Wants and needs.
In order to live an ethical life, we must first identify our wants from needs. Want's can not all be satisfied, per Stoicism. Needs can be satisfied to some degree. But, there is a constant lacking present in everyone's life. This lack is the source of frustration, anger, and sadness.
Therefore, what can be done about this apparent lacking in or life?
Therefore, what can be done about this apparent lacking in or life?
Comments (314)
But, isn't that pointless? How much do we really need?
One may not always get what they want, but they get what they need, not because there is a distinction in kind between wants and needs, but in one's levels of passion and orientation towards them.
The Schopenhauer in me says that we never really get what we want. It's a constant illusory goal. To want something is to place it in the highest priority of our motivations. Is there any use in chasing after happiness or ecstasy? I don't think so.
This lack is also the source of joy, relief, and a belly full of warm feelings. Maybe you are stuck outside in cold weather without the right clothes. But then you get home and jump in a hot bath. A hot bath is almost always good, but it's very good when you've been cold.
And there are all kinds of little patterns like this in life. Pain/tension and pleasure/release. Some say that pleasure is just the 'absense' of pain, and I say they are (1) either being silly or (2) a fundamentally different organism to which I can't ultimately relate who just happens to somehow speak English. So we have pain-pleasure or need-satisfaction cycles, one of which is a need for mental stimulation. This need for mental stimulation urges us away from the simple life just as another need (the need for clarity and a sense of control, say) urges toward the simple life. And sure enough we'll see people vacillate in this regard too. Every once in a while I go through all of my possessions and throw out lots of stuff. Pretty soon I've accumulated more stimulating junk for the next purge which is sure to come.
***
I like stoicism. I like the idea of not wasting time on what is out of your control. And I like the ultimately macho idea of staying cool-headed, bravely facing existence. But there's another aspect that flees from the complexity of life into a kind of living death, ultimately narcissistic. If we are going to flee from wants into bare needs, then remind me again why we are bothering to survive in the place? I picture the individualistic stoic who just wants to hold his detached pose above all things. 'Look at me, ma. I don't five a guck, except about not giving a flock.' Then there's the noble emperor, sacrificing complex pleasures for the simple, profound pleasure of a rational, transparent-to-itself, righteous life. The second one seems like the more respectable 'radical' version.
I wanted a sip of tea, and then I got it. You can't mean that? But there is a hole, a void. It isn't that we don't or can't get what we want, it's that we don't know what it is that is missing, and are attempting to fill it up with what we think it could be. That likely won't work, I agree.
No real use in happiness or ecstasy, they aren't really for anything else, they're awesome possum all by themselves.
I like Cynicism because it bypasses the Stoic into pure simplicity. What do you think? I've become an avid Cynic as of late.
Have you ever had a great sandwich when you were hungry? Laid down for a nice nap when you were sleepy? Had a great cup of coffee when you were really in mood for coffee? Taken a pain pill after dental surgery and the thing worked like a charm? Solved a complicated puzzle?
The question is not whether we ever get what we want but whether we ever abolish all wanting. To abolish all wanting, though, is to abolish life itself, since life 'is' care.
Yet, can they be "obtained" like a pair of shoes in the flee market? Nope.
What do you mean by that? Interesting, as all your posts...
I like the cynics too. I like all the philosophies that address life as a whole. Epicurus is pretty great. Maybe I'm an epicurean, but in the classic sense.
I'd say: ask yourself what it would mean to be alive and want nothing at all. Experience is usually structured by a kind of pursuit. The 'drama' of life depends on us being fragile beings that value some things and dis-value others. Kissing the girl is better after not knowing for a long time whether she will ever want you to kiss her, etc. We are structured so that greater pleasure depends on a greater preliminary tension.
There's a Twilight Zone where an A-hole goes to Heaven. It's a little casino where he always wins. It slowly dawns on him that he is actually in Hell. His victories are meaningless. He is meaningless.
*Thanks for the kind words about my posts.
It would be a peaceful existence, no?
Yes, I'll grant you that. And if we didn't have a need for stimulation, then the stoics would have a stronger case. But IMO we have a strong need for a sense of ascent. As Nietzsche might say, we love the feeling of overcoming resistance. I'd use the metaphor of a 'height itch.' We like to climb ladders.
Even the stoics work at overcoming the resistance of their irrational nature. It's one more heroic task that we can choose to assign ourselves. One more way to shine in relation to others. What we don't seem to choose is this need to assign ourselves mission.
That mission is assigned by I-know-not-what. And if I define this I-know-not-what, it will probably be in terms of my idiosyncratic personal assignment (partially chosen and endlessly debated.)
Indeed. Overcoming resistance; but, what's this "resistance" you talk about?
What do you mean?
I was attempting to explain my point in saying that happiness and ecstasy are not for anything else, and explain that I don't endorse their pursuit, but nor do I think they're in any sense bad things.
But, what about "resistance" which @macrosoft talked about? Surely, ecstasy and happiness are forever a goal but not directly obtainable.
It's a generalization from many particular narratives. Maybe one person makes chasisty the fundamental virtue. Then their resistance is just lust. They push against lust with 'will power.' Another person thinks clarity in thinking is the fundamental virtue, so they push against ambiguity, logical fallacies, etc. Still another person thinks freedom is the fundamental virtue, so they push against their cowardice and go to war, or they push against the apathy of their neighbors to get their favored candidate elected. Basically they choose their enemy or resistance as they choose their virtue. We crave something in our way so that we can shove it out of our way and feel alive, powerful, meaningful.
If I may interject, I know how to get ecstasy once in a while. I just don't know how to live constantly in a state of ecstasy. We aren't designed to live there. With drugs we can trick our systems quite spectacularly, but this is dangerous, since we are messing with a machine that took millions of years to tune.
But, what about tackling this 'resistance' itself? Is that possible? Doesn't that mean the cessation of desiring and wanting itself? Isn't that the most logical route to take?
Indeed.
We start to get to the terrible heart of the issue. If we really want the cleanest solution, then BANG it's suicide. But I would rather be a little dirty and still alive, at least while I'm healthy and still fascinated by existence. I do think the quest for a certain kind of purity tempts some to the grave. It's simple and quiet down there I hear. Or actually I don't hear. Corpses are way too cool to gossip about nonexistence the same way we the living gossip about existence.
Oh dear. Not suicide. Such a decision is irreversible and morally wrong towards other people who care for you. Did I mention I'm a big Nel Noddings fan?
Yeah, I'm not suggesting suicide. I'm only saying that wanting resistance-in-general permanently gone is a kind of death wish. Similarly the desire for perfect clarity or perfect purity and so on strikes me as a death wish. And the desire for some 'mission' stated in simple terms is also suspect. This itch for perfection inspires good philosophy, but it also drives people mad. I think the itch has to be balanced out with a kind of lust for life in its visceral complexity and plurality.
I don't know Nel Noddings.
Spot on though. I think that the purity of simple existence is more easily obtainable than the complexity of existence. Why don't we all become simple folk then?
But that's the resistance we crave. We don't want easy, or not in a simple way. We want to shine in relation to others. We want to feel ourselves overcoming the difficult. And even the pursuit of the simple life is a form of overcoming the drift toward complexity of modern life.
Yes, that's true. Resistance is futile, then?
Resistance to resistance may be futile, since we actually want it as much or even more than we hate it. Most of us are sufficiently invested in life so that suicide is not a 'living' issue and that instead concrete situations are our living issues. Philosophy does give us wise rules-of-thumb (reminds for particular purposes) and an overall orientation within or grasp of our own existence.
For me a big part of this grasp is the uniqueness of my (or your) particular existence. We ultimately synthesize unique 'partial' (always-still-in-progress) 'solutions' for our unique situations.
If you read Wittgenstein, for instance, then that's you reading Wittgenstein. The 'meaning field' generated by that reading is a fusion of you and Wittgenstein. You read Wittgenstein or Marcus Aurelius with your entire soul. I do the same. And as we talk we slowly get a global sense of who we are talking to. Lines at the beginning of our conversation take on new meaning if we re-read them. 'Oh that's what he meant, or that's more like what he must have meant.'
Suicide is always futile. It's an idealistic dream world. I'm surprised so many people find it comforting when the uncertainty of existence points the other way. I would want to live forever, not erase myself. Such are the pangs of existence, yes; but, suicide is too big of a leap to overcome via rationality. I heard that suicide is done either by passion or cold analysis. I can't fathom what kind of analysis must operate to lead to such a conclusion. Time to eat something then. That's simpler and easier to obtain rather than eternal bliss in a never-ending dream.
I've contemplated suicide before. It is the coldest calculation imaginable. It is truly arctic, terrifyingly arctic.
