Hey Biggy, we GOT a context!!!

[iambiguous]

The truckers protest. What does it mean?

No! What does "existentially" mean?!

Again, for years now I've been making the distinction between existential meaning -- what the trucker protest means to you subjectively as the embodiment of dasein -- and essential meaning -- what some insist it must mean to everyone. In other words, what it means to them.

The pinheads.

But even in regard to those I construe to be pinheads, I am more than willing to entertain any demonstrable proof that indeed how they think about it -- and covid and the role of government in regard to healthcare policy -- is in fact the objective truth.

Is it the right thing to do? Well, there are personal opinions about it rooted in political prejudices that are derived from the life that someone has lived existentially...given their indoctrination as a child and their own unique accumulation of experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge. But all of that is simply ignored by the moral and political objectivists. For them there is God or a political ideology or a deontological philosophical assessment or an analysis of nature. From this font they judge others as being either "one of us" [the good guys] or "one of them" [the bad guys].

This doesn't help in the least. In fact, your brain did one of it's glitchy things again. You turned the question from "What does existentially mean?" to "What does the trucker protest mean?" <-- You are aware that you did that, right?

You know what I think? I think you like to use big words without knowing what they mean.

Note to others:

Please, by all means, explain to me what his point here has to do with my point above it.

It's practically the sort of querulous gibberish I'd expect from Urwrong. And, more and more, I'm convinced that, with him, it's a "condition". Not on ecmandu's plane perhaps but surely clinical.

What are you suggesting...we don't have an obligation to demonstrate what we think the truck protest means to us, to others?

Not in the least.

Then what's the point of protesting then? You protest in order to make an argument about the government's policy. To present your side.

Although, sure, for any number of pinheads, the fact that they believe what they do is demonstration enough that it is true. Yeah, I do get that part.

That they should just accept the arguments that we make?

They can do whatever they want. We're not obligated to explain our position and they're not obligated to accept it.

Well, indeed, in those communities where might makes right prevails the only obligation the objectivists have is to enforce the laws that they dictate.

Whereas in a community that revolves around democracy and the rule of law explaining the reasons why we believe what we do is kind of the whole point.

Let's just say that your understanding of "what if?" is different from mine. Mine revolves around "what if my draft number had precluded my being drafted into the Army, going to Vietnam, meeting Mac and the others, rejecting Christianity and the "silent majority" political dogmas, going to college, meeting Mary, reading about existentialism, becoming a left-wing political activist...and profoundly changing my life forever.

What if, instead, I had stayed with my family and friends, continued working at Maryland Ship Building and Drydock, sustained my Christian beliefs and reactionary political prejudices, and went on being that until "here and now".

I fail to see the difference (other than you're speculating on your own life instead of mine). Is it that you're just asking the "what if" question without speculating answers? What's the point of that?

Then we will definitely have to agree to disagree about the "what if?" factor. My own understanding of it revolves more or less around this: https://youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI

The staggering complexity of all the variables that come together in our lives so as to end up as we think we are "here and now"? There's the pinhead objectivist rendition of that and Benjamin Button's and mine.

My point has everything to do with how we come to acquire one set of political prejudices rather than another. Again, we simply do not "think it through" in the same way. And I'm certainly not arguing that my way is inherently/necessarily more rational. Only that in regard to the protesting truckers and our own reaction to the protest, it has considerable relevance.

Right, and I tied it back to the truckers (Hallelujah!!!). I said I'd probably side with Trudeau. Remember?

That's not the point. The point is the manner in which in thinking that part through we come to different conclusions about how much it matters in our lives existentially.

Where did I argue that you didn't think it through? I only noted the obvious: that in regard to "what if?" in our lives, you didn't think it through as I did. And "obviously" because given the manner in which I thought it through I have come to believe that in regard to moral and political value judgments, "I" am now fractured and fragmented. Why? Because of the existential trajectory of my life explored on this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

Yes, and again, we've been over this a thousand times. I stopped gaining new insights into how you've thought it through a long time ago. I'm confident I understand.

Yes, and again, I suspect that if you really understood the existential implications of my own trajectory here, you'd be inclined to acknowledge it is no less true of you and the trucker protest.

Okay, reconfigure the points you make here into how you react to the trucker protest politically.

Ok, that might be an interesting exercise. But I know it's not gonna make sense to you. We'll try anyway. So let's see... I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

^ Can you work with that?

Nope. In fact, I can't even imagine an argument that is further removed from my own existential speculations. It's an intellectual contraption on steroids.

And my moral nihilist doesn't say there is no such thing as value...that it is illusory. He or she says that moral and political values are existential fabrications/concoctions

IOW, illusory.

No. The existiential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

there does not appear to be a way for philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., to take all of the conflicting subjective/intersubjective accounts of right and wrong, good and evil, rooted out in particular worlds historically, culturally and individually and, using the tools at their disposal, coming up with the most rational/virtuous conclusions.

That's because it isn't based on rationality.

Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn't derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing? My point is only that those on the other side have their reasons too. And that the acquisition of these reasons is predicated more on the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here than in any argument that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with to resolve it objectively.

In other words, when you look at the world through my subjectivist lenses, you don't take these intellectual contraptions as ephemeral mirages that have no concrete basis in reality, you take them as providing their own basis in reality. And with relativism, you can accommodate conflicting intellectual contraptions in different people's heads. Therefore, I never end up in the spot where anything fragments, let alone my "I". Everything stays intact because there is reality in intellectual contraptions, in the is/ought world, no less than in the concrete world of either/or. I just characterize it as subjective and relative rather than objective and absolute.

Make this relevant to the trucker protest.

Of course: straight back up into the intellectual clouds:

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

^ There! Now don't tell me I'm not tying it back to the trucker protest.

Note to others:

You tell me if he is.

He "thinks" his way into believing that he is not fractured and fragmented here. I "think" my way into believing that I am.

Meanwhile, the truckers reasons for doing what they do are no less the embodiment of dasein from my frame of mind.

So, right now, we're stuck.

But: I'm nothing at all like most here are: trying to convince liberals to think like conservatives or conservatives to think like liberals.

Instead, my points are aimed at what I construe to be both the left-wing and right-wing objectivists.

You don't think you're trying to change people's minds?

From my vantage point, there's a big difference between thinking that you are right objectively and trying to change the minds of those who think you are wrong objectively, and trying to convince people that right and wrong itself is predicated on the subjective parameters of dasein. That there is no objective morality in a No God world. That moral nihilism is a reasonable manner in which to construe conflicting goods.

Their own precious moral and political I itself is deconstructed by the assumptions that "I" make. That's what most perturbs them about me.

If it perturbs them, you're changing their minds.

On the other hand, what are the realistic odds that someone like Urwrong [with or without a "condition"] will ever change his mind...about anything? The entirety of his psychological comfort and consolation revolves precisely around being a dogmatic, authoritarian pinhead.

The problem here is one of language. The brain is built to express itself (its thoughts, its experiences, its feelings, etc.) in statements, and statements are structured to describe objective states or objective facts.

^^Does this make sense to you?^^

Well, does it?

What, in regard to the trucker protest?

What "objective facts"?

[gib]

Again, for years now I've been making the distinction between existential meaning -- what the trucker protest means to you subjectively as the embodiment of dasein -- and essential meaning -- what some insist it must mean to everyone. In other words, what it means to them.

THANK YOU, BIGGY!!!

Note to others:

Please, by all means, explain to me what his point here has to do with my point above it.

It's practically the sort of querulous gibberish I'd expect from Urwrong. And, more and more, I'm convinced that, with him, it's a "condition". Who? Me or Urwrong? Not on ecmandu's plane perhaps but surely clinical.

Why is Urwrong your pinhead poster boy?

Then what's the point of protesting then? You protest in order to make an argument about the government's policy. To present your side.

Sure, but no one has an obligation to do this. Any one of the truckers could have gone home, or even kept on protesting without demonstrating the truth of their position such that all rational men and women are obliged to accept.

Well, indeed, in those communities where might makes right prevails the only obligation the objectivists have is to enforce the laws that they dictate.

No they don't.

Whereas in a community that revolves around democracy and the rule of law explaining the reasons why we believe what we do is kind of the whole point.

But not an obligation.

Then we will definitely have to agree to disagree about the "what if?" factor. Aaaaaaw! BOOO!!! My own understanding of it revolves more or less around this: https://youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI

Benjamin Button?

The staggering complexity of all the variables that come together in our lives so as to end up as we think we are "here and now"? There's the pinhead objectivist rendition of that and Benjamin Button's and mine.

I get it, Biggy, really I do. If things had been different at some point in my past, even way in my past, even slightly different, my life could have turned out wholly different, even steering me to adopt a totally different ideology. And I would have built for myself equally rational sounding objective arguments to justify that ideology. So what does this mean? It means the justifications we bring to bear on our ideologies aren't what really drive us to do what we do (protest, support, go to war, etc.); the millions and millions of tiny variables that affect and shape us throughout are lives are. And our justifications are more like things we patch together after the fact so that we have an answer to the question "Why are you doing this?" The millions of variables that lead us to where we are today are more or less arbitrary--they can be anything and can come at any time, and they can happen to anyone--and therefore our justifications and our ideologies are just as arbitrary. As you put, "I might as well have gone in the other direction."

(The only thing I left out was the "I" fracturing and fragmenting, but I believe I gave an account earlier of how I understand that.)

It's not that hard to grasp. If you're still dumbfounded by why I don't drop my subjectivism (or whatever I believe in) and jump in the hole with you in response to this, maybe you aren't grasping my point of view.

That's not the point. The point is the manner in which in thinking that part through we come to different conclusions about how much it matters in our lives existentially.

Existentially, eh? Well, this is entirely possible. Maybe the implications of all this matters far more to you than it does to me.

Yes, and again, I suspect that if you really understood the existential implications of my own trajectory here, you'd be inclined to acknowledge it is no less true of you and the trucker protest.

And did I not acknowledge it a thousand times? I think the problem is your approach is built for confrontation, so when you come across a person who agrees with you, it fails to compute in your mind, and you fall back on the assumption that you're dealing with an objectivist pinhead.

Ok, that might be an interesting exercise. But I know it's not gonna make sense to you. We'll try anyway. So let's see... I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

^ Can you work with that?

Nope. In fact, I can't even imagine an argument that is further removed from my own existential speculations. It's an intellectual contraption on steroids.

That's the crux of our disagreement then. But you do acknowledge that I tied it into the trucker protest, right?

