Intellectual honesty and honest collaborative debate
Does anyone else feel like a fair number of individuals on this site could do with some humility?
Are you constantly feeling angry when someone proves you wrong? Then watch this you cognitively dissonant masses you haha
Listen, we are all here to be philosophers. While we may have differing views, cultures and backgrounds, letâs not forget we are here to increase our awareness, collaborate and seek knowledge. This is a community and none of us, not a one of us here will be ever be perfect or correct in everything we say and if you are trying to hold yourself to that standard then you are carrying an impossible to manage burden.
To be perfect is to be unassailable, so it stands to reason that if you are being assailed then you are not perfect. Itâs okay to be not perfect because nobody else is either. Even if perfection were possible, if youâve ever played any video game with cheat codes activated for god mode etc, then youâll know that it gets boring after awhile.
If we here treat each other as ends and not means to ends then we can all benefit.
Are you constantly feeling angry when someone proves you wrong? Then watch this you cognitively dissonant masses you haha
Listen, we are all here to be philosophers. While we may have differing views, cultures and backgrounds, letâs not forget we are here to increase our awareness, collaborate and seek knowledge. This is a community and none of us, not a one of us here will be ever be perfect or correct in everything we say and if you are trying to hold yourself to that standard then you are carrying an impossible to manage burden.
To be perfect is to be unassailable, so it stands to reason that if you are being assailed then you are not perfect. Itâs okay to be not perfect because nobody else is either. Even if perfection were possible, if youâve ever played any video game with cheat codes activated for god mode etc, then youâll know that it gets boring after awhile.
If we here treat each other as ends and not means to ends then we can all benefit.
Comments (106)
Don'tcha' think? Like, take your own advice or something.
Most posts like this are usually full of shit, imo, but admit not as bad as that one lady posting virtual signalling psychology articles about her superior pacifism in the middle of a debate.
Some also thrive on vitriol. I know I have from time to time. Itâs simply best to disengage or practice writing in a disengaged manner.
Some people are worth paying attention too. Some people are also worth ignoring. If possible just allow those worth ignoring an occasional look in - they may surprise you, or help you surprise yourself.
Explicit humility only works in small doses. If we swerve away from saying anything without some degree of conviction (which can be construed as âarroganceâ) then things get dull very quickly.
Not to mention that if you would read what I said you would see that I agreed with some of it too. Do I have to agree with all of it? No. Iâll apologise if he does as I wasnât the one acting like a child.
So please tell me which inconsistencies in my other discussion did I not respond to? Point them out please and please tell me exactly where I didnât listen to those inconsistencies. Describe those inconsistencies and then point out where I point blank refused to listen I dare you?
Not there, dyou know why? because I was treating God must be atheist with respect up until the point I realised he was going to give none back. Iâm more than happy to give people the benefit of the doubt and treat them with respect but I wonât keep it up if I get none back. Thatâs just me.
âI never read all your other comments in this thread but the general ones, the ones directed at me, and some (but not all) of the comments directed at others.
I plead quilty to that charge.
Is it a site rule, or just your unnamed requirement by you which you spring on me now?â - god must be atheist
Read this, if a student said to me that he hadnât read all of a book they were assigned and has no understanding of nuance in complex arguments then whatever he writes in response to it will be Subpar.
âOptimism alone or pessimism alone are ridiculous measures when it comes to fighting a physical phenomenon that threatens mankind.â God must be atheist
âBy yours and others answers this is becoming apparent. Any measure employed alone is ridiculous. Luckily I never suggested that Optimism or Pessimism alone would be all that was needed. Thatâs no better than the theory of attraction nonsense peddled by self help con artists.â - my response
Look, agreement! So where exactly am I not following my own advice and where is God must be atheist following it?
Oh, not to mention that not a single one of god must be atheists responses was original they were all mirrors of other peopleâs responses.
âMost posts like this are usually full of shit, imo, but admit not as bad as that one lady posting virtual signalling psychology articles about her superior pacifism in the middle of a debate.â
If you think honestly think, collaboration, honest debate and admitting to ones own mistakes is what makes people full of shit then I donât think we are going to get along and you should ignore my posts because I wonât be responding to you again. Iâve really not got time for people trying to make me feel badly just because they havenât learned.
Yes, because saying what is true is such virtue signalling right enough. Seriously these are the responses to this? Think before responding.
Explicit humility only works in small doses. If we swerve away from saying anything without some degree of conviction (which can be construed as âarroganceâ) then things get dull very quickly.â
The second paragraph here is a bit of a âdoes not computeâ moment for me because why would you say anything with conviction if youâre starting to think you might be wrong upon listening to a logical argument? Maybe this is my autistic brain making me not understand but if I am listening to someone, and they are disagreeing with me and say something which makes sense to me then why would I continue arguing that it doesnât?
There is saying stuff with conviction, when you believe in them but we can all change our beliefs over time if we feel we might be wrong.