I've known impressive, charismatic people to take that path. I think they felt a strong urge toward purity. They therefore saw the world as a place full of filth and futility. And they saw themselves as a rooms that would always be messy. I personally think death is an escape from all pain. But the price to be paid for that escape is all pleasure --and all everything.
And of course it hurts the people that love you. That alone can keep it from actually happening. You may really want it, but still care enough about others to not be selfish that way.
If one takes one'self seriously enough, then it's not so unimaginable. But, still. It takes some guts to pull the trigger. Can one face the prospect of suicide with a straight face? I don't know.
But, back to the topic. Why don't more people realize that resistance against resistance is futile?
BTW, do you believe in the simulation hypothesis of reality?
People can and do. And it is a form of overcoming resistance. They leap 'over' the fear of death into the 'truth.'
Quoting Posty McPostface
I'd say most people never even think about it so abstractly.
Hmmm. Given my 'meaning holism,' I'm likely to see it as just a new name for reality.
Q: So you think this reality is all a simulation?
A: Yes.
Q: So you are naturally not afraid to eat poison and walk into traffic?
A: Errr. Well. No I wouldn't eat poison or walk into traffic.
In short, something-like-reality is a shared sense of what constrains our 'freedom.' Let's say I decide that reality is a simulation and it doesn't change my behavior in the least. What, then, have I really decided?
Why not? If one commits oneself to the prospect of eternal bliss that is suicide, then they ought to think about it abstractly.
I'm an avid fan of the simulation hypothesis. It seems as though each person exists on a plane of solitude and loneliness sometimes, maybe even solipsistically. But, the simulation hypothesis renders suicide as futile in-of-itself.
Oh, maybe I misunderstood your question.
Also, I think most people (or most atheists/agnostics) think of death as a neutral absence of experience. Not positive infinity but zero, let's say.
I don't know the details. Can you sketch the hypothesis?
I do think there is an ineradicable 'core' of loneliness as we become unique adults. No one ever 'exactly' gets us.
Indeed. That's true. But, after all, resistance is futile in the case of suicide.
It's easy. Think of it analogously to our current computer landscape or plane of existence. Given a sufficiently complex enough computer, that isn't limited by physics to simulate reality, we occupy a plane of existence that is analogous to a simulation in hyper-reality that is the state space of a computer.
Should I go on?
Not to cause a suicide wave, but I do think suicide solves the problem. It's just an awfully expensive solution. I have friends who killed themselves via direct suicide and also with heroin needles (maybe not intending to die but playing with something with well known dangers.) Am I wiser and better than them? I don't know. I'm here to think about it. They aren't. I will join them in the grave at some point.
Life is a mystery. Death is a mystery. Or maybe I really do have faith in death as nothingness, so it's less of a mystery than life. I'd rather be alive just now. I know/feel that. At some point (when this body is sufficiently broken) I will probably prefer to be dead. In the meantime I try to amuse myself and treat people well, especially those who treat me well.
But, wasn't their loss tragic in some sense? I would hate to leave more pain behind than happiness and such.
Sure. It was tragic. But having been in some very dark states of mind, I understood it too well to feel judgmental. The suicidal person feels like a disease. So they think they are doing good by doing away with themselves. They feel the guilt of being an individual, the guilt of entanglement. And even being loved is part of the entanglement. In a certain state of mind, being loved is terrifying. The fantasy is to be in a place without the 'guilt' (debt, responsibility) that comes with mattering.
Usually the psyche involved is aware of too many contradictions. Reality is cracked through the center of their soul. They want opposite things, and it is hell, like being torn apart. And they 'see' that it is their own nature that is their hell. They are their own prisons. They don't have the comforting illusion that the problem is outside them.
Profound. I guess we're delving too deeply into the topic when things start sounding profound.
I see you added this. I don't know what to think about suicide. If one believes in unrestrained individualism, then so be it?
Maybe. I've always been comfortable in all of this deep stuff and bored when things are just cutesy small-talk. So people come to me sometimes when they are desperate. I'm a good friend for heavy conversations, but maybe not much fun when frivolity is called for.
I'm an advocate for philosophical quietism, despite my rampage of posts. I don't know what to think about 'profoundness'. It seems like lipstick on already red lips.
I'm just trying to paint how they see it, or at least how I've seen it.
When it comes to suicide, the political question seems unimportant to me. Because you can't stop it, and a successful suicide transcends all law enforcement and whatever people will say about it. It leaps into the 'truth.' That's part of its allure. Death is transcendent.
Don't you find the prospect of suicide, as a no win game? I mean, there's nothing to be gained at the end of the day, when one thinks too seriously about suicide. It's just another act of 'resistance' from futility.
I can relate to any ambivalence. But I guess for me it's a form of stimulation. I need 'hard' conversation, risky conversation, heavy conversation. It's clear to me though that I am tuned so that I am on one side of the spectrum. Don't get me wrong. I'm pretty good at playing the usual games. I'm a charming extrovert when I have to be. But 'really' I am a creature of solitude and heavy thoughts.
Cynicism would point out that 'profoundness' is a symptom of a mediocre life. I try and live my life as mediocre as possible though.
Well I am far from being pro-suicide, but I think that suicide connects to some other profound issues. For instance, is it better to risk your life in a fight when you are being abused or just tolerate the abuse to minimize mortal risk? Should a person tolerate slavery to increase longevity, in other words? Should we prioritize long lives over brave lives?
In short, how does the issue of facing death figure into our broader grasps of existence?
The Stoics warranted suicide under strict conditions. Seneca must have welcomed the idea of suicide as salvation from a despotic ruler. As to delineating when suicide is warranted instead of unwarranted could be an interesting topic question.
What do you think?
Surprising. I usually think of profound as something like the opposite of mediocre. The profound is dark, hidden, esoteric. Or it is associated with 'limit' situations that we all face, the birth and death of loved ones, falling in love, conceptual revolutions with which we re-invent ourselves, etc.
Yes, the Stoics, would have advocated suicide in strict conditions. Such mandates were imposed to prevent the needless loss of life at your very own hands.
Honestly, for me talk of 'warranted' or not is usually talk that moves into politics and system-making. In my opinion, this 'assumes' a kind of scientific pose toward issues that trivializes them and makes them toys for the intellect or axes-to-grind for 'theoretical' politicians. But I'm biased. To me the manufacture of 'oughts' is not at all interesting. Now what would be interesting in such a discussion would be hidden in the margins, as people illuminated their 'oughts' with personal experience and linked them to their grasp of existence as a whole.
That's true to some degree. I mean how can one eliminate the subjectivity of suicide? The Stoics tried, to great success though.
The stoics are a good example. Suicide was appropriate in certain circumstances. In such circumstances, it was one more manly facing of death.
Well you do bring up a point that has always interested me. Two of our primary cultural heroes (Jesus and Socrates) were [complicated] suicides. So facing death is at the very heart of the heroic, at least in these figures. I think death connects to the small self as opposed to the big self, or the 'petty' self as opposed to the 'transcendent' self.
I don't think it's a matter of manliness as you portray it. After all, Stoicism appealed to women also.
What do you mean by that?
Well, sure, it's not really about genitals. But traditionally it's men who go to war and women and children who get the first lifeboats. I may be a little bit old-fashioned for 2018 in this regard. On the other hand, I don't think my wife could love and respect me quite the same way if she didn't know in her uterus that I would jump between her and danger with a willingness to die and/or kill if necessary.
It's natural that a peaceful society wouldn't emphasize these old-fashioned notions much. But I suspect they would be back in a flash if things became universally dangerous again.
True, I meant to just highlight the fact that egalitarianism commands otherwise.
What is it that dies? Who is it that dies? And who is it that is died for? For whom does the soldier die? For whom or what did Socrates die? For whom or what do we die in lots of little ways when not completely?
A memory dies. That's unacceptable. But, true, people commit suicide, and then the world keeps on turning. It's just such a futile act though.
Sure, and I'm a 'blue' guy in a 'blue' city. But as a philosopher, I don't take on the moral fads without criticism or reservation. [Which is not to say that you do, but only to clarify my position.]
I'm not thinking of suicide in the above quote. I'm talking about the things we die for and why.
What would Wittgenstein say about suicide? I know he was plagued by such thoughts as he was developing and in his life too. I see the committing of suicide as an act of rebellion against life. Same with abortion.
I just fail to see the merit to martyrdom with suicide. Sure, people get remembered for it; but, so what?
Or was the virtue that lit up my life the same virtue that lit up other people's lives? Is essential virtue a flame that leaps from melting candle to melting candle? I'd say so. So death loses some of its sting as we sincerely find ourselves in the flame and not the candle.
Well, I can respect the desire for death in those who face gratuitous suffering. But, what is life without suffering? Again, where does one draw the line between merited suicide and unwarranted suicide?