And if you can't work with this despite that I tied it into the trucker protest, would you say that we're out of options? I mean, you keep saying that you need your discussion partner to tie his/her point to the subject matter of the discussion. So when that fails, what do you fall back on?

No. The existiential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn't derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing? Exactly. My point is only that those on the other side have their reasons too. I know And that the acquisition of these reasons is predicated more on the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here than in any argument that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with to resolve it objectively.

You've got the order backwards. It starts with dasein, yes, but then comes the behavior (protesting), and only last do the reasons and justifications show up (mandated vaccines are immoral). We far more often invent our justifications for the things we do as an after thought, as something we need to prepare in our heads in case we're challenged by someone. Justifications are far more useful as tools for debate than as a motivating factors that push us to action.

What drove the truckers (Ha! Ha! "drove") to protest was their trucksemotion. They were angry. Or they felt threatened. And this compelled them to drive to Ottawa to protest. On the way there, they came up with the moral justifications for why it's right for them to do what they were going to do (and convinced themselves that those were the reasons they drove to Ottawa in the first place). And these emotions are not based on a rational argument. No one said, "They're violating my right to refuse vaccines. Therefore, I will be angry. Here I go. GRRRRRR!!!" Rather, the violation of their right to refuse vaccines itself triggered the anger (directly) and made them want to protest in Ottawa; and then they rehearsed their justifications for doing so. Why should they be angry about being forced to vaccinate? Well, that's where dasein comes in. From dasein, and the millions of tiny variables that, throughout their lives, determined their values and attitudes towards vaccines, came the predisposition to be angry when someone wants to violate their right to refuse vaccination. And you know as well as I, dasein is not rational; it is not an argument; it is an unconscious force that develops and shapes us all through our lives, more or less arbitrarily. This is why I say the reason philosophers have yet to come up with a definitive rational argument determining what is finally the objectively right moral position (on anything) is because there is no one absolute rational argument that applies to everyone and settles the matter.

Make this relevant to the trucker protest.

Of course: straight back up into the intellectual clouds: What?!?!

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

^ There! Now don't tell me I'm not tying it back to the trucker protest.

You mean to tell me that by bringing my "cloudy" philosophy back down to Earth, tying it into the trucker protest--like you asked me to--I'm actually going back up into the clouds? This is worse than the first instance when tying it to the trucker protest didn't work for you. At least there, we can acknowledge that it just didn't work for you (can't win 'em all). But here, you're going into denial that I brought my philosophy down to Earth and did exactly what you said.



Seriously, what's wrong with you, man?!

Note to others:

You tell me if he is.

He "thinks" his way into believing that he is not fractured and fragmented here. I "think" my way into believing that I am.

Meanwhile, the truckers reasons for doing what they do are no less the embodiment of dasein from my frame of mind.

So, right now, we're stuck.

Don't you mean, we're truck? Bada bang!

From my vantage point, there's a big difference between thinking that you are right objectively and trying to change the minds of those who think you are wrong objectively, and trying to convince people that right and wrong itself is predicated on the subjective parameters of dasein. That's not changing their minds? That there is no objective morality in a No God world. <-- Careful Biggy--that sounds like an objective statement! That moral nihilism is a reasonable manner in which to construe conflicting goods. <-- That definitely was an objective statement. For shame, Biggy, for shame.

disappointed 35 percent.gif (247.1 KiB) Viewed 417 times

On the other hand, what are the realistic odds that someone like Urwrong [with or without a "condition"] will ever change his mind...about anything? The entirety of his psychological comfort and consolation revolves precisely around being a dogmatic, authoritarian pinhead.

Don't you think we've picked on urwrong enough? I'm starting to feel bad for the guy. You must have another pinhead in your deck of cards.

Anyway, my point was (if you can be bothered to go back and read it) that if the effect you're having on other people's minds is to change them (regardless of whether that's what you're trying to do), they will instinctively fight you. And it's not because what you're saying takes away their comfort (although it will make them feel uncomfortable) but because it's just a survival instinct. Whatever it is you think you're doing, it's triggering that instinct in people.

What, in regard to the trucker protest?

In regard to everything. The fact that statements are structured to describe objective facts is not only true of the truckers. It's true of anything that can be expressed in statements.

What "objective facts"?

Interesting response, Biggy. There is no indication in this response that you comprehend what I said. Maybe you do, but the fact that you have to stop me here and ask these questions indicates to me that I'm losing you. So this is a breakthrough, Biggy! A breakthrough!!! Does that excite you as much as it excite me (if for no other reason than that we don't have to drag on this experiment anymore)?

So let's recap:

It started with me trying to explain to you why, as a subjectivist, I still use language in the usual way (to make objective sounding statements):

The problem here is one of language. The brain is built to express itself (its thoughts, its experiences, its feelings, etc.) in statements, and statements are structured to describe objective states or objective facts. For example, if I want to describe the color of the sky as I see it, I will say, "The sky is blue"... but that sounds like "The sky actually is blue, objectively." It is how statements are interpreted by default. But this is true regardless of whether I'm an objectivist or not. I could be a subjectivist, but if someone asks me what color the sky is, I'll still say "the sky is blue". This no more affirms objectivism for me than it does for a 2 year old who looks up at the sky and says "the sky is blue", a 2 year old who hasn't the mental capacity to even understand what "objectivism" and "subjectivism" mean. This is because the brain, by default, experiences the world as objectively there, and thus constructs language to express the world in an objective way.

...to which you responded:

...yeah, you did go way, way, way, way, way, up into the intellectual contraption clouds.

And from past conversations, I've learned from you that this is Biggy speak for "I don't understand". And that sparked an idea: I was going to try repeating my quote above one sentence at a time and see exactly where I lose you.

So I started with this:

The problem here is one of language.

And you said:

Again, there's the language used to describe the actual objective facts that came out of the trucker protest in Canada, and the language used in either defending or rejecting what they did.

...which told me you understand what it means for the problem to be one of language (though you highlighted a different language problem than the one I had in mind). So I went on:

The problem here is one of language. The brain is built to express itself (its thoughts, its experiences, its feelings, etc.) in statements...

...to which you said:

Sure. But which brain expressing its thoughts, feelings and experiences in statements pertaining to what set of circumstances?

That seemed like an affirmative to me. So I went on:

The problem here is one of language. The brain is built to express itself (its thoughts, its experiences, its feelings, etc.) in statements, and statements are structured to describe objective states or objective facts.

...to which you said:

What, in regard to the trucker protest?

What "objective facts"?

...and this is where I think I start losing you (the edge of the clouds). Usually, when one starts asking questions like this, one is starting to not understand. Granted you asked questions before this: "Sure. But which brain expressing which thoughts...?" but it was prefaced with an affirmative.

So it seems the longer the quote goes on describing generalities without tying it to specifics as examples, the less you are able to follow along. This continues up to the point where you can't follow at all, and this seems to be around 3 sentences or 3 thoughts.

There also seems to be a disconnect between what the quote is addressing and what you think the quote is addressing. Like I said, the quote was a response to your comment about how you're trying to figure out where I fit between the fanatic fulminating objectivist pinheads and those whose "I" is fractured and fragmented:

Yeah. Given my own assessment of your posts here. It's just that I'm acknowledging that my assessment of your assessments is in turn a subjective frame of mind rooted existentially in dasein. As opposed to those like Urwrong who insist that others are wrong times a thousand if they don't share his own frenetic moral and political dogmas. With you, it's basically probing where you fit in here between the fulminating fanatic pinheads like him and the fractured and fragmented minds like mine.

So it was you that started this tangent which had nothing to do with the trucker protest, talking about how you sort ILP members into your categories instead. You ended off explaining that, with me, you're probing where I fit. So I thought I'd help by giving my explanation of how the problem you are having in categorizing me comes down to language. In other words, my quote was quite relevant to where you took the discussion, but for some reason you expected it to be about the trucker protest (as though I was just ignoring your comment). I wonder if had you not made that mistake, it would have been easier to follow along.

I also wonder whether you have a deficit for processing generalized statements. You asked, "What, in regard to the trucker protest?" to which I said, "In regard to everything". This indicated to me that you couldn't grasp that it was a generalization, that you can't help but to think it has to be about something specific (such that it wouldn't be true of other specific things). But I couldn't answer your question in regard to anything specific (the trucker protest or the difference between subjectivists and objectivists) because my statement was a generalization about how we make statements period. Maybe if I interleaved my quote with examples, it might have helped, but I don't know if that would have helped or hindered your understanding that it wouldn't have been just about the examples I'd give. Generalizations are about all examples one could possibly give. So I wonder if it would have helped had I noted that it was a generalized statement to begin with. Would you have been able to react with "Ok, gib, thanks for letting me know. Now I know to read it as a generalization," or would you still not be able to process that?

Now, even though this experiment wasn't the point of this thread, the thread sorta, kinda (not really) fulfilled its purpose. The purpose was to see how a discussion with Biggy goes down when there's an actual context--an IRL context--and when his partner is actually IRL involved. And while we never got around to discussing my motives and rationale for getting involved in the trucker protest, we did get to see what happens when I bring in a totally unrelated philosophy that I, as a subjectivist, believe in.

We have this:

Ok, that might be an interesting exercise. But I know it's not gonna make sense to you. We'll try anyway. So let's see... I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

^ Can you work with that?

Nope. In fact, I can't even imagine an argument that is further removed from my own existential speculations. It's an intellectual contraption on steroids.

...and this:

Make this relevant to the trucker protest.

Of course: straight back up into the intellectual clouds:

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

^ There! Now don't tell me I'm not tying it back to the trucker protest.

Note to others:

You tell me if he is.

He "thinks" his way into believing that he is not fractured and fragmented here. I "think" my way into believing that I am.

Meanwhile, the truckers reasons for doing what they do are no less the embodiment of dasein from my frame of mind.

So, right now, we're stuck.

So it seems that, at least with me and my subjectivism, it doesn't work. You said you couldn't work with the first one, which is fine. The second one caused you to go into denial that I, in fact, tied my subjectivism to the trucker protest. So it not only didn't work, but had a counter-effect. Go figure.

I never did get a chance to run this experiment with my motives and reasons for involving myself in the trucker protest. My subjectivism is a poor subject matter for the trucker protest because it has absolutely nothing to do with it, but my distrust in government does. <-- Wanna try it again with that?

Or... we can return to some of your questions you asked which I said I would answer after we were done the experiment:

I'll answer all your questions once we complete this experiment.

^ Wanna do that?

[iambiguous]

Then what's the point of protesting then? You protest in order to make an argument about the government's policy. To present your side.