Personally, Iâm more likely to value someone who is always wrong but aware of it than I am to value someone whoâs right a lot of the time but throws a tantrum whenever they are occasionally wrong and wonât admit it.
Not even my step son who is five cares about being wrong so long as you help him figure out what the right answer is.
Once you learn how to deal with the pain of being wrong (psychologically accurate, itâs a pain response) the world is open to you really and things get easier.
Basically, if you have an idea then put the work in and present it as best you can. There is use in seeing what flaws others see by themselves rather than feeding them the faults you can see. Generally people interact to gain perspective.
Of course, if you have less weight behind what youâre saying then a little flip-flopping probably wonât hurt.
In more simple terms âsteel-manâ your position and see what parts take a battering.
Canât stand individuals who act like that.
I guess I just donât understand what fascinates nuerotypicals about pointless competition and one upmanship. Iâve literally seen two people arguing for the same thing before but because they were trying to one up each other they genuinely believed they were arguing from different points. Its embarrassing to watch really.
Why canât people just be happy that they are learning and growing together?
Quoting Mark Dennis
People blind themselves to the truth and will assail your views for that reason. The reasons people blind themselves to the truth are mainly because they have established an emotional attachment to the belief they are defending. Religion and politics are two of the main fields of philosophy where I see things get out of hand because the posters have allowed their emotions to dominate the conversation rather than their reason.
If we all used logic, it doesn't mean that we will agree. It means that the conversations will be intellectual, honest, and useful.
As none of us are perfect, itâs still important to understand that we wonât be 100% logical all the time. We are human after all and we have no control over what emotions we may feel, itâs understandable to get angry or upset when we engage with each other. So long as we are capable of finding time for self reflection and use logic to examine our more emotional arguments we can learn more about ourselves and the world. Forgiving ourselves for being human also helps.
âCommon sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world: because everyone thinks he is so well endowed, that even those who are hardest to satisfy in everything else, have no habit of desiring more than they have. What it is unlikely that all are wrong, but this shows that the power of judging well and distinguishing truth from falsehood, which is properly what is called common sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men, and as well as the diversity of our opinions does not come from what some are more reasonable than others, but only that we conduct our thoughts in various ways, and do not see the same things . For it is not enough to have a good mind, but the key is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues..."
This is one of my favourite views from Descartes and one I try to remember often. Thanks for bringing it up!
Surely some sociologists must have studied this online phenomenon?
Something about the anonymous, impersonal interface of a forum makes people less likely to accept the humanity of their interlocutors. People say a lot of things on here they would not say, and/or not say in that way to another human being face-to-face. (And I do not exempt myself from that, though I strive to be better.)
I suppose that can be a double-edged sword. It's too easy to become uncivil or even hostile, and certainly very easy not to seriously consider the validity of another's position. However, there is a freeing element also that allows for more exploration and/or honesty. It's possible that the negatives of the former too often outweigh the positives of the latter, however.
They probably have although Iâm having trouble finding any at the moment that deals specifically with the online discourse.
In the link there is an interest read and some links to more.
I think for philosophy, there are probably a lot more issues at play because it is not like most forms of every day discourse. Then you have the online element which as you said makes people a lot braver and more willing to say things they wouldnât normally say otherwise.
With most people but especially with philosophers you also have something Iâm calling the Iceberg effect.
Take the Optimism vs pessimism debate; a theme that seemed to form was that I wasnât taking into account and was dismissing the political, social and technological factors.
This is due to the iceberg effect, that what you see is what you get and itâs all very surface level. The criticism was that my argument was deemed as not wholistic enough and that I hadnât thought about X, Y and Z.
However, this is assuming that the iceberg on top is the full structure. That I am only what I say and write and nothing else when what I think before I write is actually very holistic. However, I could go onto any discussion here and make a similar counter argument, that it wasnât holistic enough. Which begs the question, why isnât every discussion titled âmy philosophy of everything, taking into every account every subject and how they relate to each other with no compartmentalisation at all.â?
You can see the difference in language used here;
You havenât thought about X, Y, Z.
Have you thought about X, Y, Z?
The first is somebody under the iceberg effect. The second is someone who is accommodating for it. This is why philosophers are expected to ask questions more than anything else.
Suffice it to say, people are like icebergs. You can assume that what is above the surface is all there is, but youâll be missing 90% of the person that exists below the surface.
(Not to be confused with The Iceberg Theory or the Iceberg Illusion)
You sound like an entitled manchild. No one owes you anything on an anonymous internet forum.
I sound like? Was I speaking? Can you like, not like uh use like filler words and stuff because like, yknow like it makes you sound like sooooo unintelligent.
No one owes anyone anything on an anonymous Internet forum? Thank you for agreeing that I shouldnât apologise to God must be atheist and proving my point. Iâm surprised youâre still afloat with all the icebergs you crash into.