Again, I'm not talking about suicide anymore, except maybe self-sacrifice that saves others or for some cause. My focus is on facing death more generally. We are all mortal. So the question is how we face this death and how this mortality might encourage us to think philosophically and make peace with death. And the question is also how the knowledge of mortality is integrated within our grasp of existence as a whole, perhaps making that grasping-as-a-hole more possible or profound.
So, you're talking about death in general. One doesn't always have the opportunity to pick what circumstances they die under. Is that what you're talking about, the circumstances which one might be able to choose to die under?
I agree. And most people don't want to die, so much so that they will believe unlikely stories to fend off the notion of being erased as particular persons. My point would be that facing death 'forces' the lit candle to identify more with the flame than the wax.
Hmm. You drive a hard bargain. I'm a fan of logotherapy and have read Viktor Frankl's, Man's Sear for Meaning. We always have the chance to choose our attitudes; but, not circumstances towards death.
You asked me how facing death connects to the petty versus the transcendent self. The petty self is the wax, the little details of a life that are erased. The transcendent self is the flame. Sometimes the 'wax' is sacrificed to the flame. Schopenhauer writes about this kind of thing. Let's say I jump in front of a bus to save an absentminded child. I have a sense that the child and I are one, that our individuality is a kind of 'illusion' or at least inessential. I manifest a sense of profound connection by truly risking my flesh (and not by merely talking about it, which would be less convincing.)
Understood. I was unsure what you meant by that analogy. But, thanks for clarifying.
Right. We don't choose our death. But most of us live knowing that it will come for us eventually, probably when we aren't expecting it. Or at least the cancer diagnosis will be a surprise.
So we live with this knowledge in the back of our minds, like a kind of dark laughter that puts the long-range importance of the projects we take so seriously into question.
My pleasure. I really like the candle analogy. As far as I know, that one is all mine. Thought someone out there probably also used it, given that candles are such old technology.
Yes, this sounds like something Wittgenstein would say. I agree. What is life without death? Just something? Not really.
If I use my imagination, I'd say that life without death would be very different. There would always be time to procrastinate. You could always go back to take the right path having at first taken the wrong path. In some ways it would be nice. But it would also reduce life to a flat kind of video game. Decisions would have no real weight.
Yes, this is the moral dilemma that the simulation hypothesis faces. It's a path that one can always take, but, would you be willing to forsake death, which is going to become a reality sooner or later?
I'm no expert, but I have dabbled. I'd say that there is some truth to it and some mumbo-jumbo. My main response would that what the individual makes of it is primary. Every tradition, let's say, has a profound face and shallow face. Or maybe a continuum that runs from depth to triviality. Anyone can gossip with no real understanding about anything. Language allows that.
Even crappy philosophers can be transformed into gold by the right kind of seriousness. And truly great philosophers can be interpreted into bumper stickers in the other direction. Traditions are nice, but show me the individual.
More truth than mumbo-jumbo, or otherwise?
Quoting macrosoft
I think it's sincerity.
Quoting macrosoft
What do you mean?
This reminds me of vampire fiction, which I think is pretty suggestive. Would I become immortal? Would I choose to become a vampire? I really might. But vampires can be destroyed. So let's imagine vampires that can't be destroyed, so that one is stuck with immortality. Now the question is heavy. I'd now say that one should be very careful here. Old fashioned religious notions of hell are entering the picture along with absolutely irreversible decisions. Death adds a certain lightness to existence. However bad you mess it up, you eventually get to go home.
That's certainly a dilemma that one can face. I suppose I'd want to live forever. I can always choose to die if I wanted to; but, again that's futile. Schopenhauer and moreso Camus talked about the futility of death.
For me the truth or mumbo-jumbo is only real or alive in the person making use of the tradition. A book, for instance, only really exists for a living, breathing reader.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Yeah, that's a good word for it. A serious fool will persist in his folly and become wise. There's an old quote: people usually get what they want. As a rule-of-thumb (and allowing for time and chance), I think that's roughly true. And you find out what you really wanted to some degree by seeing what you ended up with and thinking about how you actually spent your time to get there. It's quite common to think one wants one thing and all along act toward some other goal. These things become clearer, though, usually when it's just about too late.
Quoting Posty McPostface
For me it's never about some dead system of statements or rituals. On their own they are neither true nor false, profound nor mumbo-jumbo. They merely set the stage for a certain kind of existence, and setting the stage is not going to magically get the job done. I can't say exactly what gets the job done. I think the traditions are hints, poems, technologies that have helped others exist in the certain way.
But I think there is a limit to what can be formulated.
I don't understand what you mean by the futility of death. IMO, Schopenhauer's notion that suicide was futile was an attempt to plug a fundamental defect in his system* and a kind of hypocrisy that haunted his life. I still think he was a truly great philosopher.
And Camus took a ride with a known speed-devil, and he probably liked that proximity to death. It probably made him feel sexy and alive.
*The defect I mean is that Schopenhauer's cosmic vision is very close to the suicide's cosmic vision. Life is a stupid stage on which meaningless pain stalks. It is a bad thing to be dealt with. But I don't think Schopenhauer was sufficiently conscious of the immense pleasure he took in being the guru of pessimism. He loved his complaint. He would have (in his heart of hearts) kept humanity alive and suffering only so that they could read his books and appreciate his genius. 'Oh that Schopenhauer really tells it like it is. Ouch! Ouch ! Ouch!'
Basically Schopenhauer's vision is 'essentially' suicidal, which makes 'selling' it a little absurd.
Or they become satisfied with what they have?
I mean, that it's unavoidable and always present. One cannot escape the confines of mortality. If one attempts for the greatest of goods, such as contentment and satisfaction, that's all that can be asked for in the end.
Yeah, that too. Sometimes life can proceed smoothly and pleasurably for stretches at a time. Life does not have some big 'hole' in it. The world feels pretty good. All is well.
Then things go to hell. And then we usually adapt and get things going smoothly again. Repeat. Eventually they go to hell and we can't fix them. But that's OK. The children are there to replace us in the game, not really different from us.
Oh, OK. Yes, it seems futile to try and escape death. I agree. And I'd say that impermanent satisfactions and contentments are all we have, but also they are enough (if we get enough of them.)
Ok, glad you're not suicidal. Joking aside, life is pretty good nowadays. We don't have to worry about being drafted in some war. We have most of our needs (apart from housing) readily supplied. Opportunities abound for a good life. We enjoy a great deal of freedom. I suppose, too much freedom to some extent.
Let it come naturally, is what I think I'm trying to say.
An attitude is everything after all.
Hmm. Did you think I was suicidal? Oh no. I'm usually happier than most even. In the most suicidal moods (thankfully rare) I have an absolute contempt for talk. One is too disgusted by the futility of communication to talk about it, which leads to people being even more surprised. There are the doers and the threateners.
On the contrary, I'm usually especially happy when I'm typing out my little thoughts on existence or my thoughts on thoughts about existence.
And, yeah, things are good on average.
:)
You know they are central for me. They are sort-of what philosophy is really about. They can be changed. Lots of people well out of their 20s look back on their 20s as a series of experiments with a sequence of basic poses toward existence, often conveniently summarized by the heroes one took at a particular time.
Usually disaster forces us to change. But there is also just the gradual seduction of other, adjacent attitudes.
Likewise.
Thanks!
The constant lacking is typically covered up by busyness of various kinds, but yes, underneath the busyness the lacking is there. The lacking is a waste product of thought, which suggests at least two partial remedies.
1) Do less thinking. The majority of our thinking is just aimless random wandering accomplishing nothing too constructive. A great deal of thinking can be set aside without risking any important projects. Very generally speaking, this approach has often been highlighted in the East.
2) Shift the focus. A key product of thought is the "me". The "me" is defined by a perceived division from everything and everyone else. The resulting isolation and "lacking" can be overcome to a degree by shifting the focus from ourselves to others, an approach often highlighted in the Christian West.
Both #1 and #2 above involve basically the same process, an act of surrender. Jesus called this "dying to be reborn".
Attempting to analyze and figure out all this stuff about our personal situations may be misguided (while being very normal) because such a process is the opposite of #1 and #2 above, in that it keeps the focus on thinking and on "me". The cure you are working on may actually be the disease.
Over thinkers like you and me can be like the alcoholic who tries to cure his addiction with a case of scotch. It's our over thinking, and the resulting excessive focus on "me", which got us in to trouble in the first place, so poring more of that fuel on the fire is not always the ideal remedy. Like with the alcoholic, it's what we want to do, but not always what we need to do.
Interesting post. Therefore philosophical quietism?
Sure. I may be interrupted, but I may not.
Who should I be? Who can I manage to be?
What are your thoughts on philosophical pessimism? Is it perfunctory?
Indeed. I think, attitudes are paramount to philosophical talk.
I learned from it. I like that it is has the guts to face the monsters.
But, you didn't become a philosophical pessimist yourself? Kudos.