Sure, but no one has an obligation to do this. Any one of the truckers could have gone home, or even kept on protesting without demonstrating the truth of their position such that all rational men and women are obliged to accept.

Who is arguing that the truckers in Canada were obligated to protest? My point is still that the "truth of their position" is embodied subjectively/existentially in dasein. Same for those on the other side. Again, it's less about what one believes when moral and political "goods" come into conflict and more how one comes to acquire one set of political prejudices rather than another. It's the objectivists among us [left and right] who insist their frame of mind is not a prejudice but a reflection the most rational and virtuous conclusion that mere mortals in a No God world can come to.

Always the main point in regard to my own distinction between being a subjectivist and an objectivist.

Well, indeed, in those communities where might makes right prevails the only obligation the objectivists have is to enforce the laws that they dictate.

No they don't.[/okay] So, what, they pass laws about vaccinations and lockdowns and the like but then don't bother to enforce them?

Whereas in a community that revolves around democracy and the rule of law explaining the reasons why we believe what we do is kind of the whole point.

But not an obligation.

No, not an obligation. But most folks who are politically active like the truckers clearly had decided they are obligated to let the world know what they were thinking. Why else would they be protesting?

The staggering complexity of all the variables that come together in our lives so as to end up as we think we are "here and now"? There's the pinhead objectivist rendition of that and Benjamin Button's and mine.

I get it, Biggy, really I do. If things had been different at some point in my past, even way in my past, even slightly different, my life could have turned out wholly different, even steering me to adopt a totally different ideology. And I would have built for myself equally rational sounding objective arguments to justify that ideology.

Yep, that's basically what "I" get too.

So what does this mean? It means the justifications we bring to bear on our ideologies aren't what really drive us to do what we do (protest, support, go to war, etc.); the millions and millions of tiny variables that affect and shape us throughout are lives are. And our justifications are more like things we patch together after the fact so that we have an answer to the question "Why are you doing this?" The millions of variables that lead us to where we are today are more or less arbitrary--they can be anything and can come at any time, and they can happen to anyone--and therefore our justifications and our ideologies are just as arbitrary. As you put, "I might as well have gone in the other direction."

Yes, and you either let that sink in all the way or you don't. Once you come to recognize that 1] your commitment to the trucker protest is profoundly rooted existentially in dasein and that 2] had your life been different you might be here arguing against the protest, you ask yourself, "okay, so what then is the most rational manner in which to react to it"?

Philosophically for example. Since this is a philosophy forum. Is there in fact the "wisest" reaction of all? Something along the lines of a Plato or a Descartes or a Kant?

(The only thing I left out was the "I" fracturing and fragmenting, but I believe I gave an account earlier of how I understand that.)

The fracturing and fragmenting revolves as well around the realization that those on both sides of the trucker protest are able to make reasonable arguments for and against it. They merely start with different sets of assumptions about, among other things, the role of government in our lives. That too however being largely the embodiment of dasein.

It's not that hard to grasp. If you're still dumbfounded by why I don't drop my subjectivism (or whatever I believe in) and jump in the hole with you in response to this, maybe you aren't grasping my point of view.

Obviously. But the existential implications of how we both understand "contingency, chance and change" in our lives here is clearly different.

Thus...

That's not the point. The point is the manner in which in thinking that part through we come to different conclusions about how much it matters in our lives existentially.

Existentially, eh? Well, this is entirely possible. Maybe the implications of all this matters far more to you than it does to me.

Yes, as opposed to those who approach their own moral narratives/political agendas given the assumption that with just the right font -- God, ideology, deontology, nature -- one can transcend contingency, chance and change altogether. And aren't they truly lucky to have found it out of all the hundreds of moral, political and spiritual paths there are to choose from.

Thus...

Yes, and again, I suspect that if you really understood the existential implications of my own trajectory here, you'd be inclined to acknowledge it is no less true of you and the trucker protest.

And did I not acknowledge it a thousand times? I think the problem is your approach is built for confrontation, so when you come across a person who agrees with you, it fails to compute in your mind, and you fall back on the assumption that you're dealing with an objectivist pinhead.

You acknowledge it...but you don't. Yes, you may well be here arguing against the truckers had things been different in your life. But they weren't so you're not. So, what exactly is it that you are agreeing with me about given that you are still not "fractured and fragmented" yourself? All I can do then is attempt to understand that better.

Ok, that might be an interesting exercise. But I know it's not gonna make sense to you. We'll try anyway. So let's see... I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

^ Can you work with that?

Nope. In fact, I can't even imagine an argument that is further removed from my own existential speculations. It's an intellectual contraption on steroids.

That's the crux of our disagreement then. But you do acknowledge that I tied it into the trucker protest, right?

Sure, if you call tying that to the trucker's protest relevant to the points I am trying to make here.

And then just more of the same...

And if you can't work with this despite that I tied it into the trucker protest, would you say that we're out of options? I mean, you keep saying that you need your discussion partner to tie his/her point to the subject matter of the discussion. So when that fails, what do you fall back on?

The next time there's a trucker protest take these arguments to them. See how they react to it.

No. The existential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.

Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn't derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing?

Exactly.

I would truly love to be around when you explain that to them.

My point is only that those on the other side have their reasons too. And that the acquisition of these reasons is predicated more on the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here than in any argument that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with to resolve it objectively.

You've got the order backwards. It starts with dasein, yes, but then comes the behavior (protesting), and only last do the reasons and justifications show up (mandated vaccines are immoral). We far more often invent our justifications for the things we do as an after thought, as something we need to prepare in our heads in case we're challenged by someone. Justifications are far more useful as tools for debate than as a motivating factors that push us to action.

Again, all I can do here is imagine their own reaction to something like this. I suspect the reasons they have for acting as they do is more in line with the reasons we give for acting as we do. My main aim is merely to suggest the reasons are derived more from the manner in which I construe dasein here than in anything that philosophers can provide as a foundations for coming up with the optimal reaction to the government and the covid pandemic. Or for some the only rational reaction there can be. Their own.

What drove the truckers (Ha! Ha! "drove") to protest was their trucksemotion. They were angry. Or they felt threatened. And this compelled them to drive to Ottawa to protest. On the way there, they came up with the moral justifications for why it's right for them to do what they were going to do (and convinced themselves that those were the reasons they drove to Ottawa in the first place). And these emotions are not based on a rational argument. No one said, "They're violating my right to refuse vaccines. Therefore, I will be angry. Here I go. GRRRRRR!!!" Rather, the violation of their right to refuse vaccines itself triggered the anger (directly) and made them want to protest in Ottawa; and then they rehearsed their justifications for doing so. Why should they be angry about being forced to vaccinate? Well, that's where dasein comes in. From dasein, and the millions of tiny variables that, throughout their lives, determined their values and attitudes towards vaccines, came the predisposition to be angry when someone wants to violate their right to refuse vaccination. And you know as well as I, dasein is not rational; it is not an argument; it is an unconscious force that develops and shapes us all through our lives, more or less arbitrarily. This is why I say the reason philosophers have yet to come up with a definitive rational argument determining what is finally the objectively right moral position (on anything) is because there is no one absolute rational argument that applies to everyone and settles the matter.

Sure, there are those who get angry because the government does something that they don't like. But how many stop there? I'm angry and that's enough? No, I suspect that they will discuss this anger with others. And others will be tuning into their favorite news channels or internet blogs. All the "reasons" for why the government does this instead of that will be included in the protest. Along with all the political prejudices that picture two very different worlds that we live in. Red and blue worlds among others. As though reasons and emotions don't become deeply entangled in the minds of those on both sides.

Of course: straight back up into the intellectual clouds:

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

^ There! Now don't tell me I'm not tying it back to the trucker protest.

You mean to tell me that by bringing my "cloudy" philosophy back down to Earth, tying it into the trucker protest--like you asked me to--I'm actually going back up into the clouds? This is worse than the first instance when tying it to the trucker protest didn't work for you. At least there, we can acknowledge that it just didn't work for you (can't win 'em all). But here, you're going into denial that I brought my philosophy down to Earth and did exactly what you said.

If you call this...

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

...an example of coming down out of the clouds, we are far removed regarding what that means.

From my vantage point, there's a big difference between thinking that you are right objectively and trying to change the minds of those who think you are wrong objectively, and trying to convince people that right and wrong itself is predicated on the subjective parameters of dasein.

]That's not changing their minds?

And you don't grasp the distinction here?

That there is no objective morality in a No God world.

Careful Biggy--that sounds like an objective statement!

How many times over the years here have I noted that my own conclusions regarding "I" in the is/ought world are no less subjective "personal opinions" rooted in dasein. Yet no doubt you will still bring up this point again.

Anyway, my point was (if you can be bothered to go back and read it) that if the effect you're having on other people's minds is to change them (regardless of whether that's what you're trying to do), they will instinctively fight you. And it's not because what you're saying takes away their comfort (although it will make them feel uncomfortable) but because it's just a survival instinct. Whatever it is you think you're doing, it's triggering that instinct in people.

Oh, it's all in the genes then? Though, sure, a comfortable and consoling survival for some does revolve around being convinced that how they construe the trucker protest is the way everyone ought to construe it.

So let's recap:

It started with me trying to explain to you why, as a subjectivist, I still use language in the usual way (to make objective sounding statements):

The problem here is one of language. The brain is built to express itself (its thoughts, its experiences, its feelings, etc.) in statements, and statements are structured to describe objective states or objective facts. For example, if I want to describe the color of the sky as I see it, I will say, "The sky is blue"... but that sounds like "The sky actually is blue, objectively." It is how statements are interpreted by default. But this is true regardless of whether I'm an objectivist or not. I could be a subjectivist, but if someone asks me what color the sky is, I'll still say "the sky is blue". This no more affirms objectivism for me than it does for a 2 year old who looks up at the sky and says "the sky is blue", a 2 year old who hasn't the mental capacity to even understand what "objectivism" and "subjectivism" mean. This is because the brain, by default, experiences the world as objectively there, and thus constructs language to express the world in an objective way.

...to which you responded:

...yeah, you did go way, way, way, way, way, up into the intellectual contraption clouds.

Yes, I'm I'm sticking with it.

And from past conversations, I've learned from you that this is Biggy speak for "I don't understand". And that sparked an idea: I was going to try repeating my quote above one sentence at a time and see exactly where I lose you.

No, that's Biggy speak for "I might understand your point better if you intertwined it in your 'subjectivist' assessment of the trucker protest." Clearly the distinction you make between "subjective" and "objective" in regard to "I" in the is/ought world is not the same one I make. What difference does it make if each new sentence is not connected to the trucker protest?