The predictable irony in your post(s) is astounding.
Excellent question. Why do some people endlessly seek negative excitement and domination rather than collaboration?
I see it fundamentally as a repetition compulsion, a compulsive acting out of some ancient trauma in hopes of creating the fairy tale solution to the events that occurred and which can never be changed. But the trauma gets acted out over and over again, in a desperate attempt to make it right.
Of course, it can never be made right; it's the past. But cruel and callous people believe they have an upper hand, and I think they think it's cool to be mean, kinda like those kids in junior high school. So it's regressive, too: adolescent and infantile, emotionally immature.
Some folks' deep need to be nasty on this forum still makes my jaw drop from time to time.
Iâve known for years about my personal addictive and obsessive tendencies. Although sometimes it surprises me how quickly we can even become addicted to that which should be all good for us. Like studying ethics haha
This is exactly what trolls do. I did quite a bit of reading on trolls over the summer, and you have characterized the game they play to a t. Here's part of what I wrote up:
These are the characteristics which trolls display:
⢠They have "a desire to cause damage to the community" (Buckels). They can't deal with others' happiness, so they spread gossip and negativity;
⢠They are "intentionally malicious" (Hardaker): they "operate as agents of chaos on the Internet.... If an unfortunate person falls into their trap, trolling intensifies for further, merciless amusement" (Buckels);
⢠Online anonymity makes it easier for them to reveal their shadow, or the shady, unacceptable parts of ourselves--greed, sadism, selfishness, hatred, etc.--that we disown or deny: "When acting out hostile feelings, the [troll] doesn't have to take responsibility for those actions. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those behaviors 'aren't me at all'" (Suler). In fact, it's amazingly easy for people to justify their cruelty towards others, but it lacks honesty.
⢠They display anti-social personality characteristics: narcissism , sadism , Machiavellianism (especially, the need to deceive, manipulate and exercise power over others), and a complete lack of concern for others' feelings. "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun . . . and the Internet is their playground!" (Buckels).
⢠They like to polarize discussions, pitting one group against another with differing views (Anderson), thereby transforming a rational exchange of ideas into emotional mudslinging;
⢠They sabotage topics and veer discussions off course; they enjoy "luring others into useless, circular discussion" (emph. added) (Hardaker);
⢠They like to have followers who worship them;
⢠They hate to see the rational, democratic, and tolerant exchange of ideas online. This kind of exchange puts all participants on a horizontal plane of equality and maintains politeness and respect for difference; people agree to disagree and feel free to express their own take on an issue without fear of criticism.
This is the state of the world that we are living in. But I believe that we can exchange ideas in a genuinely dialogic manner, which means that I welcome your ideas as a means of mobilizing my own thinking--as opposed to a monologic approach, which seeks to establish sole authority on what the truth is, to diminish and belittle others' ideas, and to silence opposition.
It does feel good to "dominate" the discussion (although I prefer for a term like convince or enlighten to dominate) if you are able to persuade your interlocutors that your argument is correct and superior. The problem is when people start throwing all kinds of irrational and irrelevant distractions into the discussion; then it's been sabotaged. And then there's no chance of having a reasonable, enlightening discussion.
I was just going to leave this forum, but decided to stay. I'm glad I did: there are some really smart, articulate people I love to read.
We all have to find the right way to deal with trolls. Just remember not to follow them down the rabbit hole of a completely irrational and digressive discussion.
This is an interesting line. I'm not sure I've ever encountered someone whom I consider a troll who has any apparent fans or following.
I like your sense of humor.
That's a deep question. IMV, the philosophical canon is itself full of 'negative excitement and domination.' I view it as a battle of 'final vocabularies' that depends as much on rhetoric as it does on logic.
As we discussed before, I think the only way to avoid becoming a dominating evangelist is to prioritize an ideal, symmetric relationship. I don't claim to find this easy. The 'negative excitement' is always tempting.
When troll really makes it, no one calls him or her a troll anymore. Calling all the philosophy that came before a bunch of confusion, for instance, seems trollish. Yet philosophers have done this sort of thing and become respectable.
Weren't they already respectable when doing it, or did they become respectable later? Perhaps they were already respectable when they said it, but some folk did not believe that that was so. For those folks, perhaps after reading such a person's claims and position, they realized that the person was a respectable thinker after-all.
:wink:
Just jesting with you...
Quoting Mark Dennis
This dubiously presupposes that all objections(being assailed) are on equal footing. I mean, lots of folk throughout history had broken new ground, but were assailed beyond most people's comprehension during the rest of their lives...
Turns out these people were right... and assailed!
:wink:
:razz: :fire:
I think of Russell and Wittgenstein. If you seduce the right somebody, you don't stay a nobody for long. Now I love me some Wittgenstein, but homeboy was a troll sometimes?
I do not object to a jest, either finite or infinite.
Troll?
I suppose that would all depend upon what counts as a troll to the person calling him one...
