying "in fact".

Quoting Garrett Travers

Suffering does not imply compassion.

I thought of an interesting question.

When you see the linked images of Ukrainian refugees do you have to stop and consider your variables or do you instantly have compassion for these suffering creatures?

https://www.google.com/search?q=ukrainian+refugees&sxsrf=APq-WBsrMBXhMjQLg-tWqxsOVN5OhprYBw:1646194578575&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG-NjYyKb2AhWHHjQIHbfxAGcQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1536&bih=760&dpr=1.25

See what I mean? How predictable. I can temporarily accept scientific reality.

Quoting EugeneW

church was rational.

More than you wrt to me.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

When you see these images of Ukrainian refugees do you have to stop and consider your variables or do you instantly have compassion for their sufferings?

Do I have to consider my variables when viewing images of people being displaced by a war criminal violating the one principle I have asserted is the primary evil in the world, that being the violation of human consciousness? There's no way you've got to ask this question. As if you're talking to some fucking alien.

No. And please refrain from asking this kind of nonsense to me again in the future. As if I, or Rand haven't been the single greatest denouncers of this kind of anti-human turpitude in a god damn century.

Quoting EugeneW

I'm challenging your intellectual rigor.

I'm still waiting to detect something of that nature. It hasn't happened yet.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I'm still waiting to detect something of that nature. It hasn't happened yet.

That's because there is nothing to challenge. Yet.

Reply to Garrett Travers

Okay. You are basing your realism on your senses. Why?

Quoting EugeneW

Okay. You are basing your realism on your senses. Why?

I didn't say such. I'm basing my reality on my senses, distributed cognition, tools that enhance sensory data quality, experimentation, independent verification, historical analysis, logic, and every other option available to me to provide, or clarify evidence from which to abstract.

Quoting Garrett Travers

I didn't say such. I'm basing my reality on my senses, distributed cognition, tools that enhance sensory data quality, experimentation, independent verification, historical analysis, logic, and every other option available to me to provide, or clarify evidence from which to abstract.

Well, if you think that gives you a good view of reality, who an I to argue?

Quoting EugeneW

Well, if you think that gives you a good view of reality, who an I to argue?

Don't know what you'd argue against. It's all the same stuff you base yours on, but claim otherwise regarding.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Don't know what you'd argue against.

Aha! So your reality can't be argued against? It's the one and only reality? Like the church said...

Quoting EugeneW

Aha! So your reality can't be argued against? It's the one and only reality? Like the church said...

No, reality cannot be argued against with any sort of legitimacy.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No, reality cannot be argued against with any sort of legitimacy.

You see? Like the church said to Galileì.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No.

So in the case of the images of the Ukrainian refugees, you have instant compassion though you know nothing of the background and deeds and ideology of a single one. You don't care about their background or deeds or ideology because you feel united to them in principle. This kind of solidarity will always trump your variables.

This is the solidarity I feel with suffering creatures despite their deeds or ideology or background. A similar solidarity, but much, much more open-armed.





Quoting Garrett Travers

There's no way you've got to ask this question. As if you're talking to some fucking alien.

No. And please refrain from asking this kind of nonsense to me again in the future. As if I, or Rand haven't been the single greatest denouncers of this kind of anti-human turpitude in a god damn century.

It's a thought experiment.

Garrett knows a naughty word. That makes him feel powerful. He is so powerful behind his screen. (Yes! Use your anger! Only your anger can destroy me!)

Other posters will continue to respond to this vulgarity. I will not. Enjoy your selective compassion but don't be surprised when in the future selective compassion in the world at large breaks your heart.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

So in the case of the images of the Ukrainian refugees, you have instant compassion though you know nothing of the background and deeds and ideology of a single one.

No, I have compassion for people that are putting up with something highly specific, in regards to the actions of a tyrant. I do not feel compassion for their individual circumstances prior to that event, and compassion isn't what they need now, or needed then. What they need are people willing to help them, not pity and sympathy. And if I were to be interacting with any of them, the specifics of their life would be a variable in any compassion they'd receive from me.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

This is the solidarity I feel with suffering creatures despite their deeds or ideology or background. A similar solidarity, but much, much more open-armed.

That's utterly irrational, and you will suffer for it in the long run. You will be easily manipulated by the wicked. But, that's probably how you'll have to learn how absurd such a thing is.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

It's a thought experiment.

Derived from nothing that I have conveyed, and pointless to any constructive conversation we could have had on the topic.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Garrett knows a naughty word. That makes him feel powerful. He is so powerful behind his screen. (Yes! Use your anger! Only your anger can destroy me!)