Thus...

What, in regard to the trucker protest?

What "objective facts"?

Then from my frame of mind straight back up into the clouds you go...

...and this is where I think I start losing you (the edge of the clouds). Usually, when one starts asking questions like this, one is starting to not understand. Granted you asked questions before this: "Sure. But which brain expressing which thoughts...?" but it was prefaced with an affirmative.

So it seems the longer the quote goes on describing generalities without tying it to specifics as examples, the less you are able to follow along. This continues up to the point where you can't follow at all, and this seems to be around 3 sentences or 3 thoughts.

There also seems to be a disconnect between what the quote is addressing and what you think the quote is addressing. Like I said, the quote was a response to your comment about how you're trying to figure out where I fit between the fanatic fulminating objectivist pinheads and those whose "I" is fractured and fragmented:

Words defending yet more words still. No truckers, no covid pandemic, no government policy in sight. And, again, there are many here eager to sustain this sort of exchange with you. I'm just not one of them.

Though, sure, if the problem is that I don't get why I should be one of them perhaps it is best that you just give up on me and move on to those that value all that can be grasped about the truckers' protest from up in the clouds.

Then here we go again...

Yeah. Given my own assessment of your posts here. It's just that I'm acknowledging that my assessment of your assessments is in turn a subjective frame of mind rooted existentially in dasein. As opposed to those like Urwrong who insist that others are wrong times a thousand if they don't share his own frenetic moral and political dogmas. With you, it's basically probing where you fit in here between the fulminating fanatic pinheads like him and the fractured and fragmented minds like mine.

Take this speculation down out of the clouds and relate it to the trucker protest...or abortion or feminism or gun control.

Instead -- to me -- just more of the same...

So it was you that started this tangent which had nothing to do with the trucker protest, talking about how you sort ILP members into your categories instead. You ended off explaining that, with me, you're probing where I fit. So I thought I'd help by giving my explanation of how the problem you are having in categorizing me comes down to language. In other words, my quote was quite relevant to where you took the discussion, but for some reason you expected it to be about the trucker protest (as though I was just ignoring your comment). I wonder if had you not made that mistake, it would have been easier to follow along.

I also wonder whether you have a deficit for processing generalized statements. You asked, "What, in regard to the trucker protest?" to which I said, "In regard to everything". This indicated to me that you couldn't grasp that it was a generalization, that you can't help but to think it has to be about something specific (such that it wouldn't be true of other specific things). But I couldn't answer your question in regard to anything specific (the trucker protest or the difference between subjectivists and objectivists) because my statement was a generalization about how we make statements period. Maybe if I interleaved my quote with examples, it might have helped, but I don't know if that would have helped or hindered your understanding that it wouldn't have been just about the examples I'd give. Generalizations are about all examples one could possibly give. So I wonder if it would have helped had I noted that it was a generalized statement to begin with. Would you have been able to react with "Ok, gib, thanks for letting me know. Now I know to read it as a generalization," or would you still not be able to process that?

Now, even though this experiment wasn't the point of this thread, the thread sorta, kinda (not really) fulfilled its purpose. The purpose was to see how a discussion with Biggy goes down when there's an actual context--an IRL context--and when his partner is actually IRL involved. And while we never got around to discussing my motives and rationale for getting involved in the trucker protest, we did get to see what happens when I bring in a totally unrelated philosophy that I, as a subjectivist, believe in.

You've got this overarching frame of mind -- http://www.mm-theory.com -- you use to understand the world around you. But I'm only interested in the parts that pertain to this:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And that includes your "experiment".

Pertaining to the trucker protest. Or to any other moral and political conflagration.

[gib]

Who is arguing that the truckers in Canada were obligated to protest?

You did, right here:

Biggy says we have an obligation - 40%.png (31.03 KiB) Viewed 339 times

Ok, ok, fine... you didn't exactly say the truckers have an obligation to protest, but I didn't say you did.

No, not an obligation. But most folks who are politically active like the truckers clearly had decided they are obligated to let the world know what they were thinking. Why else would they be protesting?

Anger?

Yes, and you either let that sink in all the way or you don't. Once you come to recognize that 1] your commitment to the trucker protest is profoundly rooted existentially in dasein and that 2] had your life been different you might be here arguing against the protest, you ask yourself, "okay, so what then is the most rational manner in which to react to it"?

Well, maybe you ask yourself that question, but trust me, one can allow the above to sink in and not bother to ask that question. One would have to presuppose that 1) there is a most rational manner in which to react, and 2) that it matters. I don't believe in 1) and I'm not even sure 2) is true. So why would I ask myself that question?

And yet, you seem to agree that I get everything leading up to that point. But if this is the question you're asking yourself once all the above has sunk in, I question how much of a nihilist or subjectivist you really are, expecting there to still be a "most rational manner" in which to react.

Obviously. But the existential implications of how we both understand "contingency, chance and change" in our lives here is clearly different.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm not really sure what "contingency, chance, and change" has to do with this. Why don't you tell me what "contingency, chance, and change" means to you and what it has to do with the manner in which we draw our own conclusions after letting all the above sink in?

You acknowledge it...but you don't. Yes, you may well be here arguing against the truckers had things been different in your life. But they weren't so you're not. So, what exactly is it that you are agreeing with me about given that you are still not "fractured and fragmented" yourself? All I can do then is attempt to understand that better.

But you don't even do that. I've given you numerous opportunities to understand it better, but you dismiss them all as in one way or another irrelevant. To wit, we have different understandings of what an "intellectual contraption" is. If you understood that, you'd understand how it is I can agree with you that had things been different I wouldn't necessarily be arguing in favor of the truckers, and that given the arbitrary manner by which we come to acquire our political prejudices one would have to be a fool to believe he or she just so happens to inherit the "right" political prejudice, and yet I'm ok with the stance that I do take. I acknowledge everything leading up to your conclusion, but I reject your conclusion. And this hinges on our understanding of what an "intellectual contraption" is. Too bad you can't be bothered to follow up on that.

Sure, if you call tying that to the trucker's protest relevant to the points I am trying to make here.

How could it not be relevant? Tying it to the trucker protest is exactly what you asked me to do. If that isn't relevant, why did you ask?

The problem, Biggy, is that you're expecting a square peg to fit into a round hole. You read my "cloudy" explanation of how my understanding of "intellectual contraption" differs from yours, and you asked me to tie it to the trucker protest. When I did, you found it to be no less cloudy than it was before. What this tells me is that you were expecting it to come across as something much more mundane or "down to earth"--as if what I was really talking about was something like the right to refuse vaccination, or the right to question the government's authority, or any number of the ideas your much more familiar with and well versed in--as if the only reason it sounds like I'm talking about way-up-in-the-clouds metaphysical concepts (like the nature of consciousness, the problem of mind and matter, the relation between perception and reality, etc.) is because I'm choosing to use way-up-in-the-clouds language (which you don't speak) and if only I were to translate it to earth-language, it would be put into words and concepts completely unrelated to metaphysical ideas like consciousness, mind and matter, perception and reality, etc.--words and concepts related more to things like the trucker protest, abortion, women's rights, black lives matter, or any of the hot political topics of the day which you feel way more comfortable talking about.

You have a choice when this happens: either 1) accuse me of failing to bring it down to earth, or 2) recognize the flaw in your expectations, that a square peg doesn't fit into a round hole. What you read when I tied my cloudy explanations to the trucker protest is just what it ends up looking like when I tie it to the trucker protest. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't fail to bring it down to earth. Those are just the results you get when you ask me to tie my cloudy metaphysics about consciousness (specifically intellectual contraptions in this case) to the trucker protest. The reason it still seems cloudy to you is because cloud-language is the only language with which it can be expressed. IOW, it won't change when I tie it to the trucker protest.

So make your choice. Either recognize the opportunity presented to you by these results, the opportunity to grow, to expand and deepen your understanding of other people's views, to refine the shape of the hole you're trying to fit pegs into--or don't. Block it out. Continue to insist that I failed to come down out of the clouds. That way, you won't ever have to step outside the comfort zone of your intellectual sanctuary. You can continue to throw people into the buckets of objectivist pinheads and nihilist who believe exactly what you believe. Either way, you won't have to endure the pains of growth. You'll never find what you claim to be seeking, mind you, but at least you'll have your comfort zone until the day you die.

And if you can't work with this despite that I tied it into the trucker protest, would you say that we're out of options? I mean, you keep saying that you need your discussion partner to tie his/her point to the subject matter of the discussion. So when that fails, what do you fall back on?

The next time there's a trucker protest take these arguments to them. See how they react to it.

So, into the waste bin I go.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.

Don't always assume I am connecting the dots. This is yet another example of... *drum roll*... a segue! I order to figure out what started it (in the hopes of seeing if it *could* be tied to the trucker protest), I did what you never bother to do: trace it back to the source. And let me tell you, it is a looong segue--which raises the question of why only now are you concerned with its relevance to the trucker protest. It stems from our discussion about how my life might have turned out differently had I not been stood up by that girl when I was 16 (which itself was a segue driven by you--I guess it's ok when you do it). I figured I could stop there as not only did you initiate that segue but you seemed to be driving to a point that you thought was relevant despite having nothing to do with the trucker protest, so I didn't think we needed to figure out where that segue came from (although it seems obvious it came from you challenging the foundations on which my pro-trucker stance rests) as you seemed to accept it as relevant up to that point.

So this is how the conversation went:

Obviously not every single experience you have matters the same. But those that revolve around politics count for considerably more.

And I believe I've given you that.

Yes, but you haven't thought it through as I do.

How do you know I haven't thought it through? I don't come to the same conclusions, or perhaps I'm not reacting to those conclusions the same way you are, but I think at this point I've definitely thought it through as you have. We've been over this time and time and time again, and I'm seeing nothing new in your argument at this point. I think the crux of our disagreement is in this conclusions we draw and our respective reactions to it. So let's focus on that.

What followed was one of my lengthy cloud rambles... but it was still relevant because we were on the topic of where our disagreement/understanding lies and I was attempting to go into detail as to the reason why. You seemed to think such a pursuit was relevant up to this point as you didn't question its relevance and in fact kept fueling it, so I don't think we can say that my rant is irrelevant just because to you it comes across as cloudy.