Both Russell and Witt are in my group of favorites. Russell has much more of my respect. Witt has much more of my sympathy, although Russell has that as well.
Have you ever read Witt's letters to Cambridge? Quite interesting. Poor guy.
Does it?
:brow:
That's the story I had in mind.
And then the form of the TLP is something a crank would dream up. Don't get me wrong. I love it. I got quasi-mystical kicks out of it and still think it's brilliant.It's just that I can imagine all the other Wittgensteins who didn't have the same luck in academia and left cursing it for its shallowness.
[quote=W]
I do not wish to judge how far my efforts coincide with those of other philosophers. Indeed, what I have written here makes no claim to novelty in detail, and the reason why I give no sources is that it is a matter of indifference to me whether the thoughts that I have had have been anticipated by someone else.
[/quote]
I love it, but I doubt I could away with something like that. It's not 'respectable.'
[quote=W]
The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the
problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long
period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been
unable to say what constituted that sense?)
6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say
nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e.
something that has nothing to do with philosophy -- and then, whenever
someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him
that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.
Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have
the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the
only strictly correct one.
[/quote]
Wittgenstein, the mystical troll! Hardly the final truth, but surely this wasn't the way things were usually done. He was an intellectual rock star, an eccentric who had the charisma ad connections (and exciting ideas, of course) to get away with it.
Which is what Bakhtin's notion of dialogism does. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of monologists lurking about.
Well that's a deep question. If I tell you about nobody from nowhere (some articulate prole without institutional backing or connections to fame), does this prole sound respectable to you? What is it to respected? 'admired and approved of by many people' https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/respected
To be sure, I can personally respect this articulate prole. I know that he's really a genius, and that he had his reasons not to bother courting the respect of strangers. That's part of the reason I respect him. I admire his scorn for such trifles. (To be clear, I'm playing. The articulate prole sprung into existence to help me make my point. Or made the point?)
Is it strictly unfortunate though? Doesn't the advocate of diologism need a foil? It's like the crystal palace of Dostoevsky's underground man. In the rational kingdom to come, we might slip into a coma from boredom and/or welcome the return of the [s]king[/s] monological trolls. They'll serve as our 'golden pins.'
Now I genuinely like dialogism and other related insights. I still think that this principle itself runs the risk of becoming monological. It's as if every ideal or principle casts a shadow. It offers us a welcome refuge from the abyssal complexity within. Can any community exist without some foundational blindspot? I don't know. I guess I'm suspicious of any ideology, including my own anti-ideology, claiming a Final Triumph and mistakenly believing it has exiled its own madness.
Also, Iâd agree that one does not need to be known to be respectable.
Letâs take Albert Schweitzer for example, he had headlines written about him describing him as such things like âthe greatest man aliveâ âbest personâ and such. Now, if you read Schweitzerâs ethical vision it does all sound pretty egalitarian and progressive for the times he was around, however by todayâs standards although he would still be considered progressive, he would still be described as a bit of a positive racist with his paternalism over non-white races. Sure he saw other races as brothers and sisters, but he saw himself as the elder sibling. So in some ways heâs respectable, Iâve not come across many others that are aware of him too and while you could argue he was progressive and maybe one of the best people around at the time, he wasnât perfect.
You're a deconstructionist in the finest sense of the word. Knowing that madness can never be permanently banished is a step in the right direction. My madness is my old friend.
It reminds me of that H.L. Mencken quote:
âThe pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logiciansâand the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse. The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safeâthat the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.â
The call for humility often seems to come from those who lack it, you don't like the taste of your own medicine I think or you just don't understand what you're asking for. There is no good humility that embraces being called part of the "cognitively dissonant masses" and honestly I can't think of a less humble word than "masses" being used to describe others.
Quoting Mark Dennis
Quoting Mark Dennis
Philosophy is not necessarily about being right or wrong, it is not necessarily about knowledge either. When I look through the discussions on the forum, I'd say very few of them have anything to do with truth or knowledge but are very subjective. People disagreeing with you doesn't show flaws in your ideas any more than it shows flaws in theirs, quite a fallacious statement.
You said "prove wrong" at the start of your OP, I don't know what that's in reference to but did you actually "prove" someone wrong? Or you're just convinced you were right and you're in fact angry that they didn't acknowledge it. That's what your post sounds like, a hypocritical tirade against self-assuredness.
Quoting Mark Dennis
What would your arrogant rant be without some preaching to others on how they should be like. Don't get me wrong though, I don't have a problem with your overt arrogance, only the hypocrisy and duplicitousness.
Unless you're planning on making friends here on this forum, the members are means to an end. Kind sounding platitudes don't pass for wisdom, an anonymous forum board is not the place for people to treat others as "ends in themselves". Better figure out why you're here and if it's to get into stupid arguments with strangers and then make disgruntled threads about them after you had an argument, perhaps find a better use of your time?