Or at least this can happen for some individuals, maybe the irritable ones and those thirsty for the frontier.
What do you mean by that?
What is "meaning holism"?
Let's say you try to live as an X. You do your best to live up to the pose, but you find that it just doesn't work in practice. And even logically there are rough spots. So you make adjustments here and there. Or sometimes you experience a revolution and abandon the pose completely.
I've written about it in lots of post, and the name 'macrosoft' even hints at it. Basically the idea is that the tree gets its meaning from the forest. We have people interpreting people on the global level. To zoom in on the individual words and wring our hands over individual meanings is the first wrong step. The whole enterprise of interpretation is hobbled by staring at a particular tree, and thinking that the truth is the sum of the truths about particular trees.
"I need food."
"Why do you need food?"
"Because I'll starve to death otherwise. I want to keep living."
You don't have any need without having an underlying want.
Oy--we're probably complete opposites on that. I'm a subjectivist on meaning. Meaning is something that happens in individual's heads. And each individual will necessarily have non-identical meanings compared to other individuals ("strictly" non-identical, since nominalism is the case; they can be similar, but they won't literally be the same meaning).
Understood. Yet, those atomic relations stand out from the rest. They are what ground meaning.
Wants could better be called "preferences" or "likes". We achieve our likes as well as feasible in a world that isn't custom-made for us. No problem.
Needs? Things that are needed in order for continued pursuit of likes.
Ultimately, what was really needed?
Quoting Posty McPostface
It isn't possible to achieve all likes. No problem.
Quoting Posty McPostface
How so? What's wrong with achieving what you like when and to the extent feasible?
Merely to do our best, toward our likes, and toward a considerate, harmless, beneficial lifestyle.
Michael Ossipoff
Big problem. We live in strife over trivialities in life. How could you neglect to mention this is beyond me.
This can't be true. Can it?
I can somewhat to relate to that, but I wonder if you see where I'm coming from in terms of the interdependence of meanings --that they aren't really atomic.
Seems obvious to me. What would you propose as a counter-example?
You just described exactly the view that I am 'attacking.'
My need for water to survive is independent of any want.
Well, I'd say that the meanings you assign are both influenced by the behavior of others, as well as other things in the environment, as well as influencing others, including the meanings they assign.
What is the ground without bedrock beliefs and truths?
My point is that the ground is somewhat obscure. Do you have any real doubt that you live in a world with others?
How so? We all stand on the same ground more or less.
That's shifting the sense of "need" that we're talking about--in other words, it's equivocating two different senses of the term.
In the sense you've shifted to, your need to avoid drinking water to die of thirst/dehydration is independent of any want, right?
So when we talk about needs and wants, would you list a need to avoid drinking water?
Exactly. We all stand on the same ground more or less, else we would not be able to make sense of one another at all. Now we are getting there. There is a basic intelligibility, a basic know-how, that we don't have to work for.
And this is where we really start, not from nothing. And where we go from here uses this mysterious basic intelligibility.
I don't understand this. Please explain.
So, hence, words have atomic meaning.
What is the atomic meaning of 'justice'? Is it crisp in your head? Can you hold the exhaustive concept of justice in a single thought?
I'm surprised that you leap on these atomic meanings, given your love of Wittgenstein. IMO, there's a good reason that his views changed later.
In the same sense that:
(a) to stay alive, you are required to drink water,
(b) to die of thirst/dehydration, you are required to NOT drink water.
So, if that's what we're talking about when we talk about needs/wants, do you list (b) as a need? Do you say, "One of my needs is to not drink water"?
...self-made strife.
Often we do, but we needn't.
If Schopenhauer said that, he was speaking only for himself (...and admittedly for a lot of other people too)...but his attitude toward life is unnecessary and guarantees artificial self-imposed unhappiness.
People unnecessarily make trouble for themselves.
Michael Ossipoff
Not anything we could type. In my view, meanings are different than words, especially different than marks we can make on screens, sounds we can make with our mouths, etc.
Justice is an abstraction of the mind. Sure, we can disagree about it; but, the atomic meaning is apparent when we want to communicate it to another.
That's a want admittedly, but, I fail to see how it contrasts from the need to drink water.
Right, but they experience that making of unnecessary trouble as necessary at the time.
Is that so? So what lights up in your mind when I just offer the word 'justice' out of context?
My point is that words function together. Meanings do not snap together like legos. Of course there is something 'like' atomic meaning. A word has a kind of 'zone' of meaning even out of context. But this is the word in its weakest form. So I'd say we build a bad foundation when we take words at their weakest and vaguest and least alive and try to build from them (the bottom up approach.)
In the same sense that you have a non-want need to drink water, you have a non-want need to not drink water. Do you agree with that? If not, why do you disagree?
Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding you here. It seems like words are failing us here.
Yes, "justice" is an abstraction. What more can I say?
Quoting macrosoft
Yes.
Michael Ossipoff
What do you mean by that Michael?
Well, you said the atomic meaning was apparent, and I was just trying to get you to introspect and see that words out of context don't have much force. Meaning is distributed. As you read this, your mind flows along the sentence and through time putting the words together in a mysterious complex thought. While the words have spaces between them and something vaguely like atomic meaning, they do not snap together that legos. The spatial metaphor is misleading.
Time is essential to meaning and therefore to being. Being is 'in' time, we might say.
Does that make you a subjectivist too? Or contextualism reigns supreme?
"In order for effect x to obtain, y must occur as (at least) one cause."
In order for the effect of you staying alive to obtain, drinking water must occur as at least one cause.
Well, in order for the effect of you dying of thirst/dehydration to obtain, NOT drinking water must occur as at least one cause, right?
And similar things are the case for every single possibility that we can imagine:
In order for you to have your arm severed, we must cut or pull on it (etc.) sufficiently to detach it from your body.
And so on. There would be countless things we could say in that vein.
So are all of those things equally needs in the needs/wants sense?
I need water is distinct from "I want water".
I suppose we can live in a fantasy world where wants and needs are equated with one another; but, that's fallacious.
But what is a subjectivist out of context? See all of these little positions, these 'mini-identities,' are just like atomic words. I am suspicious about all the tidy categories. The big context is the entire personality, which I can only reveal through conversation (such as in this response.)
Understood. So, how does this relate to attitudes?
And indeed I never said otherwise. I didn't say that they're not distinct. I said that all needs HINGE on wants. In other words, there is no need to (do) x if one does not want/desire y, for which x is necessary.
Our basic sense of who we are has a top-down effect on the details, the 'trees.' If my hero is the scientist who gazes at the cold hard truth without bias, then I will reach for methods that make that possible. My whole grasp of what philosophy is will be in terms of gazing at cold hard truth heroically, while all the sissies gaze at their navels.
Or if I am fundamentally a believer in some God, then everything will be framed in those terms.
Or if I am fundamentally an irritable contrarian, then I will always look for a way to break out of dichotomies and be alone on some mountain above the battlefield, transcendent.
Oh, indeed. One can always suppress needs over wants. That's true. But, I don't see how this contributes to the discussion in any manner or form.
Haha, I understand. So, the point of your posts is to highlight that we can't have an attitude independent of meaning obtained in an abstract sense? Which comes first, though? Meaning or attitudes?
That sounds kinda-like what I mean. I am saying that attitude is entangled with method. And I am saying that the functioning ground is global and largely automatic or unconscious.
The contribution is that most folks don't realize that needs necessarily hinge on wants. The topic is usually treated/understood as if they're two very different things, rather than needs being solely a result of wants. (And usually the cleavage is employed to dismiss wants that another party doesn't value as much.)
But, that doesn't mean that method's fail us every time. Sure, methods are prone to fallibilism. But, then we pull ourselves by our bootstraps and are able to share meaning. A private language in principle could not exist.
But, the topic here is that needs and wants are distinct. That one can hinge on another could be an important insight; but, so what?
"That's a very important insight............but so what?" :grin:
Heh, I just fail to see the implications of describing needs as hinging on wants. Care to expand?
But I never said that they did. That obscure ground works for us almost every time. It only breaks down all the time in philosophy, where we are constantly pushing against it.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Not only do I agree, that actually illuminates the position I'm trying to communicate. We live in language which is social and 'enworlded.'
Cool. I thought so myself. I just have a gripe with our lack of agreement on what abstract concepts such as "justice", is.
I don't deny that there is a little drop of something like atomic meaning associated with words. For instance, 'apple' will likely activate an image of an apple in our minds. My point is that this kind of atomic meaning is faint and not worth much. Words get their force as they work together, and you can't interpret a sentence by looking at the words individually but only by taking them as a whole. We do this all the time, and I don't think we can make explicit exactly what is going on --what it is to understand a sentence.
What's funny is that we 'live' what I call 'meaning holism' even as we debate it. And arguing against its existence requires its living application. We tend to stare at an object language and take the metalanguage that makes that staring possible for granted. The eye is not in its own field of vision. But there are mirrors.