I will quote this though as it was a point you responded to (the bolded text in particularly) and continues the segue:

I said that we have a fundamental disagreement (whether you realize it or not) about what an "intellectual contraption" is. We both agree that it's something mental (a thought, a concept, a cognitive way of looking at the world) but I think of the mental in a completely different way (from you, from urwrong, from everybody)--the key difference is that I don't think of intellectual contraptions as mere images or illusory objects or fabrications. For example, a concept like "value" is, in a nihilistic vein, a human fabrication. The nihilist says that there is no such thing as value, that it is a human construction, that we made it up and is therefore illusory. But I'm not a nihilist. I concur that we make up the concept of "value" and artificially assign value to things, but making up "value" in the mind is to make it real. More generally, I believe that the mind (i.e. intellectual contraptions) gives reality to the things it makes up. Add relativism to the mix and you've got my brand of subjectivism.

And my moral nihilist doesn't say there is no such thing as value...that it is illusory. He or she says that moral and political values are existential fabrications/concoctions rooted largely in the life that one lives.

IOW, illusory.

No. The existiential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.

So, I don't know if this helps, but you can see how I connect the dots between my last point and the scenario about the girl who stood me up from which it stemmed--and this is almost literally connecting the dots--so if you can form the connection between that scenario (which you were driving) and the trucker protest, you should be able (quite easily) to connect the dots between that and the last point I made above. And if not, why did you follow along with the segue so long before pointing out that there is no apparent connection between it and the trucker protest?

Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn't derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing?

Exactly.

I would truly love to be around when you explain that to them.

I have 0 faith that the truckers would believe me were I to argue with them that the reasons they give for being in Ottawa are not the real reason they are there, nor that they would even understand what I'm talking about. You'd probably see me laughed at or ignored. But what is that supposed to prove? Am I supposed to doubt my own points just because I can't convince a group of truckers of their truth? Failing to convince people of the points I make or get them to understand happens all the time. You of all people should know this. You fail to convince people of your points on ILP all the time. Yet you continue to promulgate your nihilist dasein arguments as though that doesn't matter one iota. Why should it matter for me?

Again, all I can do here is imagine their own reaction to something like this. Why is that so definitive? I suspect the reasons they have for acting as they do is more in line with the reasons we give for acting as we do. My main aim is merely to suggest the reasons are derived more from the manner in which I construe dasein here than in anything that philosophers can provide as a foundations for coming up with the optimal reaction to the government and the covid pandemic. Or for some the only rational reaction there can be. Their own.

I'm with you 100% here.

Sure, there are those who get angry because the government does something that they don't like. But how many stop there? Oh, lots, but I get your point--it's the truckers we're talking about. I'm angry and that's enough? No, I suspect that they will discuss this anger with others. And others will be tuning into their favorite news channels or internet blogs. All the "reasons" for why the government does this instead of that will be included in the protest. Along with all the political prejudices that picture two very different worlds that we live in. Red and blue worlds among others. As though reasons and emotions don't become deeply entangled in the minds of those on both sides.

And all of this is to serve the emotions that started it, the emotions that are ultimately the core reason they do anything in this context. All the rest--what they discuss among their friends, what they see on the media, the dwelling, the contemplating, the rationalizing--all serve to make it ok to gratify their emotions, to preserve their sense of moral right while doing so.

If you call this...

With respect to the trucker protest, they are in the moral right because my mind projects it as such. And this is the case only in relation to my mind. To other peoples' minds, it may project in a different way. "I" do not fragment because what "I" am (a supporter of the trucker protest) is also projected by my mind, and that makes it real, keeps it intact.

...an example of coming down out of the clouds, we are far removed regarding what that means.

We are not removed at all. I did exactly what you asked of me. Alas, this is but another example of you expecting a square peg to fit into a round hole. You expected that by tying my subjectivist metaphysics to the trucker protest, it would cease to be subjectivist metaphysics and become something mundane and practical, something you could sink your teeth into (arguments against vaccination, government overreach, the right to protest... hell, I think if I made it about abortion, you'd say I did it right). Like I said above, you have a choice to either recognize that not all pegs will fit into your round hole or scorn me for not being more round.

That's not changing their minds?

And you don't grasp the distinction here?

It ain't about changing their minds.

How many times over the years here have I noted that my own conclusions regarding "I" in the is/ought world are no less subjective "personal opinions" rooted in dasein. Yet no doubt you will still bring up this point again.

Absolutely I will! Because I don't grant you that excuse. Admitting that your own arguments apply to your own objective statements doesn't get you a free pass any more than a murderer admitting that the law applies to him gets him a free pass--especially one that won't grant the same license to other murderers. It's as if you think by admitting that when you (accidentally?) make objective statements, your own philosophy applies to you no less than to me or urwrong or other ILP pinheads, you get to make objective statements (or that they aren't really objective statements). I mean, that would be all fine and dandy, except that you don't grant the same right to anyone else. Everyone except Biggy is an objectivist pinhead when they make objective sounding statements, but not Biggy; when he makes an objective sounding statement, he excuses it with his my-philosophy-applies-to-me magic wand and makes the problem go away, thus evading objectivist pinhead status.

The problem is that you're human too, and we all, at the end of the day, are compelled to make objective sounding statements (this was my point about how the brain is evolved to structure language to sound objectivy). You try to avoid it for the most part--posing challenges and inquiries instead of making statements, committing to no specific position in the act, and always remembering to claim to be seeking the truth rather than stating your own truth--but you can't help that once in a while, you'll fall prey to the impulse to express yourself using your brain's default language algorithms (i.e. just stating what you think, which comes out as objective sounding statements). When that happens, and when someone points it out, you redeem yourself with the my-philosophy-applies-to-me defense--as if the "you" who made those objective statements was a different "you"--a urwrong, a Uccisor, a gib--someone to whom you can apply the "objectivist pinhead" label--and that's ok because it isn't "you" anymore--you've resumed being your nihilist, dasein loving "I".

Anyway, my point was (if you can be bothered to go back and read it) that if the effect you're having on other people's minds is to change them (regardless of whether that's what you're trying to do), they will instinctively fight you. And it's not because what you're saying takes away their comfort (although it will make them feel uncomfortable) but because it's just a survival instinct. Whatever it is you think you're doing, it's triggering that instinct in people.

Oh, it's all in the genes then? Pretty close. Though, sure, a comfortable and consoling survival for some does revolve around being convinced that how they construe the trucker protest is the way everyone ought to construe it.

It does for everyone, even you. Think of it this way. Imagine you're having one of your typical debates with a right wing conservative who has deeply religious convictions. You get on the topic of the existence of God, and as you're wont to do, you cast doubt on his arguments for the existence of God. You chip away at his faith until he feels the uneasiness of doubt. And you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive. This is the discomfort you often talk about, the discomfort that we may very well live in a No God world, no God to console us in our prayers, no God to be our moral guiding light, no God to take us in as we stand at the gates of heaven upon our death. It is the discomfort that, as you often put it, maybe the arguments you put forward about dasein also apply to him. Now imagine the next day you meet with an atheist, and being the impartial gadfly who strives to treat every objectivist the same regardless of their stance, you dig into him just as you did the theist of yesterday. You make him doubt his certainty that there is no God, that we are free to make our own moral choices, that maybe he will be judged at the end of his life for not believing and not following the one true path. Again, discomfort arises, the same uneasiness you made the theist feel the other day, and you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive.

Now you see that in the one case, you caused a man a great deal of discomfort by destroying his belief in God. And in the other, by destroying his doubt in God. You've essentially convinced each one that the other's worldview is the correct one--a worldview that was the source of comfort and solace for one and the source of discomfort and anguish for the other. My point is, it's not the content of the worldview that brings comfort and joy, it's more the sense of feeling secure with one's worldview regardless of the content. Strip that away from a man, no matter what it is, and he will feel discomfort, panic, and rage against you. This is true of you especially, Biggy, as I have not seen a more tightly controlled and narrow comfort zone than yours, and the way you defend it--sometimes flatly blocking out the slightest suggestion that there may be a world of thought beyond your comfort zone--and always channeling every ounce of your energies into keeping the discussion within the bounds of your comfort zone--tells me that you're the poster boy for the point I'm making--namely, that we have a natural instinct to fend off ideas and arguments whose effect is to draw our minds away from the worldviews we've adapted to.

And from past conversations, I've learned from you that this is Biggy speak for "I don't understand". And that sparked an idea: I was going to try repeating my quote above one sentence at a time and see exactly where I lose you.

No, that's Biggy speak for "I might understand (which means you don't understand) your point better if you intertwined it in your 'subjectivist' assessment of the trucker protest." You're gonna get the same result as above. Clearly the distinction you make between "subjective" and "objective" in regard to "I" in the is/ought world is not the same one I make. Probably. What difference does it make if each new sentence is not connected to the trucker protest?

Difference to what?

Words defending yet more words still. No truckers, no covid pandemic, no government policy in sight. And, again, there are many here eager to sustain this sort of exchange with you. I'm just not one of them.

Yet, the discussion goes on. In this particular case, I don't really care if the experiment relates to the trucker protest. The truckers are irrelevant to the experiment. It can be done regardless of whether the content relates to the trucker protest or not, and I wanted to do it so I moved forward with it.

Though, sure, if the problem is that I don't get why I should be one of them perhaps it is best that you just give up on me and move on to those that value all that can be grasped about the truckers' protest from up in the clouds.

Yeah... or you can.

Then here we go again...

Yeah. Given my own assessment of your posts here. It's just that I'm acknowledging that my assessment of your assessments is in turn a subjective frame of mind rooted existentially in dasein. As opposed to those like Urwrong who insist that others are wrong times a thousand if they don't share his own frenetic moral and political dogmas. With you, it's basically probing where you fit in here between the fulminating fanatic pinheads like him and the fractured and fragmented minds like mine.

Take this speculation down out of the clouds and relate it to the trucker protest...or abortion or feminism or gun control.

I think you quoted the wrong snippet... unless you were refering to the following:

So it was you that started this tangent which had nothing to do with the trucker protest, talking about how you sort ILP members into your categories instead. You ended off explaining that, with me, you're probing where I fit. So I thought I'd help by giving my explanation of how the problem you are having in categorizing me comes down to language. In other words, my quote was quite relevant to where you took the discussion, but for some reason you expected it to be about the trucker protest (as though I was just ignoring your comment). I wonder if had you not made that mistake, it would have been easier to follow along.

I also wonder whether you have a deficit for processing generalized statements. You asked, "What, in regard to the trucker protest?" to which I said, "In regard to everything". This indicated to me that you couldn't grasp that it was a generalization, that you can't help but to think it has to be about something specific (such that it wouldn't be true of other specific things). But I couldn't answer your question in regard to anything specific (the trucker protest or the difference between subjectivists and objectivists) because my statement was a generalization about how we make statements period. Maybe if I interleaved my quote with examples, it might have helped, but I don't know if that would have helped or hindered your understanding that it wouldn't have been just about the examples I'd give. Generalizations are about all examples one could possibly give. So I wonder if it would have helped had I noted that it was a generalized statement to begin with. Would you have been able to react with "Ok, gib, thanks for letting me know. Now I know to read it as a generalization," or would you still not be able to process that?