Sure. The most recent example: I don't think that Isaac honestly believes that there are no properties in the world/that the world is just a heterogeneous mass of vague/undifferentiated things that his mind imposes order on.
I know and love that quote. Nice!
Thanks! Hello [s]darkness[/s] madness, my old friend. :starstruck: :grimace: :cool:
Iâm really done with you trolls for today and Iâm not taking your bait. Anyone can go back and clearly read through my interactions with people and the only opinions here I care about are the people that treat me with the same respect I give them and donât give off this monologic bs trying to defend others for having crappy behaviour. Youâre here trying to pick fights, not me. Bye now. :)
Of course not. One can be right about something and wrong about other things. However, perfect knowledge would be had by a perfect person. Perfect knowledge is right. So, if one can be right and assailed, then it is not true that if one is being assailed one is not right(perfect).
That was the context...
Of course they don't. If being respectable required only a large number of different people's respect and approval, then there are all sorts of historical mass murderers who would qualify.
Respectability is subject to individual particulars...
While Iâd say this is true of precision based sciences, in our line of work we have to craft and form long and nuanced arguments, descriptions, analysis etc and while facts stated singularly may be examples of perfect knowledge, opinions on the implications and meanings of facts are more of a grey area.
If however we say that a fact is perfect knowledge, while a person may be saying something that is perfect in that moment, that does not imply the next thing he says will be of the same quality. So it may be that every now and again a person is speaking perfect knowledge/truth. Does this make the person themselves perfect?
This gives me an idea for a new discussion. Iâll open it up tomorrow.
Iâd be very happy to hear your response and look forward to reading it tomorrow. Goodnight!
You're more than welcome.
Don't get me wrong here. There is no such thing as a perfect human who holds nothing but well-grounded true belief...
I was just making the point that it does not follow from the fact that one is being assailed(criticized/challenged/denied) that one is mistaken. That's all I was getting at. That was a flaw in the bit I originally remarked on.
:smile:
A non perfect person giving a right answer can still be assailed by others. A perfect answer given by a perfect person wouldnât be assailed because everyone would know it was a perfect answer.
Of course, since none of us has true knowledge of a perfect being it would be quite difficult to prove this haha you could also maybe make an argument that the perfect person can only be recognised as such by other perfect beings.
We all get carried away sometimes. Consider the words in cool calm manner and then move forward. If youâre not taking âthe baitâ then why respond? Maybe it isnât actually bait, just a subjective observation of your attitude in this thread that may at least be worth considering (or maybe not?).
I try to practice not responding to remarks. It isnât a sign of weakness. It is polite to let someone know theyâll be wasting their time speaking to you on x matter though. I used to think a private message saying so would help protect egos, but it was used as ammunition about my apparent âharassmentâ so Iâd lean toward making it public and civil - always leave the door open for future consideration too and try to judge the posts as posts not as posts by such and such (of course this has limitations in application).
Can you be harsh to your friends and kind to adversaries? If I agree with someone I go for the throat - not to âwinâ. I mean I actively look for a means of conflict.
If thereâs a rabid beast at your door donât kick it. If there is a docile beast at your door kick it into life. I have a feeling it is these kind of approaches that get mixed up that bothers you? Insisting on humility does more to kick a rabid beast than placate it. Walk away and donât be tempted to put the boot in on leaving.
GL
I also put it up because I have been just as guilty of being venomous, monologic and arrogant as these individuals in the past and the Adam Ruins everything video genuinely helped free me from the burden of thinking in a way that was contributing to that.
Yet did anyone watch the video? I donât even know, no one talked about it. I could have had a lot of peopleâs comments removed for being completely off topic but I let it go along because I got justifiably defensive that so many people made assumptions about my motivations that I had to act. Add to that another commenter going into detail on the mentality of trolls and me seeing it in a lot of the troll behaviour I just didnât see what I could do or say to them that would do any good to dissuade them from their assumptions. Then I remembered that I donât care about wrong assumptions and that Iâm not even here to talk about myself anyway.
Would it really have been that hard for them to talk to me about this as diplomatically as you have?
I donât have high expectations in standards of behaviour in individuals. I swear like a sailor and have no concept of taboo and if you have a problem you can talk my ear off about it.
People have been assuming things about me my whole life, literally. Doctors assumed Iâd die within hours of being born as I was 12 days overdue and I had to be given cpr (which broke one of my ribs and it grew at an odd angle because the person had never done cpr on a baby and didnât know youâre to use your fingers for heart compressions not your palm) and put into an incubator before being housed in a contaminated ward that hadnât been cleaned down yet and I got a chest infection which had me in and out of hospital for over a year with many predictions made about my death and itâs never really stopped. Assumption after assumption, being called a bad kid, being in trouble all the time and my anger at being accused of lying all the time made it easy for the kids at school to absolutely terrorise me and get me into all sorts of trouble. I didnât even get diagnosed with Aspergers until I was 23 years old.