Oh, I'll use ones that are more accessible next time.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Other posters will continue to respond to this vulgarity. I will not. Enjoy your selective compassion but don't be surprised when in the future selective compassion in the world at large breaks your heart.

Yes, I will go enjoy the life that comes with being ethical, no problem.

Quoting EugeneW

You see? Like the church said to Galileì.

No, I don't.

Reply to Garrett Travers

That's what the church said too back then. They punished Galileo on rational grounds. His view was illegitimate. As is one against yours, as you said.

Quoting EugeneW

That's what the church said too back then. They punished Galileo on rational grounds. His view was illegitimate. As is one against yours, as you said.

No relevance detected between myself and people denying reality in the face of evidence. That you would be you, not I.

Quoting Garrett Travers

No relevance detected between myself and people denying reality in the face of evidence.

You value evidence. I don't.

Quoting EugeneW

You value evidence. I don't.

Yep, my point. Bye now.

Reply to Garrett Travers

Take care.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Yes, they call that executive dysfunctionality.

Dysfunctionailty is not all or nothing. We are all, more or less, dysfunctional.

Quoting Garrett Travers

His mental illness was not of the neurological kind, but of the emotional. And no, that's not a generalization.

What's the difference? Is the emotional kind not caused by neurological function?

Do you make a distinction between the neural process and the subjective awareness of thinking? If so, in regard to any process of thought, which, if either, is temporally prior?

Page 7.

The good....
Far and away the easiest page to read since I’ve been onboard;

The bad.....
Easiest to read because there was nothing to think about;

The ugly....
Nothing to think about because instead of steelman argument, there is Abbott and Costello.

It not possible to against assertions of non-existent that is claimed no evidence is needed for. You not arguing here, on dis. You just saying tings.

- Garrett Travers

Quoting Janus

Dysfunctionailty is not all or nothing. We are all, more or less, dysfunctional.

What you're saying has nothing to do with that term. We aren't talking about mood disorders, or anything like that.

Quoting Janus

What's the difference? Is the emotional kind not caused by neurological function?

Not in a manner that keeps someone like Hitler from executing some of the most tactically brilliant battle strategies of all time. From writing a full book. From becoming Chancellor. Exececutive dysfunctions, again, often come specifically from trauma to the forebrain.

Quoting Janus

Do you make a distinction between the neural process and the subjective awareness of thinking? If so, in regard to any process of thought, which, if either, is temporally prior?

No, and it doesn't work in a forward focused, or linear manner like that. Thinking is the result of recurrent neural networks of data integration and relay between structures and other networks of the brain, in symphony with the different structures of the PFC, that is happening all of the time. It's not really an appropriate question. Here's some introductory material on that, might help shed some light. This research is all over the internet though, so if this doesn't really open up the issue for you, you can look around a bit. Researchers are actually building these networks in simulations and checking out how they compare to animal brains, it's really cutting edge stuff: https://neurosciencenews.com/recurrent-neural-network-frontal-cortex-19348/

You arguing here, against dis assertions? non-existent, just saying tings, no evidence

Quoting Mww

Nothing to think about because instead of steelman argument, there is Abbott and Costello.

I'm sorry, man. You mean from me on the Kant spherical geometry? I thought you and the other guy were handling that. I'm not actually in touch with Kant's mathematics enough to provide any real steelman there, I had primarily placed him up there on the OP in regards to either his metaphysics, or ethics. Didn't mean to leave you hanging.

Quoting Garrett Travers

Didn't mean to leave you hanging.

You didn’t, so no worries.

I was commenting....editorializing.....on page 7 here, as a spectator.

That page was pretty unimpressive, considering the norm.

Quoting Mww

That page was pretty unimpressive, considering the norm.

Yeah, I don't even know how to address stuff like that anymore. It's 2022 on a philosophy forum, a month after they send the most sophistacted telescope into space on a plotted trajectory a million miles from the Earth's surface, and I'm still hearing arguments that belong in a dungeons and dragons role play. I don't even know what to say to such things.

Reply to Garrett Travers

Ehhhh....dunno what to tell ya, man. It’s your thread, so I guess you’re kinda stuck with what you get.

Reply to Mww

A most accurate observation, friend.

Reply to Garrett Travers I'm here to discuss this with you, not to be directed to read articles of a kind I've already looked at, and have no argument with, as far as they go.

So please answer the question: do thoughts as neural processes temporally precede thoughts as consciously entertained? You do agree that we are not aware of neural processes in the brain as neural processes in the brain I presume?

If you can't, or won't answer that, then we have nothing further to discuss.