Now, even though this experiment wasn't the point of this thread, the thread sorta, kinda (not really) fulfilled its purpose. The purpose was to see how a discussion with Biggy goes down when there's an actual context--an IRL context--and when his partner is actually IRL involved. And while we never got around to discussing my motives and rationale for getting involved in the trucker protest, we did get to see what happens when I bring in a totally unrelated philosophy that I, as a subjectivist, believe in.

I don't think you want me to bring this out of the clouds and tie it to the trucker protest. It won't make it any more clear, just as it didn't in the examples above. Learn from this, Biggy, learn from this.

I'll await your response to this. If this quote of mine is actually what your were referring to, and indeed you want me to relate it to the trucker protest, I'll try my best. But I will admonish that you're just gonna get the same confusing results as you get every time you ask this of me. Think this through, Biggy. Think through the assumptions you're making when you ask this of me. Are any of them unwarranted? Are you asking a square peg to fit into a round hole? Give these questions some thought and get back to me.

You've got this overarching frame of mind I sure do! -- http://www.mm-theory.com <-- Yup, that's my subjectivism -- you use to understand the world around you. But I'm only interested in the parts that pertain to this:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And I have delivered. You've already gotten a taste of what it looks like when I tie my metaphysical philosophies about consciousness and mind to the trucker protest. It doesn't compute for you. It won't compute with any subsequent attempt.

[iambiguous]

Who is arguing that the truckers in Canada were obligated to protest?

You did, right here:

Biggy says we have an obligation - 40%.png

Ok, ok, fine... you didn't exactly say the truckers have an obligation to protest, but I didn't say you did.

My point was only to suggest the obvious: that in regard to situations when citizens are angry at one or another government policy, any number of them will feel an obligation to protest that policy. Not that they must protest. After all, each of us is in a particular situation. For any number of reasons protesting may not be an actual option for us. We might lose our job, or a relationship or in some instances or very lives might be in danger. If, for example, the government policy is being pursued by someone like Vladimir Putin. Think the Nazis and the Jews.

Back to that age old relationship between outrage and fear. We are outraged at someone for doing this or that but if we protest too loudly we fear they have the power to cause us great harm. Each of us has to weigh our options given the situation as we perceive it.

Yes, and you either let that sink in all the way or you don't. Once you come to recognize that 1] your commitment to the trucker protest is profoundly rooted existentially in dasein and that 2] had your life been different you might be here arguing against the protest, you ask yourself, "okay, so what then is the most rational manner in which to react to it"?

Well, maybe you ask yourself that question, but trust me, one can allow the above to sink in and not bother to ask that question.

Sure they can. But then most don't construe moral and political value judgments as I do. As the existential embodiment of dasein. Clearly objectivists don't think it through as I do.

To wit:

One would have to presuppose that 1) there is a most rational manner in which to react, and 2) that it matters. I don't believe in 1) and I'm not even sure 2) is true. So why would I ask myself that question?

Because you are not an objectivist?

Although, from my frame of mind, you seem more than capable of playing one here.

And yet, you seem to agree that I get everything leading up to that point. But if this is the question you're asking yourself once all the above has sunk in, I question how much of a nihilist or subjectivist you really are, expecting there to still be a "most rational manner" in which to react.

Here I go back to "the gap". There's what "here and now" "I" think about "the most rational manner" in which to think about the trucker protest, and there's all that can be known about it. After all, there may well be a God. And there may well be His secular equivalent...a Humanist argument that nails it. It's like the moral equivalent of the black swan. I don't think objectively it is possible here in a No God world, but all it takes is one argument here or elsewhere to bring that crashing down all around me.

Obviously. But the existential implications of how we both understand "contingency, chance and change" in our lives here is clearly different.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm not really sure what "contingency, chance, and change" has to do with this. Why don't you tell me what "contingency, chance, and change" means to you and what it has to do with the manner in which we draw our own conclusions after letting all the above sink in?

Again, the truckers protesting, others reacting to the protest. All of the existential contingences in your life that would have to fall into places in order for you to be drawn into it deeply. There was always the chance that had your life been different for any number of reasons at any number of junctures, you would have had no interest in it at all. And then any subsequent changes in your life [experiences, relationships, info/knowledge] that cause you to drop your commitment. Or switch to the other side.

Thus, from my own frame of mind...

You acknowledge it...but you don't. Yes, you may well be here arguing against the truckers had things been different in your life. But they weren't so you're not. So, what exactly is it that you are agreeing with me about given that you are still not "fractured and fragmented" yourself? All I can do then is attempt to understand that better.

But you don't even do that.

Or, perhaps, if I did, I would think of all this more like you do?

I've given you numerous opportunities to understand it better, but you dismiss them all as in one way or another irrelevant. To wit, we have different understandings of what an "intellectual contraption" is. If you understood that, you'd understand how it is I can agree with you that had things been different I wouldn't necessarily be arguing in favor of the truckers, and that given the arbitrary manner by which we come to acquire our political prejudices one would have to be a fool to believe he or she just so happens to inherit the "right" political prejudice, and yet I'm ok with the stance that I do take. I acknowledge everything leading up to your conclusion, but I reject your conclusion. And this hinges on our understanding of what an "intellectual contraption" is. Too bad you can't be bothered to follow up on that.

You're okay with the stance that you take even though you readily admit that had things been different in your life you'd be be okay with taking the opposite stance. Now, this point by me is not construed by you to be me actually following up on your point. Okay, we are clearly stuck then. Maybe we can get beyond that, maybe not.

But my point is then this: If John recognizes that his support for the truckers is just the existential embodiment of dasein and Jane recognizes that her rejection of the truckers is also just the existential embodiment of dasein, can they come to a philosophy forum such as this and arrive at the most rational reaction to the protest? Or does it always more or less revolve around the manner in which I construe "conflicting goods":

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own value judgments regarding the trucker protest are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective value judgments "I" can reach here, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap here, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

And so fitting the cloudy square pegs into the cloudy round holes persist between us. Because I hear you claiming to understand me while claiming in turn to be comfortable with the stance you take now in support of the truckers.

From my frame of mind, you could hardly be misunderstanding my points more. Otherwise you would recognize your support as still just a particular political prejudice of yours rooted largely in dasein. Same with vaccinations and reacting to the authority of the government and regarding all the other moral and political conflagrations that beset us. There's objectivism on one end of the commitment spectrum and a fractured and fragmented ambivalence on the other end. And how "I" understand it, and how you do.

From my frame of mind, your frame of mind is all about establishing that "comfort zone" where you can claim to grasp the points I make here but still feel assured that your support of the truckers is, what, the most rational argument? If so, you understand practically next to nothing about how "I" react to them.

And if you can't work with this despite that I tied it into the trucker protest, would you say that we're out of options? I mean, you keep saying that you need your discussion partner to tie his/her point to the subject matter of the discussion. So when that fails, what do you fall back on?

The next time there's a trucker protest take these arguments to them. See how they react to it.

So, into the waste bin I go.

Actually, my point is more along the lines of how you will react when these objectivists truckers and objectivists apologist here are the ones who toss you into the waste bin, not me. They'd expect me to argue as I do, they wouldn't expect you to argue as I do. Or, rather, up to the point where you say you don't. Confusing them all the more.

So, I don't know if this helps, but you can see how I connect the dots between my last point and the scenario about the girl who stood me up from which it stemmed--and this is almost literally connecting the dots--so if you can form the connection between that scenario (which you were driving) and the trucker protest, you should be able (quite easily) to connect the dots between that and the last point I made above. And if not, why did you follow along with the segue so long before pointing out that there is no apparent connection between it and the trucker protest?

My point is still the same. The girl who stood you up might well have been that crucial "contingency, chance and change" component in your life that led you to being here insisting instead that you are comfortable with the stance you take rejecting the trucker protest. She might have been the one able to provide you with the thinking that others were and are not.

Huh? Are you saying that the trucker protest isn't derived from the reasons the truckers give for explaining why they believe they are doing the right thing?

Exactly.

I would truly love to be around when you explain that to them.

I have 0 faith that the truckers would believe me were I to argue with them that the reasons they give for being in Ottawa are not the real reason they are there, nor that they would even understand what I'm talking about.

What I would broach here is that there are no essential, objective reasons for or against the protest. There are only the subjective reasons derived from political prejudices embodied in dasein. Imagine their reaction to that. And then you saying, what, "that's true but you can still feel comfortable with your 'stance' as the most rational frame of mind."

You'd probably see me laughed at or ignored. But what is that supposed to prove? Am I supposed to doubt my own points just because I can't convince a group of truckers of their truth? Failing to convince people of the points I make or get them to understand happens all the time. You of all people should know this. You fail to convince people of your points on ILP all the time. Yet you continue to promulgate your nihilist dasein arguments as though that doesn't matter one iota. Why should it matter for me?

I do doubt my own value judgments here. And for all the reasons I've given.

And, please, come on, here I am calling into question not whether someone is right or wrong about the trucker protest but whether their convictions themselves are but subjective contraptions rooted not in the objective truth but in profoundly problematic existential narratives....ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and new ways in which to think about it.

Of course many here will react askance to that!

Again, all I can do here is imagine their own reaction to something like this. I suspect the reasons they have for acting as they do is more in line with the reasons we give for acting as we do. My main aim is merely to suggest the reasons are derived more from the manner in which I construe dasein here than in anything that philosophers can provide as a foundations for coming up with the optimal reaction to the government and the covid pandemic. Or for some the only rational reaction there can be. Their own.

I'm with you 100% here.

Right, 100%.

Sure, there are those who get angry because the government does something that they don't like. But how many stop there? I'm angry and that's enough? No, I suspect that they will discuss this anger with others. And others will be tuning into their favorite news channels or internet blogs. All the "reasons" for why the government does this instead of that will be included in the protest. Along with all the political prejudices that picture two very different worlds that we live in. Red and blue worlds among others. As though reasons and emotions don't become deeply entangled in the minds of those on both sides.

And all of this is to serve the emotions that started it, the emotions that are ultimately the core reason they do anything in this context. All the rest--what they discuss among their friends, what they see on the media, the dwelling, the contemplating, the rationalizing--all serve to make it ok to gratify their emotions, to preserve their sense of moral right while doing so.