Quoting Posty McPostface
So understanding that needs always hinge on wants, you'd have to conclude that you can never get what you need, because fulfilling a need necessarily fulfills a want.
Since presumably you've been able to fulfill some needs (otherwise you wouldn't still be alive to type here), you actually HAVE really gotten plenty of stuff you want. Thus, (the) Schopenhauer (in you) is wrong.
Cool. I agree for the most part. But, I suppose there are hinge propositions or a priori truth that we must deal with first, and guarantee the intersubjectivity of meaning. If we wanted to communicate with other people, then it is through such a priori truth, such a mathematics, and such.
It is wrong and right at the same time. I have wants that haven't been actualized, and I have needs that most are taken care of. Most of my wants are independent of what my needs are. That's just how the cookie crumbles.
But there is no private language. We start with a profound sense of the inter-subjectivity of meaning.
We are already where some of us think we need to prove we are. And those who want to prove we really are there are already assuming we are as they try to prove it, in the mere concern with proof (which is implicitly for others in a shared world.)
What troubles people is that our experience of being there is inexact, receding, automatic. The fantasy is to make it explicit. But we end up betraying the living system of language by grabbing at 'atomic meanings' for the bricks of the castle we didn't need in the first place. Except that we conceived the philosopher as a kind of knowledge knower, or scientist of science itself, with perfect certainty and clarity as replacements for God. (In short, it's an implicitly theological project.)
Well, I'm lost on what we disagree on here. We seem to be saying the same thing to some degree.
You're never going to get everything you want, but your wants and needs are not independent of each other. They can't be. Rather, it would be that some wants you just don't value very highly, or maybe some you know are unrealistic/not practical, if not unattainable because they're pure fantasy, or maybe some you're relatively too lazy to pursue (that's the case for me, for example). But all of those wants would imply needs. They can't be independent of needs. For any want, there are going to be things that have to be the case (even if just hypothetically--for example, for fantasy wants) to make the want be the case.
I figure that @macrosoft would disagree here.
Perhaps. But if I'm honest, I'm not getting a clear picture of your perspective.
On my view there is ONLY private language.
(I'm not a Wittgenstein fan. At all.)
People make trouble for themselves by calling likes or preferences "wants", or even taking them to be needs.
Did we need to be conceived? Did Schopenhauer think so?
So, if, ultimately, nothing was really needed, then any likes that are there for us are extra and positive.
From the physical standpoint, we're purposefully-responsive devices designed by natural-selection to pursue preferences and likes.
In other words, we're here to do our best (toward our likes and preferences), as opposed to being here for things to happen to.
In other words, what can happen really matters at (only) the time when we have a choice to make (...such as a choice about how to avoid a less-preferred outcome). What we're about isn't outcomes that have already happened. ...or, in general, things that we can't influence.
That we aren't about outcomes after they happen is suggested by something similar said in the Bhagadvita.
Similar things are found in Buddhist writing.
Regarding the above, remember the "Desiderata" saying, which says to do our best about what we can, and accept (disregard) what we can't.
...and, as for our choices, they're determined, are made for us, by our preferences and our surrounding-circumstances, and therefore aren't even really our choices. Our role in those choices is merely to make a best-guess about what will best serve our preferences, given the surrounding-circumstances.
I don't know what your metaphysics is, but the above is all applicable even under Materialism.
Michael Ossipoff
I'd say it's a terminological dispute, because here we are talking, pretty much intelligible to one another. And I'm guessing you think in English that I could pretty much sense of.
Again, that's it's a terminological dispute is what Wittgenstein would probably say,but he's wrong.
Meaning occurs only in individual's heads. It can't be shared in any manner. It's something inherently mental.
Communication does not at all require literally sharing meanings. That's not how it works.
Yes, but succinctly what's your point here?
@Banno, @unenlightened, what do you chaps think?
I mean to highlight that we both share needs and not wants. We can agree that I'm thirsty if I'm dying out of dehydration. Not so much about wants.
For me, though, 'mental' doesn't have some sharp meaning. Sure, we have a rough categorization, but I don't think it's sharp enough for what philosophy often wants to do with it. Now you can understand the mental so that meaning is trapped in heads, but to some degree that seems like a grammar preference. Because people commonly talk of sharing ideas, without all the metaphysical baggage of intending something exact, as if they are sharing some identical entity.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I believe that if I understand the terms in exactly the way you'd prefer that I'd also agree with your point. But for me this just cuts the knot instead of untying it. Our primary situation involves interpreting words that are not used exactly to our preference, and we also are forced to use words that don't conform to others' preferences on the 'atomic' level. So I think we are constantly trying to interpret an approach as a whole to make sense of to-us-suspect uses of words, and we are constantly asking others to do the same for us.
In that sense there are only private languages (no perfect overlap).
The first brief answer that occurs to me is to quote Kentucky Buddhist Ken Keyes...his statement that we have likes, which needn't be called "wants" or "needs".
That's the short version, and you asked for a very brief concise statement.
Michael Ossipoff
Oh, I agree with that, roughly or sufficiently. (I think it's pretty much always possible to qualify, qualify, qualify --but not always appropriate, else we'd never finish one thing and start another. )
Oh, understood. I just meant to point out that we have shared needs, maybe not wants.
Hmm, one cannot be certain of wants; but, needs are apparent. What does that mean to you?
My understanding of humans includes that they will die without water and feel pretty bad on the way to that thirsty grave. It also includes the idea that humans can individually become fixated on objects or ideas that leave others cold. One man will die for what another considers a joke or a bore. Roughly, needs are based in biology. Wants exist on upper levels of the human being (which are still maybe founded on biology, but in a more complicated way.)
And how does this relate to semantic holism that is an attitude? If I'm a philosophical pessimist, then what?
Some people think that meaning is llterally "embedded" in objective stuff.
I'd guess that you're familiar with Putnam's work on meaning, no?
My views on what meaning is ontologically are rather controversial. I'm stating an ontological claim. Not a grammatical preference claim.
Could some people agree with me but just be using language that suggests that they would think otherwise if we were to read language like an Aspie and think that everything in colloquial conversation is "literal"? Sure. But we can't know that very well unless we explain the issues to them and ask them what they think.
At any rate, when people "share ideas," they're of course not doing that literally.
Re some "sharp meaning," I don't even classify anything that way, so I'm not sure what that would be saying.
Quoting macrosoft
Maybe, but not everyone does.
The world is the totality of facts not things. Comes to my mind.
That's one of the small number of things Wittgenstein said that I agree with. ;-)'
So, can I objectively state that you are deprived of water? If that is so, here's a glass of water.
If one wants philosophy to address the 'highest' things, then one is naturally going to be drawn to existentialism, the philosophy of religion and art, etc. One will probably think (just an example) Nietzsche is a philosopher, very much a philosopher, else philosophy is some boring technical pursuit, a kind of word math for experts, another dog trick to learn in STEM (and I have a job in STEM.)
So if one wants to think about the highest things, life and death matters, with a kind of 'religious' seriousness, then one is going to quickly get impatient with just staring at bugs in the source code. One wants to talk about the total human situation. And one pretty soon figures out that people have their own little words for this or that and nevertheless fundamentally agree somehow on their basic grasp of what it means or should mean to exist, etc. And I don't mean what it means for a hair dryer to exist: I mean what it means for you or me to exist in this world with other people, in time, mortal, full of desire and fear.
Are you a Tractarian by any chance? The world is the totality of facts not things. Therefore, we must analyze the state space we both inhabit. This can only be done through perfect asymmetric information sharing.
Sure, there are broader requirements that people have in common (...such as survival and its requirements), to achieve their diverse likes. ...but ultimately it comes down to likes.
Michael Ossipoff
You mean preferences? I mean, there's a tale in the realm of economics that asserts that diamonds are more valuable than water; but, not at all times.
No. But I've read lots of Rorty, if that helps. I think he's pretty great, and I also have lots of respect for instrumentalism, pragmatism, etc. Holism just happens to be the horse I'm riding at the moment. But I can feel my way into what someone might mean by that embeddedness.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Not to be difficult, but why not? They participate in the idea at the same time. I'll agree that this isn't exactly true, but I don't think it has an exact meaning in the first place. So we can't be exactly wrong or right about it. We just get a sense of what is appropriate to say or do and say or do it, never 'completely' or 'exactly' grasping some clear and distinct essence. Meaning flows through time and sentences inexactly but 'sharp' enough so that we constantly move on with our lives. My central point would be maybe that it's distributed. It's not 'in' the words but 'between' and 'around' them. And time is crucial: as you read this sentence there is a kind of memory of what has been read and an expectation of what is to follow, so that meaning is not instantaneous.