Me and my Psychiatrist spoke at length to common misunderstandings of motivation in people on the spectrum. Some of our behaviour comes off as arrogant but itâs motivationally different to narcissism because itâs usually motivated by access to uncompartmentalised memory and low latent inhibition as opposed to a grandiose sense of self.
This leads to high levels of detail orientation and nuance in my writing.
Here is why to me it doesnât make logical sense for people to come onto this and call me arrogant; How can a person be arrogant, posting asking people to not be arrogant, which is motivated out of recognition that I personally have been arrogantly wrong in my life as has every other person Iâve met? It just doesnât really make sense to me and Iâve reached a point in my life now where if I canât correct an incorrect assumption about me within one or two messages then the person wants to believe it of me and I canât be bothered with them online anymore at all. I have to make allowances in my personal life but donât see why I should have to here. Plenty of people here have disagreed with me about things here whom I havenât had heated arguments with because they didnât make assumptions about me, they asked me.
When people make assumptions about me I make them right back, because to me thatâs them signifying thatâs how they want to be treated.
Only if everyone knew the perfect answer. If the perfect answer was against common wisdom, the answer would be assailed...
Bit of an unfair comparison. If they were rabid beasts weâd be able to argue for shooting them before they bite us.
I understand the point though. Ignore the troll and donât bother with impression management because theyâve already given the impression to the people I want to reach that they are a troll. Got it.
I do too, but I donât send a flying strawman kick to the balls either.
The way I describe my style, is to throw stones at stones thrown to stop them hitting their mark but donât throw stones at people unless they hit you or someone else.
Honesty first modesty second is always the best policy in my eyes. If you donât believe someone has countered your claims effectively enough for you to believe it and as far as you can tell you havenât given off any of the emotional responses you normally get when you believe someone has proved you wrong logically to you, (itâs a pain response) then you should be honest in saying you disagree with someone, provide counter arguments or point out the flaws in their logic or ask clarifying questions to give the other person room to expand. However if you feel that pain response then their is probably something there you agree with deep down. Doesnât necessarily mean you or the other party is wrong or right in reality but your belief is very important. Question all of it sure and think about things and see if your pain response was wrong and even check to see if their should have been one.
Humility only has to come if honesty requires it.
Usually though I find it hard to know whether or not people who react with anger to my views arenât either believing some of what I say and protecting themselves from that, or are ideologically predisposed to be angry at the views I posit themselves for whatever reason or any motivations between that Iâm not seeing. The point is the anger isnât helpful because it just ends up spreading and clouding everyoneâs judgement to the point where real discussion is impossible. That in and of itself makes angry people very hard to listen to in philosophy as their arguments are much poorer than if they had taken a step back to calm down and engage in a more conducive manner to them producing better quality counter arguments than if they had come in angry.
Saying all this as someone who does have an anger problem too. First to admit that. Which is why I know first hand that it doesnât help and it clouds the mind which is what it feels like genuinely too. Like a hot black cloud inside your head narrowing your perspective and closing off easy access to the rational parts of the brain.
That and realistically we all have our mental health to take care off too, Iâve been off Facebook for quite awhile too for this reason. Too many studies are coming out about the use of social media and the effects it is having on peopleâs mental health for me to want to take too many risks with mine.
Having and wanting people you can discuss ideas with in a safe way is something everyone needs in life. What people do with social media, their are few things like it in real life. Itâs not often youâll see people stop in the middle of the street, loudly proclaim their thoughts and ideas with a megaphone that can theoretically reach everyone on the planet and then have people from all over the world share their thoughts, criticism, praise, insults and even threats with that original person.
Imagine this; When you leave the house every single person you walk past seems to have something to say to you and a lot of it isnât nice. The way you dress, talk, think, look, identify, job etc.. imagine that was your reality every day. Then realise that with social media, that IS a lot of peopleâs reality every day all done through a phone. At this point, being on social media is becoming a form of self sabotage a lot of the time. :/
It's not a matter of that. It's a matter of people claiming silly things that they don't actually believe.
âHonesty first modesty second is always the best policy in my eyes. If you donât believe someone has countered your claims effectively enough for you to believe it and as far as you can tell you havenât given off any of the emotional responses you normally get when you believe someone has proved you wrong logically to you, (itâs a pain response) then you should be honest in saying you disagree with someone, provide counter arguments or point out the flaws in their logic or ask clarifying questions to give the other person room to expand. However if you feel that pain response then their is probably something there you agree with deep down. Doesnât necessarily mean you or the other party is wrong or right in reality but your belief is very important. Question all of it sure and think about things and see if your pain response was wrong and even check to see if their should have been one.â
So itâs a lot more nuanced than you isolating loan parts of it as standalone.
Not that I can think of offhand. I don't know you that well yet.
I'm thinking of other people I've interacted with a lot here. I gave an example earlier.