Emotions here are no less the embodiment of dasein to me. Some think and feel one way about the protest, others another way. Where exactly would the line be drawn? Depends on the individual of course.

And what does that depend on?

How many times over the years here have I noted that my own conclusions regarding "I" in the is/ought world are no less subjective "personal opinions" rooted in dasein. Yet no doubt you will still bring up this point again.

Absolutely I will! Because I don't grant you that excuse. Admitting that your own arguments apply to your own objective statements doesn't get you a free pass any more than a murderer admitting that the law applies to him gets him a free pass--especially one that won't grant the same license to other murderers.

What objective statements? A statement I make about the trucker protest is either able to be demonstrated as in fact the objective truth or it isn't. If I state this protest unfolded in Madagascar, is that true? If I state the protest was a just cause is that true? That's always the distinction I make. Same with murder. What particular murder in what particular context construed from what particular point of view?

It's as if you think by admitting that when you (accidentally?) make objective statements, your own philosophy applies to you no less than to me or urwrong or other ILP pinheads, you get to make objective statements (or that they aren't really objective statements). I mean, that would be all fine and dandy, except that you don't grant the same right to anyone else. Everyone except Biggy is an objectivist pinhead when they make objective sounding statements, but not Biggy; when he makes an objective sounding statement, he excuses it with his my-philosophy-applies-to-me magic wand and makes the problem go away, thus evading objectivist pinhead status.

As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them.

Cite some examples of these "objective sounding statements" of mine...pertaining to the trucker protest.

And of course from the perspective of others here I am the subjectivist pinhead. Fine. Choose a context involving conflicting behaviors revolving around conflicting value judgments and let's explore our respective moral philosophies.

Then [to me] stratight back up into what "I" construe to be the "intellectual contraption clouds":

The problem is that you're human too, and we all, at the end of the day, are compelled to make objective sounding statements (this was my point about how the brain is evolved to structure language to sound objectivy). You try to avoid it for the most part--posing challenges and inquiries instead of making statements, committing to no specific position in the act, and always remembering to claim to be seeking the truth rather than stating your own truth--but you can't help that once in a while, you'll fall prey to the impulse to express yourself using your brain's default language algorithms (i.e. just stating what you think, which comes out as objective sounding statements). When that happens, and when someone points it out, you redeem yourself with the my-philosophy-applies-to-me defense--as if the "you" who made those objective statements was a different "you"--a urwrong, a Uccisor, a gib--someone to whom you can apply the "objectivist pinhead" label--and that's ok because it isn't "you" anymore--you've resumed being your nihilist, dasein loving "I".

Again, note some of these "objective sounding statements" as they pertain to the distinction I make between the trucker protest re the either/or world and our reactions to it re the is/ought world.

I may simply be misunderstanding your point here.

Anyway, my point was (if you can be bothered to go back and read it) that if the effect you're having on other people's minds is to change them (regardless of whether that's what you're trying to do), they will instinctively fight you. And it's not because what you're saying takes away their comfort (although it will make them feel uncomfortable) but because it's just a survival instinct. Whatever it is you think you're doing, it's triggering that instinct in people.

Oh, it's all in the genes then? Though, sure, a comfortable and consoling survival for some does revolve around being convinced that how they construe the trucker protest is the way everyone ought to construe it.

It does for everyone, even you. Think of it this way. Imagine you're having one of your typical debates with a right wing conservative who has deeply religious convictions. You get on the topic of the existence of God, and as you're wont to do, you cast doubt on his arguments for the existence of God. You chip away at his faith until he feels the uneasiness of doubt. And you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive. This is the discomfort you often talk about, the discomfort that we may very well live in a No God world, no God to console us in our prayers, no God to be our moral guiding light, no God to take us in as we stand at the gates of heaven upon our death. It is the discomfort that, as you often put it, maybe the arguments you put forward about dasein also apply to him.

Yes, and, in part, I speak of this discomfort because, in once having been both a God and a No God objectivist myself, I felt and still do feel the profound discomfort of experiencing the world of conflicting goods from a fractured and fragmented frame of mind. And from a frame of mind that presumes "in the end" I've still got oblivion to deal with. This discomfort is an everyday reality for me...but not for the moral and political and spiritual objectivists. For them it only becomes disturbing if my arguments start to "get" to them.

I sense this here all the time. But, again, I have to acknowledge that what "I" do sense here is no less a subjective manifestation of dasein...as "here and now" I understand it.

Now imagine the next day you meet with an atheist, and being the impartial gadfly who strives to treat every objectivist the same regardless of their stance, you dig into him just as you did the theist of yesterday. You make him doubt his certainty that there is no God, that we are free to make our own moral choices, that maybe he will be judged at the end of his life for not believing and not following the one true path. Again, discomfort arises, the same uneasiness you made the theist feel the other day, and you can tell by the way he gets hostile and defensive.

Yes, I have in fact done precisely that in regard to those like Sculptor. Just ask Bob or Ierrellus. He can be truly mocking in regard to the religious minded here. Whereas I am the first to admit that, sure, there may well be a God, the God. That's certainly one possible explanation for the existence of existence itself.

Instead, for the religious minded, I request that they bring this God [spiritual path] of theirs here:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path

This is the part that brings about the most discomfort for them. Or, rather, given my own existential reaction to them down through the years.

Now you see that in the one case, you caused a man a great deal of discomfort by destroying his belief in God. And in the other, by destroying his doubt in God. You've essentially convinced each one that the other's worldview is the correct one--a worldview that was the source of comfort and solace for one and the source of discomfort and anguish for the other. My point is, it's not the content of the worldview that brings comfort and joy, it's more the sense of feeling secure with one's worldview regardless of the content.

Yes. That's the whole point of this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The objectivist belief can be anything. It's the belief itself that is the main point. Or, rather, my main point. Their reactions to the trucker strike is often just a springboard to convey their reactions to the role of government in our lives itself: "I" vs. we", "capitalism vs, socialism", "genes vs. memes" and on and on.

Strip that away from a man, no matter what it is, and he will feel discomfort, panic, and rage against you. This is true of you especially, Biggy, as I have not seen a more tightly controlled and narrow comfort zone than yours, and the way you defend it--sometimes flatly blocking out the slightest suggestion that there may be a world of thought beyond your comfort zone--and always channeling every ounce of your energies into keeping the discussion within the bounds of your comfort zone--tells me that you're the poster boy for the point I'm making--namely, that we have a natural instinct to fend off ideas and arguments whose effect is to draw our minds away from the worldviews we've adapted to.

Again, if you choose to construe my own frame of mind here as source of comfort and consolation, I can only note how completely preposterous that is. To live with the existential belief that my own life is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that I have access to no capacity to differentiate right from wrong behavior and that any day now "I" will tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion...To believe that could possibly be a comforting way to construe one's reality?

Then it all comes back to whatever the hell this means...

And I have delivered. You've already gotten a taste of what it looks like when I tie my metaphysical philosophies about consciousness and mind to the trucker protest. It doesn't compute for you. It won't compute with any subsequent attempt.

...in regard to the trucker protest the role of government and whatever else you subsume inside your own "metaphysical philosophy about consciousness and mind".

But so much more to the point [mine] it's not what this epistemological/intellectual contraption philosophy means to me but what it means to the truckers doing the protesting.

Run it by them or anyone else protesting something that the government does wholly in sync with your political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein, and get back to us.

How about the war in Ukraine?

[Sculptor]

This is another invitation to the distinguished I.A. Biguous to join me in another hopeless debate that he can't contribute to without a context. Well, as fortune would have it, we have a context. We have one hell of a mother fucking context--the Freedom Convoy in Canada.

A sad and tiny minority of Trumpers.

No need for hypotheticals. And I'm the perfect person to engage with. I am a Canadian and I am involved! You no longer have to ask me what would I do. I can tell you what I am doing.

So whadya say Biggy? Wanna try this again?

They got more publicity than they deserved and melted away at the least provocaion.
Bye bye.

[Ichthus77]

Opposition has nukes. Folks got mouths to feed. Gonna take divine intervention or mutually assured destruction to end what’s coming.

[gib]

My point was only to suggest the obvious: that in regard to situations when citizens are angry at one or another government policy, any number of them will feel an obligation to protest that policy. Not that they must protest. Very well then. Let's drop it. After all, each of us is in a particular situation. For any number of reasons protesting may not be an actual option for us. We might lose our job, or a relationship or in some instances or very lives might be in danger. If, for example, the government policy is being pursued by someone like Vladimir Putin. Think the Nazis and the Jews.

Absolutely!

Well, maybe you ask yourself that question, but trust me, one can allow the above to sink in and not bother to ask that question.

Sure they can. But then most don't construe moral and political value judgments as I do. As the existential embodiment of dasein. Clearly objectivists don't think it through as I do.

Perhaps a discussion on how you construe dasein is warranted. I've been assuming it doesn't deviate far from Heidegger's meaning since he coined the term, but maybe that's a false assumption.

To wit:

One would have to presuppose that 1) there is a most rational manner in which to react, and 2) that it matters. I don't believe in 1) and I'm not even sure 2) is true. So why would I ask myself that question?

Because you are not an objectivist?

I would think I'd ask the question if I was an objectivist. Objectivists definitely believe there is a most rational manner in which to react and moral objectivists definitely believe it matters. Granted, a staunch objectivist probably wouldn't budge from his or her original position on matters like the trucker protest or vaccine mandates or whatever else, and therefore wouldn't end up in a mind state where they begin to doubt their position and were thus compelled to ask the question, but I would still think that however one ends up in such a mind state, the compulsion to ask the question could only be motivated by a quasi-desperate attempt to restore some form of objectivism. A true subjectivist would have no problem letting go of the question.

Although, from my frame of mind, you seem more than capable of playing one here.

Yes, I'm capable of playing one. I can easily slip into the role. I can easily slip into many roles. I guess it's one of my talents. I can take another person's point of view and slip myself into their world. And since we live in a largely objectivists world--especially when you consider objectivism is more or less the brain's "default" paradigm--it's exceedingly easy to slip into an objectivist frame of mind.

Here I go back to "the gap". There's what "here and now" "I" think about "the most rational manner" in which to think about the trucker protest, and there's all that can be known about it. After all, there may well be a God. And there may well be His secular equivalent...a Humanist argument that nails it. It's like the moral equivalent of the black swan. I don't think objectively it is possible here in a No God world, but all it takes is one argument here or elsewhere to bring that crashing down all around me.

So is this an argument from ignorance? As in, I [iambiguous] don't know whether there is a most rational manner in which to react, therefore I ask the question just in case?