So 'being' is temporal and historical. It's only within the unnoticed temporality that we can imagine a subset of being that is neither temporal nor historical, dead stuff that is just there. This is an extremely useful subset and way of looking at things, but it is parasitic or dependent on something more mysterious. (But I have no intention of dragging in 'supernatural' entities to bury this mystery in more entities that explain nothing really but only draw a smiley face on the mystery.)
Ideas are mental phenomena. As such, they occur "in persons' heads." They're literally brain states that the person has--it's what it's like to BE that brain (or rather those parts of that brain), in those dynamic states.
Sounds that people can make with their mouths, things they can type or handwrite, body motions they can make, etc. are not at all the same as ideas they have. Those things are correlated to ideas, but they're not the same as them.
So they're not literally sharing ideas, because it's not metaphysically possible to do that..
Yes, but, there are things that we like, and that stronger word is appropriate too. And I suggest that likes are what our life is really about and for..
Quite so.
Michael Ossipoff
I love the later Wittgenstein, though the aesthetic/ethical thrust of the TLP is great. To me it's not particularly useful to say that the world is the totality of facts. Or it's useful for only one particular kind of purpose. I think roughly that Wittgenstein was annoyed at people being scientistic about religion and art, and that that was part of his goal, to reveal the mystery by clearing out the confusion.
Indeed. But, what's wrong with stating that the world is the totality of facts and not things? This seems elementary to me.
I mean "preferences" is true, but it doesn't sound like as much fun as "likes".
Michael Ossipoff
I don't think this does justice to what we mean and experience. I can totally relate, though, to relating our experiences of being a brain to measurable aspects of the brain as an object. I know that I can swallow certain pills and make pain go away. But really we don't talk about our thoughts and feelings in the same way that we talk about objects. We can say that thoughts and feelings are 'really' just objects, but this seems to add too much to the uncontroversial relationship of thoughts/feelings and brains.
I'm not even saying I disagree, but what is a fact for you? Merely offering the phrase out of context doesn't say much. This is my tedious meaning holism. To figure out what that sentence means to you, I have to get to know you. By all means, tell me how it exists for you in context.
What do you mean by this?
But, I have expressed holism by stating that the totality of the world are facts.
Agreed, and the light that hits are eyes is not the tree. But one can say that we see the tree, that the light reveals the tree to us through our eyes. So the marks and noises communicate something we call meaning. On the level of preferences, I lean this way.
If you mean that all the facts are entangled in a system, then that is my cup of tea. If you mean that the world is 'primordially' intelligible, then I agree. If you mean that the world is made up of sharp and clear propositions that are the case, then I don't agree.
Glad we're on the same page, then. I mean to assert that things are really just facts that we can agree on. There are also bedrock beliefs we can agree on.
Oh, OK. Then yes. I like that. I would just add that we don't have to 'have them in mind.' They are there like a dark background for the most part. Just think about how much we take for granted as we glide around the furniture on the way to the fridge.
Yeah, or the stuff we can all agree on that we stand upon.
Right. And for me this is the real ground. And it's not an exact ground. It is a fuzzy darkness, though we can always shine a light here or there when necessary. I don't check to see if I have hands before I reach for my coffee.
Secondly, if @Terrapin Station is right, how do we understand what he meant?
Oh, understood. I meant to imply that want's are just out there hanging around, not doing anything useful with language.
Hmm, this is ambiguous. Don't you agree that because I have two hands (fortunately) that the external world exists?
Yeah, I'd say that of course the external world exists. My point is maybe that it doesn't exist as a theoretical object. It's not like we have complicated metaphysical theses tucked in our 'subconscious.' No. I'd say that we start with a blurry or rough sense of the shared world as well as a shared language and then we build our spiderwebs to 'prove'(absurdly) the things we have to take for granted in order to build these webs in the first place. It's something like methodological stupidity (or methodological skepticism, more generously.)
Kind of like proofs of God. Usually they are constructed by believers who don't need proof but would like to scratch a peculiar intellectual itch.
*I'm also out of time for now, so I'll just add a methodological comment. Note that I am not trying to 'prove' my statements. Why not? Because my claim is that I am only pointing out what we already know but mostly don't notice. What gets in the way of this noticing is lots of inherited baggage, seductive images of what things 'must' be. The 'cure' is introspection and just looking at how 'you' (my skeptical reader in general) experience ordinary meaning in ordinary life, the 'external world,' the presence of others, etc. Non-theoretical living made visible to a theorizing that often only looks to itself as an exhaustive image of life.
You may want my input, but you don't need it.
But, your input is highly valued. :)
I just mean that though likes can be called preferences, that word sounds unnecessarily neutral. "Likes" more fully expresses their positive nature.
Michael Ossipoff
But, water is important to me regardless of however much I like or dislike it.
Why do you think that it's important for philosophizing to be consistent with the way that most people talk about something? What if the way that those people talk about something is based on incorrect beliefs?
The sound/meaning relationship is very abstract, though, and there's no way for anyone else to check just what the correlations are.
By the fact that understanding and communication do not at all work via literally sharing meanings.
Then how do they work?
IMO, it's very tempting to understand an 'ordinary language' position in terms of an ought. And in some cases an ought may come along for the ride. But for me any kind of ought is secondary. I'm trying to describe what is, as I experience it. The 'way most people talk about something' is the metalanguage withing which we construct our ideal object languages (AKA says what counts as real). For the most part, these object languages are the concern of a few experts, academics or in-their-free-time, who largely see themselves as talking about what is really real and yet don't change their actions in the world significantly with the rise or the fall of a thesis. Do I see the tree? Or do I see my seeing of the tree? Either way I swerve my car to miss it, or I swerve my seeing of the car to miss the seeing of the tree. (My tiny ought sneaks in here as a preference for the simpler expression, but I understand why others emphasize mediation at the expense of style.)
Don't get me wrong. I think meanings are important, even if they don't change our actions. Maybe they make us happier to do the things we were going to do anyway. The 'value' of life is maybe mostly in the so-called subjective realm. A person might be happy in a clam living in a single-wide trailer, smoking weed, and misreading Hegel on the typewriter. (That's not me, but I can think of far worse fates.)
But why add this 'literally'? Doesn't this assume that uses of 'sharing meanings' are employing some kind of fancy metaphysical machinery that you object to? But I don't think they are. We have a kind of pre-theoretical familiarity and skill with language. That is what I'm aiming at, not an ought but the natural consequences of the perception of an is. To grasp language in a new way is to rethink what you have been asking it to do. An architect draws up plans for a house made of bricks, say, and then discoverers that the only material available is flesh, living flesh.
I don't know what to make out of that superficial distinctions you have made. Thoughts?
Could you go into detail, and say what you think is the same? (What is the illusion of difference that I am laboring under?)
How about this: if I point down the road at truck coming over the hill, then I'm not telling you to not lie down in the road, but you are less likely to lie in the road just then. Similarly, I see language in a way that doesn't match up with the way people tend to talk about it theoretically as they try to do philosophy with it, in this context of the vision of language that I find questionable.
But, according to the totality of things being facts, then all we have are symbols, models, and theories which we can devise about the world.
That's why I object to the world as the totality of facts if/when these 'facts' are understood as explicit propositions, etc. Exactly because I don't check and see if I have hands, and also what it is to drink coffee with those hands doesn't fit all that nicely under the word 'fact' or 'symbol' or 'model' or 'theory.' Is the experience of taking a hot bath on a cold day a fact? Is a smile from a girl who thinks you're clever a fact? That she smiled may be, but not the smile itself or the way it made you feel.
It seems to me that early Wittgenstein was especially concerned with the theoretical gaze. But this is a secondary feature of reality, merely one mode of being and language game among others. To talk about reality as a whole merely from a contemplation of man as the scientist is like talking about the beach and only mentioning the sand --and not the girls in bikinis or the sun and the breeze, etc.
I agree with most of what you have said. I don't think fact making is really a big issue then. Or how do facts obtain in reality?
It's hard to know how to approach a question at that level of generality. I will say that I think life is ultimately mysterious. We understand things without understanding how we understand them. We learn how to use words like 'facts' in all kinds of particular contexts. Somehow things tend to go smoothly. People work together and build machines that fly through the air, without ever conclusively grounding science or solving the classic philosophical problems. Time hurtles on. Some of us use our free time to try and get clear about fundamental things. Some of us do manage to get clearer on this or that issue, perhaps by finally confessing a fundamental unclarity in our foundations (my approach.)
Interesting. What do you have to say about Wittgenstein's flawed approach in the Tractatus?
I still like the TLP, so I just think it has its blindspots. And I haven't re-read it for a long time, so I am just informally gossiping about what it meant and means to me. What I have been trying to say in various ways is that language is not how philosophers often want it to be. IMV, this becomes 'obvious' if one really looks at it with fresh eyes.