Evidence is the person saying things that don't cohere with what they claimed to believe.
Hi Mark, I started watching it, but it didn't grab me; I was at work anyway and distracted. But I felt like I understood the gist of what you wrote, and that's what I responded to. :smile:
His counter was that actually admitting to your mistakes increases your credibility and shows that you care about the facts so much that youâre willing to let go of pride so the truth gets the spotlight.
He explained that while the shows research team is excellent they are all human and humans make mistakes.
It also linked me to another video explaining the backfire effect. Which is when people who are shown evidence against their claims it actually makes them cling to the claims harder. Due to the fact that for most people, being told they are wrong and especially being faced with proof (which in philosophy can be a well put, logical counter argument free of fallacies) they are wrong illicits a pain response and can put them into fight or flight. Itâs how the mind tries to protect itself from what it perceives as a painful truth.
Of course, In philosophy just because someone might have made you feel this pain response doesnât mean they are right or wrong, it just means to you they have made a convincing case.
Thank you for sticking around. I might message you directly for conversations every now and then if that is okay? :)
Brave, ethical man--except that we seem to living in a culture that values the opposite: deny the truth at all costs--just like the lawyers for big pharma have been doing, and of course the republicans are in deep, utter denial about what's been going on, but they only care to protect their own interests, so of course they deny it.
When we admit to our mistakes, it shows some psychological maturity. When we can't admit to our mistakes, we're in denial, and that can end up distorting the hell out of reality. People in denial can become extremely violent when they project onto others whatever it is about themselves they can't face. History tells the story over and over.
The Emmett Louis Till case is a very specific instance of what I'm talking about; if you care to, you can scroll down and watch a short documentary about the pictures taken of the boy's body after he'd been beaten to death by white men who insisted they were defending southern womanhood. http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson#photograph
This was the kind of atrocity inflicted on black people throughout Jim Crow era: all of white men and womens' sick projections onto black people of their own sick and sadistic urges. Black men never wanted white women: we know that in reality, it was always white men, since they were slave owners, raping black women. But they couldn't live with their own psychopathic urges which they acted out of the bodies of black men and women, all the while maintaining that the black people were the sexual predators.
Being in denial can be some scarey ass shit.
It would follow then that either you're perfect or you cannot know if an answer is perfect. If you cannot know if an answer is perfect, then what sense does it make to claim that if one is assailing the answer, then the source of the answer is not perfect?
:brow:
No. It doesn't seem like that claim stands to reason at all, does it? Reason tells us that it makes no sense to claim the source of an answer is not perfect. That's precisely what you propose in the OP.
Are you changing your mind?
So far this has been your only argument. In which you deny that being right is the same as being perfect, which is what I think. Then immediately flip by the end of the paragraph and all of a sudden claim in parenthesis that âRightâ does in fact mean âperfectâ. This doesnât prove the existence of a perfect person nor the existence of perfect knowledge either.
So did you change your mind? Or is your next argument for a perfect being going to be a picture of yourself? :)
Please show the argument. Then I'll respond accordingly.
Did you notice mine?
Perfect is unassailable.
One is assailed.
Therefore, one is not perfect.
The primary premiss is false. All perfect answers are true. Some true answers are assailed. Thus, it cannot be the case that if one is assailed, then one is not perfect.
Being assailed does not equate to being false, mistaken, or imperfect. Being false is one feature of being an imperfect answer. Being incomplete is yet another. We may not be able to know everything about perfection, but we can certainly know that being assailed doesn't equate to being wrong and/or mistaken.
Be well.
:smile:
Again the burden of proof is on you to prove the existence of perfect knowledge or a perfect person.
If premise 1 is false then give an example of something which is perfect knowledge?
Drop the monologic narcissistic bs too because youâre embarrassing yourself now. Itâs actually kind of funny watching you think youâve effectively challenged anything when you are too lazy to even respond properly or write an argument that makes sense.
See you actually believe youâve countered my argument but all youâve done is create you own argument where YOU claim that perfect knowledge is possible without a perfect being and are then trying to say it is my argument. Prove your claims or be quiet but donât try and tell me what my argument is. This is what you sound like. âOh well your argument is completely wrong if I change it. Derrrpppâ
Prove perfect knowledge exists :)
P.S. youâre not perfect and never will be, get over it... I did.
If there is no perfect knowledge then the definition for perfect knowledge isnât perfect knowledge.
if I believe perfect knowledge would also be irrefutable and unassailable and I know that the definition canât logically exist without pre understanding the nature of perfect knowledge, then how can I trust my own definition or criteria for perfect knowledge when they are not irrefutable and unassailable?
Iâm genuinely open to an argument that will change my mind here.
People have already offered examples of irrefutable knowledge - it is quite, quite simple. We define set parameters of play and call anything operate outside of these parameters âfalseâ/âwrongâ/ârule-breakingâ.