The form of the TLP hints at a certain approach to philosophy. It's a spiderweb, with everything in its place. It attempts to nail certain words to certain meanings, so that it can run its strings from this essence to that essence. But this is an artificial approach that fundamentally misgrasps its object, which I think the later Wittgensein would agree with, though I don't appeal to him as an authority. The only authority is introspection and paying attention to how language is for us. [And why this is hard to do is because we are locked into a certain method that we haven't really consciously adopted. It is the water in which we swim, almost invisible to us.]
The Tractatus was a good work.
What are your thoughts about solipsism?
I agree. It's a masterpiece. The tension between its motive and its form is endlessly fascinating. It's a young man's book, a radical book, an arrow aimed at God.
Quoting Posty McPostface
It doesn't really make sense. We are so deeply in a world with others that solipsism is like origami that we fold for others in the first place.
We might say that the sincere pessimist is a suicide and that the sincere solipsist is a madman. Of course I am not using 'sincere' technically or scientifically but expressing my own personality or grasp of the situation here.
So you and I cannot possibly mean the same thing when we each say "Paris is the capital of France"?
So, in a nutshell, communication obtains when multiple parties interact (not necessarily in real time or directly, and when separated in time, the multiple parties can be two temporal instances of the same person) in a way involving understanding.
Understanding obtains when one assigns meanings to objects, actions or events in a way that is coherent and consistent to one and that also makes sense in the context of both future and past related objects, actions and events, especially those (one considers) related to the objects, actions or events in question.
Mutual understanding obtains when multiple parties do this in conjunction with each other, so that if there are two parties, say A and B, A is in the state in the paragraph above with respect to B, and B is in the state described in the paragraph above with respect to A.
Note that this does not imply that A and B have similar content to their states. Since meaning is subjective and inherently first-person in my view, we can never know whether A and B have similar content to their states.
I don't understand your answer at all. You brought up that how most people use language doesn't cohere with my stated view.
I'm wondering why it matters, in your view, that how most people use language doesn't cohere with my stated view.
It implies that you think that our views should cohere with how most people use language. Why?
I was trying to avoid a bunch of posts a la "your response makes no sense to me," because there are at least a handful of posters here who post a lot where maybe 80-90% of the time, I'd have to answer with "your response makes no sense to me." But maybe it's better if I announce that every time rather than trying to "politely" plow ahead anyway, because that doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Because some people have a belief that it works by literally sharing meanings. So I'm clarifying that I'm disagreeing with that.
Quoting macrosoft
Some uses. Yes. That's what I'm addressing.
Quoting macrosoft
In some cases they are. I've been doing this a long time, and I've had various discussions over the years with philosophers who believe that we literally share meanings in communication.
I'm certainly not claiming that everyone believes that. Different people believe different things. By pointing out that I'm saying that we don't literally share meanings, I'm presenting a view in distinction to folks who believe that we do literally share meanings.
You seem to hold a view that we all really believe the same things. That's not at all the case.
Quoting macrosoft
No idea what that has to do with the rest of the post. I'm not quite sure what you're saying there, either.
Not literally the same, no.
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, I'll grant you that. But for me this falls under the critique of terminological dispute. It is an issue between philosophers with little or no relevance at all for our actions in the world. 'Differences that make no difference.' I am expressing a different kind of preference of my own in that view, admittedly. I'm not saying 'it is the case that that approach is wrong.' Instead I'm saying 'I don't think that kind of issue is very exciting, because it feels/looks like grammer preferencing. '
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'll readily grant that we believe very different things at the explicitly conceptual level. But I think this happens against a receding background of a taken-for-granted sense of the world and a basic know-how with ordinary language.
What do we make of all of these endless differences? One way to try to deal with the complexity is to look for differences that make a significant difference. One philosopher believes that we see the tree. The other that see only the seeing of the tree. They do have different meanings in mind. But these different meanings are mapped to the same behavior away from the study where metaphysical questions have a kind of chess-like fascination. So the meanings are different but the difference is less exciting from a perspective more interested in stronger differences.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I grant that it's a weird approach.All I can say is to really try to pay attention to your reading as you read, your writing as you write. See how the meanings flow non-atomically.
What do you mean by "coherent" and "consistent" here?
I was strongly influenced by pragmatism, but I guess I'm a macrosoftist, and macrosoftism is always still underway. I am working it out even now in this conversation and highly doubt that I will ever stop working it out. Philosophy is, as W might, say the clarification of thought, not some fixed body of thought. I'd say that existence is endlessly dynamic. The future exists as possibility in a concrete situation with a history.
On 'atomic meaning,' I'd say again that something like holism is 'obvious,' except that it is covered over by a method that is applied uncritically. Why do people want atomic meanings? Why do philosophers think the way to go is to ask 'what is X?' while taking X out all contexts? I'd say that it's largely because of a scientistic approach that takes itself for granted as the only 'objective' or 'rational' approach. You might say that philosophy is just identified semi-consciously with some kind of super-science. It obsesses over the criteria for statements being correct or objective, without asking after its own motives in the wider context of existing as a mortal human being.
There is an obsession with some kind of 'perfect' certainty, which really has a theological flavor. And there is also a sort of (inappropriate to its object) mathematical approach to language. Because so many share this hope, they end up arguing about how to set up the 'object' language. This object language is lots of stipulated definitions that make flexible and vague ordinary language into something more exact in order to make the word-math more plausible.
They don't tend to question the hope or the method to begin with (and the method deserves its due, by the way). It's exactly the 'obviousness' of the method that makes it invisible. The way they reach for the 'object' (existence) is like the way I reach for coffee. The difference is that this way of reaching for the object is actually malleable. But those who grasp the object in a different way (meaning holism, for instance) are not easily understood from within the atomic paradigm. Why? Because those in the atomic paradigm are constantly getting entangled in trying to do math with what the semantic holist says. They think he must be doing the kind of thing that 'of course' philosophers are trying to do. His terms are 'zoomed in' on. His tree math doesn't add up. But the 'tree math' approach is exactly what he's trying to offer an alternative to.
Interesting. I think you are right to treat the atomic propositions with contempt. There's something to be said about arguing over trifle differences. I take the Wittgensteinian approach and push for less ambiguity and vagueness. What are your thoughts on this feature of the language that is 'ambiguity' and 'vagueness'?
'Contempt' is a harsh word. You might say that I like philosophy to include the concerns of existentialism. It doesn't matter to me what we call it. If we 'existentialists' get kicked out for being insufficiently scientific or academic, then not much will change. We will be 'anti-'philosophers or alternative philosophers. The word is just a tree. The grasp on existence and what is most worth talking about will be the same. I'm guessing that Dostoevsky will always be more interesting to me than the k-nearest neighbors algorithm.
When it comes to vagueness, I think it's natural that we work against it when the stakes are high. Basically it is 'expensive' to clarify meaning. We have to hang around and talk until we have the mutual sense of understanding one another. But we are busy creatures! Most of the time when we ask 'how are you?' we are more than happy with 'fine, and you?' A general sense of what is going on is often enough and let's us get back to detailed work.
Also in ordinary life we don't usually zoom in on our language. It just flies out of us routinely. Much of our activity is semi-conscious or automatic. Heidegger's first draft of Being and Time is 100 pages of brilliant philosophy that includes this kind of awareness and really complements Wittgenstein. I don't have any big endorsement of Heidegger as a whole. So far I haven't felt my way into his later work. I even find the style off-putting.
What exactly is the word 'literally' doing here? Are you opposing it to 'metaphorical'?
If so, what could it mean to say we cannot both literally mean Paris by the word "Paris", but might metaphorically both mean Paris?
Or are you just claiming that my idea of Paris and your idea of Paris might be different?
Because while that might be arguable, both your idea of Paris and my idea of Paris are of Paris; we mean the very same city.
You might think Paris to be the capital of France; I might think it to be the Capital of Belgium; and yet both you and I may mea, by "Paris", the very same thing; that city. We share the meaning of "Paris".
How can this be reconciled with:
Quoting Terrapin Station
What are those?
Opposing it to figuratively or manner-of-speaking "the same." For example, we nominalists will often say something like "It's two copies of the same CD." We don't mean that it's literally the same, but we're not going to bother having to explain the basic ideas of nominalism every time we talk, especially when it's folks who wouldn't particularly be interested in it.
Quoting Banno
I didn't say anything like that. The context is whether we're sharing meanings with others, or whether we can have the same meanings in mind. That's a different idea than whether each of us has a "literal" meaning of Paris in mind. I said that we don't literally have the same meaning of Paris in mind. In other words we're not actually somehow sharing just one "object" between the two of us when we're referring to us having a meaning of Paris in mind. It's not akin to there being one football that we can both touch or that we're passing from one person to the other. Rather, we each have our own football. If we each have our own football, it's not literally the same football that we're sharing.
Meaning isn't the same thing as a referent/reference or extension by the way. A computer and robot arm, say, could be set up so that when the word "moon" occurs in a program, the robot arm points at the moon. This doesn't amount to the computer/robot arm system "doing meaning." And the meaning certainly isn't the object itself. There's something intensional that we're doing mentally when we "do meaning.". (Something like the moon is a better example of this because something like "Paris" only exists due to the way that people think about it in the first place. If people were to suddenly disappear there would be no cities, towns, counties, provinces, states, countries, etc. Those things are just abstractions/ways that we think. Things like the moon are a different issues, though)
Non-contradictory and it makes clear sense to us.
But surely you already know. In short, the big meanings of life, the kind of things that religion and art also aim at. Who I am? Who shall I be? What can I become? What is good? What is evil? And these questions aren't idle theoretical curiosity. They are asked sincerely, sometimes desperately. I would include pessimism, stoicism, cynicism, etc. in 'existential' philosophy, simply because they are concerned with our entire existence and not simply with a theory of knowledge. One might say that philosophy is (or can be or should be or shouldn't be) one manifestation of the spiritual, a manifestation especially concerned with clarification and self-consciousness.
Why is the moon a different issue? Presumably human cognition 'chunks' reality into objects of concern. Most would agree that some kind of ur-object-stuff is out there whether we are around to see it or not, but I don't see any exact threshold between 'models' or 'chunking' like houses and the same 'chunking' into moons or electrons or even theories of knowledge.
Fair enough, and I appreciate your honesty. I'll grant that when people share their own perspective that there is some whiff of 'be like me: let's all do it this way.'
Does it deeply matter to me that I convince you? Not really, though of course I would enjoy dragging you in the direction of my way of seeing things. That's just how people are. But I also take a real delight in my way of seeing things, and it just revs up my mind to always find a new way to say it. I'm guessing that we are both conscious that our conversation is public, so there is something performative here. We know we are being overheard. Frankly, I am more motivated to write when there is at least a possible audience. And then I think the give-and-take flow of conversation is a very natural structure.
Why do I preach the gospel of semantic holism? I guess I just like my philosophy more literary and existential, so I am making a case for abandoning certain intricate issues for those I find more exiting. I like the cynics, skeptics, stoics, etc. I like 'big' visions of what it means to exist and of what is virtuous. I think philosophy can be continuous with literature and music. For instance, Nietzsche is like conceptual rock'n'roll. He's not exactly systematic, but he's a thrill to read. I hope this helps.
What camp do you fall in? Sorry for pigeonholing here.
I try to be an original philosopher, synthesizing and paraphrasing everything that seems great. On an 'existential' level, I have no choice. I react to being thrown into this particular life. On a creative level, I just really like pulling phrases out of my soul, especially when I can sketch the forest. It's great feeling when you re-read something and feel that you really captured something potent.
Share some wisdom then. Please, and thanks.
Thanks for the invite. I mostly like to react. It feels more natural.
In a good way, you kind of remind me of my cat. You push lots of buttons to see what happens. She pushes objects around with a sort of focus and curiosity.
:blush:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Hm. "We"? So the meaning of "It's two copies of the same CD" is shared, but not shared.
Perhaps it would be better to think of meaning as not being in one head or both, but as something that is constructed by folk as they make use of language in going about their lives.
And wallowing.
Where is that coming from?
Quoting Banno
If "better" for you amounts to "being wrong about how this works," sure, then that would perhaps be better for you.
This seems like a good approach. It does justice to our experience of a strange kind of shared space.
Posty is fun. Where is @Posty McPostface?
Clearly the 'space' being contemplated is not like the space in an empty garage. It's more like what-it-is-to-be-networked mysterious by a facility with language that may exceed our own grasp of it within or for this same facility. In one jargon we can place this what-it-is-like-to-be-networked within an individual brain. This gels well with some of our other narratives. On the other hand, there mere attempt to do so happens within this shared space, raising serious issues with an otherwise natural placing of this experience in the particular brain.
Just as neurons work to together to form a brain, so brains might be understood to work together to form something more than just lots of individual brains in isolation. The human in isolation is an abstraction. Our basic state is a networked state, an interpersonal state.
I speculate that our dominant visual sense misleads us sometimes. We see gaps between brains and underestimate their interconnectedness. We see gaps between written words and ignore how interdependently they function.
Still here. But, with nothing to say.
Ah, shucks. Push around some objects!
Here's a question for you. How would it affect philosophy if our primary access to the world was through the ear? [It's my understanding that we are dominantly visual creatures.]
I don't know honestly. Do androids dream of electric sheep? What is it like to be a butterfly? What exactly is a 'qualia'? Does the computer in the Chinese room understand what it is processing?
All beautiful questions.
I like computer science, and my initial position was that computers could never experience qualia. But then I reflect that all of us start as the fusion of tiny sperm and egg cells. Are these conscious? At what point and how does this biological stuff become able to think of itself as biological stuff? And if it can be done with burning bags of water who walk on sticks made of milk, then maybe it can be done in other kinds of material. My avatar is an artificial neural network, a research focus. These are very fascinating. What they 'know' is not easily localized. Could we build one with the right materials in 10,000 years so that it wakes up? I don't know. Maybe.
I'd say that reality is mysterious. And yet we have a tendency (myself very much included) to pose as knowing-it-all and finding-it-all-boring or finding-it-all-obvious. That's why I like your string of difficult questions as a response.
Above you see as a whole a sentence. So it is instantaneously present. But if you read it you have to move through time. What you have already read hangs above the word 'presently' being read with an expectation of what is to follow. What you have read already constrains your interpretation of what you read next. What you continue to read, however, inspires a reinterpretation of what you have already read. The past leaps ahead and the future leaps behind. The present might be said to be this leaping behind and ahead.
Does this time of reading/hearing have wider application? Is this more generally existential time? If the beings of the world are meaningful in terms of language, it would seem that being itself is caught up in this 'existential' time which is not clock time. (Heidegger-influenced thought, of course.)
Needs:
1 - oxygen
2 - physical warmth & shelter from the elements
3 - sleep
4 - water
5 - food
6 - safety
7 - a purpose for living
So, that seems to be my problem with starting this whole thread here.
Is that a need or a want?
Most people need to work to survive.
Take away that need, and then you enter the world of the rich. They don't need anything.
So they need to find something to do with their lives.
Like I said, try visiting a homeless shelter, and a pet store. See if you are interested in helping animals or people. There is also the Red Cross.
Ah, an opinion. I've got those too. :)
Hmm, having a purpose in life can be fulfilled; but, I digress.
Does it refer to you being alive or does it refer to you being human?
Anyone really. Not going to pick out or typify anyone here.
It can be material or spiritual depending on how you view things.
Think in terms of conditionals. If your goal is to feed your family, then you need food. There are no instances of one without the other. SO in a strict sense, need implies necessity.
Want does not imply necessity. I want money in order to purchase the food I need; but I could also grow my own or steal.
Of course, hyperbole leads us to say it is a need when it isn't.
What do you mean by that @Banno?
Well, I can't argue with that. I think you and Maslow already hit the nail on the head with this one.
I would need to disagree with you here.
If an object or concept is necessary to attain one's need, then it goes that the said object is a necessity is not merely a want. In your example of money to buy food, I would argue that money is necessary to gain this food. After all, you still need money to buy the origins of the food you are to eat.
If an object is necessary and thus essential in the process of gaining this certain necessity, then the said object is a necessity. However, I must concede that this object is not necessary by its own, but is only necessary by its use or properties. (You need money to buy food. So money is a necessity.)
Quoting Banno
Stealing is a morally problematic. To steal shouldn't be an alternative in the first place. It should only become a reasonable act when situations are dire. And as far as I know, need for money still exists whether you steal or not.
But the distinction was clear and apparent to your mind? So was it in mine.
But I did not say that money is necessary to gain food. Quite the opposite, in fact
We don't know about intentional affect quite yet. What we're left with is behaviorism. The cat behaves this way to elicit a response, not that it 'understands the concept of being a pain'.
Isn't that the point of my response?
Oh, I don't know - I think we can make pretty good inferences from observed behaviour. I'm not going to conclude that there is nothing intentional going on behind your posts.
Well, @StreetlightX has posted an illuminating post here. What do you think about his behaviourism?
What is it?
For a less philosophic answer, I'd put the question next to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
And what do you have to say about that?
All sources of gratification fulfill a need. Maslow's Heirarchy would assert that a person's motivation is based on fulfilling needs that are physical, psychological, social, creative, etc., Physical needs are precedent. If physical needs are met, we approach a new set of goals for gratification.
https://goo.gl/images/Engm1d
I'm not a fan of stoicism.
Hmm, I can see how physical needs are mandatory. But, I don't know so much about psychological needs.
Quoting Brianna Whitney
Why's that?