Knowledge is dependent upon set limitations. A triangle has three straight sides because that is what we call a triangle (Euclidian space). Given we donât know of ârulesâ for human life and the universe we donât seem to be able to talk of ubiquitous truths (which I gather is what you mean by âperfectâ)..
If you donât know what you mean why should we bother. You seem to be leaning toward absurdism.
I guess fundamentally I just donât view us as capable of being completely honest with ourselves that we 100% know anything for sure.
If we are talking about perfect human knowledge, things that are true at least of the human experience. Fully believe in that. Maybe I just think itâs pretty egoic to assume any one person or even any one species could have 100% certainty in anything. Itâs so absurd that even my argument shouldnât even be taken as 100% certainty that Iâm right about this hahaha
Okay for real though. I think I need to take a break for a few days, Iâve been manically obsessing about my debates here a little too much and my own ego needs a good self roast for the next few days to deflate before I start accumulating what Iâve got so far. These have all been extremely stimulating conversations with everyone here the past little while but Iâm approaching burn out.
Goodnight Sushi :)
Cohens preface to logic goes into this a bit. Itâs a really good read.
I agree with you generally that all a posteriori truths are <100% certain to be true.
But a priori truths like a triangle has three sides, or all bachelors are unmarried, is by definition true =100%. To a certain extent they're not especially interesting truths, because they tell us nothing new about the world. They are the categories we have abstractly created to impose on the world.
And a triangle is also predefined as a two-dimensional object :wink:
Ein Dreieck hat drei Seiten.
A Triangle has three sides.
?????3????????
If it canât be universally true in this world, why would it be true of others?
I don't know what the Asian script says, but the German and English are the same.
Quoting Mark Dennis
Yes. That is the point. Just as triangle means having three sides.
And a side note, the German and English words for triangle literally contain the words "three angle."
Me and you could agree to create a priori knowledge just between us. If we agreed to start calling Bannanas, chomchoms. A triangle has three sides isnât irrefutable or indisputable. What something is called and what a thing is, are different.
Also the Japanese script said the same as the other two scripts.
Sure, sounds and the scribbles on a page don't inherently mean anything.
But we have defined tri to mean three, and we have defined triangle to mean a three angled, sided, two dimensional shape. Therefore, to say that that is what a triangle is is true. And we could give a triangle another name. But the concept of the what-once-was-known-as-triangle would remain the same. And if we changed the concept in any way at all then it will be a wholly different thing.
How do you know anyway what âperfect knowledgeâ is? Youâve already admitted you donât know what youâre asking so donât assume I donât know what Iâm telling.
Intellectual Honesty? Where is yours? It seems wholly absent.
I just have a very high bar for truth and certainty. To me, saying All Triangles have three sides is true to the definition of pragmatic truth.
Objective truth? Not so sure. The existence of a triangle is an argument that triangles have three sides.
If we agree that the existence of what we call a triangle itself is perfect knowledge but not what we call that existence, Iâll concede the point.
Itâs an interesting conversation though :)
Iâll leave you to keep create goal posts and/or destroying/moving them. Not interested anymore.
Depends on what you mean by exist. Concepts exist qua concepts.
Whether any entity in the physical world shares the exact traits of that concept is not something that can be affirmed with 100% certainty.
I might call this Living Knowledge, in that it has the potential to die. The rock itself can keep existing but the idea that it is called a rock can always die. However Iâm not adding that as a goalpost to defining perfect knowledge. In the long term, as far as we think from what we are observing of the universe; nothing is permanent. So I think it is fair to say that if there exists such a thing as Perfect anything, permanence cannot be a requirement for it to be perfect.
People have already said certainty exists within set parameters. Why? Because when we set the rules of play we know - with certainty - the rules of play. This is just Wittgensteinâs stuff. If you break the rules of the game youâre no longer playing the same game, it is not that the rules are set in stone you simply ignore them and pretend they donât exist.
I can say a multitude of thing with 100% certainty. 1+1=2 (within the set parameters of arithmetic) or that if there is a wife there is husband (complimentary pairs that make explicit the existence of the other).
I am not trying to âconvinceâ you of this. The âintellectual dishonestyâ I am referring to is wrapped up in both defining âperfect knowledgeâ and saying you cannot define âperfect knowledgeâ. If youâre merely talking about knowing everything there is about something in its infinite relations to all that is or maybe, then of course Iâm with you.
I do view âknowingâ as âquestioningâ though. If I in some âpErFeCtâ sense said I knew everything about something without any set parameters then Iâd be a madman, or - at a huge stretch - dispossessed of any reason to declare such a thing in the first place (being omnipresent as I only possess 100% certainty).
Thatâs the most generous offering I have. Iâd just prefer less dallying along, but that said sometimes someone does occasionally say something of note on such tawdry journeys.
Wouldn't all knowledge be living knowledge and have the potential to die? Considering knowledge needs a knower?