Again, the truckers protesting, others reacting to the protest. All of the existential contingences in your life that would have to fall into places in order for you to be drawn into it deeply. There was always the chance that had your life been different for any number of reasons at any number of junctures, you would have had no interest in it at all. And then any subsequent changes in your life [experiences, relationships, info/knowledge] that cause you to drop your commitment. Or switch to the other side.

So it sounds like "contingency and chance" refer to the multitude of random variables that steer us in the directions our lives take us and "change" refers to the effect, the consequences of how these numerous variables continually influence us, possibly compelling us to change our minds. Ok, so contingency, chance, and change is indeed a powerful force that most likely would condition us--you and I--to draw different conclusions after letting all that we have talked about sink in--you being prompted to ask the question "what then is the most rational manner in which to react" and me feeling not the slightest compulsion to ask this question.

You acknowledge it...but you don't. Yes, you may well be here arguing against the truckers had things been different in your life. But they weren't so you're not. So, what exactly is it that you are agreeing with me about given that you are still not "fractured and fragmented" yourself? All I can do then is attempt to understand that better.

But you don't even do that.

Or, perhaps, if I did, I would think of all this more like you do?

Or at least show signs of being interested, if not comprehending at least something to start. But I don't see that from you. I see repeated attempts to feign wanting to understand other people's points of view better, but your actions tell a different story--that of wanting to challenge and destroy other people's points of view (and if you can't, to avoid them).

You're okay with the stance that you take even though you readily admit that had things been different in your life you'd be be okay with taking the opposite stance. Now, this point by me is not construed by you to be me actually following up on your point. Okay, we are clearly stuck then. Maybe we can get beyond that, maybe not.

To be clear, I'm not 100% sure I have a solid position on the trucker protest (or any controversial issue). I'm driven primarily by emotion and, if I have to, I put together a rational sounding justification after the fact--and only to the extent that I have to. What I'm okay with is following my emotions insofar as it doesn't bother my conscience too much.

But my point is then this: If John recognizes that his support for the truckers is just the existential embodiment of dasein and Jane recognizes that her rejection of the truckers is also just the existential embodiment of dasein, can they come to a philosophy forum such as this and arrive at the most rational reaction to the protest?

Does the most rational reaction include throwing one's hands up in the air and saying "I don't know"? Because that's what I imagine John and Jane would do if they really took your dasein argument to heart (and thought it through as you do). I don't see any other conclusion to draw from the fact that whatever our political prejudices, it's all just existential embodiments of dasein, than that there is no obvious One and Only objectively correct or best rational manner in which to react--it would all appear to be put on equal footing, so to speak--equally arbitrary, equally vacuous--so what else could John and Jane do but both agree to give up trying to figure out it? (I suppose then at least they would stop butting heads with each other.) <-- If that counts as a most rational manner in which to react after taking your dasein argument into account, then I suppose there is hope for an affirmative answer: there is at least that reaction.

Personally, I've always felt that conflicting goods can be looked at as a tragedy--that we live in a tragic world in which the most fair outcome can't always be realized. Everyone has a right to be protected from deadly diseases like COVID; yet at the same time, everyone has a right to their own bodily determination, including whether a vaccine is injected into it or not (and without having to choose between the vaccine and their livelihood or freedom). What the trucker protest shows is that we don't always have a way to satisfy both, so the outcome inevitably ends up being tragic for some.

^ This doesn't give us the perfect prescription for how to behave or what to do about the problem. People on both sides of the isle will, when faced with the choice to either act or role over, still choose to act in their own self-interest, but at least we can all agree that it is tragic that some will get their way and others won't--that we would all, if we could, apply the solution that protects the rights of as many of us as possible and mourn, to whatever extent we can, those whose rights we cannot protect--and this preserve at least a small glimer of faith that underneath the surface, despite being at each other's throats, we act in good will.

And so fitting the cloudy square pegs into the cloudy round holes persist between us. Because I hear you claiming to understand me while claiming in turn to be comfortable with the stance you take now in support of the truckers.

I'm comfortable with my stance because I don't need it to be rooted in a rock solid logical foundation (like an impeccably rational argument or an objectively demonstrable proof)--I'm okay with a bit of faith, I'm okay with being driven (to a degree) by emotion rather than rationality, and I suppose to a large extent I feel comfortable knowing there are plenty of others who take my side and have my back (a strong social support group goes a long way, I think). The comfort I take in my stances doesn't hinge on the criteria you seem to be laying down, at least for yourself, namely that it must be capable of rising above the status of being just a mere intellectual contraption or the existential embodiment of dasein. For me, it can be all that and I'm still ok with it.

From my frame of mind, you could hardly be misunderstanding my points more. Otherwise you would recognize your support as still just a particular political prejudice of yours rooted largely in dasein. Same with vaccinations and reacting to the authority of the government and regarding all the other moral and political conflagrations that beset us. There's objectivism on one end of the commitment spectrum and a fractured and fragmented ambivalence on the other end. And how "I" understand it, and how you do.

You know, Biggy, I think you're just out of touch with your emotions. You seem to live in a world of pure intellectualism, and if you acknowledge emotions at all, it's only to dismiss them as "just another existential embodiment of dasein". You seem to think that, at the end of the day, any support for or against issue X, any stance one can take, or any attachment or commitment to a belief or a moral position, amounts to nothing more than a purely intellectual thought structure--a thought structure that stands or falls depending on if its host believes in it absolutely and finally--i.e. that it must be true for all men and women in all situations or it's not true at all--and that whoever takes this stance or supports this or that side of an issue believes wholeheartedly that he or she grasps the absolute truth of the matter and "knows" indubitably that he or she is irrevocably correct--and if any sliver of doubt enters in, he or she cannot help but to drop his or her stance entirely--black and white just like that.

Is there no room in your world for "I could be wrong but I still believe"? Can one not say "I'm not sure what the ultimate defense of my position is but I support it nonetheless"? Of course there is, but only because you believe people who say this haven't truly grasped the gravity of what your dasein argument entails. You believe that if one truly grasped it, they could never say something like this. They would either have (or think they have) a definitive demonstrable proof of their position that all rational men and women are obligated to acknowledge--or they would remain suspended in the same kind of nihilistic limbo that you find yourself in, their "I" being fractured and fragmented. The former case seems to be the only situation you can conceive that would permit one who grasps your dasein arguments to continue to believe. But I submit to you that there are other ways--despite grasping your dasein arguments--and I would, if I were you, look at emotions for a start.

From my frame of mind, your frame of mind is all about establishing that "comfort zone" where you can claim to grasp the points I make here but still feel assured that your support of the truckers is, what, the most rational argument? <-- Ah ha! That confirms what I thought! If so, you understand practically next to nothing about how "I" react to them.

Hopefully, what I said above about the role of emotions in sustaining beliefs and values and the positions one takes on controversial issues like the trucker protest sheds some light on your confusion. In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are right"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to win." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Actually, my point is more along the lines of how you will react when these objectivists truckers and objectivists apologist here are the ones who toss you into the waste bin, not me. They'd expect me to argue as I do, they wouldn't expect you to argue as I do. Or, rather, up to the point where you say you don't. Confusing them all the more.

Oh, you mean you would direct me to take my arguments to the truckers. And in this chain of the thread, we're talking about taking my arguments about the metaphysics of consciousness to the truckers. Unfortunately, I don't think this would help you at all; I don't think the truckers could make heads or tells of my metaphysics of consciousness any more than you could, let alone how it ties into the trucker protest.

I wonder if we have any truckers who were involved in the protest on this board, or maybe just supporters of the trucker protest. If so, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to conduct yet another experiment (sorry Bigs, I know you hate when I experiment, but in this case, you'd be getting exactly what you want )--me explaining my metaphysics of consciousness to a trucker protest supporter, and specifically how it ties in to the trucker protest (regardless, I guess, of whether that says anything about which side of the debate is right).

My point is still the same. The girl who stood you up might well have been that crucial "contingency, chance and change" component in your life that led you to being here insisting instead that you are comfortable with the stance you take rejecting the trucker protest. She might have been the one able to provide you with the thinking that others were and are not.

That wasn't your point. You're point was that values are not illusory to the nihilist, remember? At least your brand of nihilism:

No. The existiential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.

And now it isn't.

It's true, you did make a point about the girl who stood me up waaay back, and it's a fine point--no qualms here--but it's a distraction now.

What I would broach here is that there are no essential, objective reasons for or against the protest. There are only the subjective reasons derived from political prejudices embodied in dasein. EXACTLY!!! Imagine their reaction to that. And then you saying, what, "that's true but you can still feel comfortable with your 'stance' as the most rational frame of mind."

Drop the "as the most rational frame of mind". It's not "as" anything. It's just whichever side of the debate/protest they're on.

I do doubt my own value judgments here. And for all the reasons I've given.

And for some reason, you take me as having absolutely no doubts in my own value judgments.

Emotions here are no less the embodiment of dasein to me.

Well, as long as we agree that the primary motivating factor driving the truckers to protest was their emotions, I'm all good with this line in the conversation. Are emotions the embodiment of dasein? Sure, they can be, and in the trucker protest they most likely are. But here, what it means for one to feel the "right" emotions or the "wrong" emotions is something entirely different than what it means to take the "right" stance or the "wrong" stance.

To clarify, by being the embodiment of dasein, I assume that you mean the emotions that are invoked in a person when he hears about the truckers being forced to vaccinate depend almost entirely on that person's history--how they we raised, what in regards to vaccines, truckers, etc. they experienced in the past, what media sources they are regularly exposed to, etc., etc., etc.. One person might react favorably to the news that the government is mandating vaccines for truckers who cross the border--"Good! It's about time someone forced them to vaccinate!" they might think--and another person might react unfavorably--"What?! The government has no right! How dare they!" <-- Is that the idea?

Then consider this--what does it mean for one to take the "right" stance on a debate such as the trucker protest? I take it to mean that we assume there is an objective truth out there that is reflected in one's stance, that is aligned with it. And assuming for the moment that we can cleanly separate any emotions from one's stance (such that, like Spock, one is completely unattached to one's stance--one just happens to have it at the moment), if it was shown to a person that the truth actually differs from his stance, it would seem strange were he to stay committed to his stance--as though he were suffering some form of brain abnormality or acting completely irrationally. Typically, the stances we take (without involving emotions for the moment) hinge on the truth as we know it. Change what we know about the truth, and we subject our stances to change.

But now turn to emotions. How are emotions effected by changes in how we see the truth? Well, sometimes they change just like the stances we take (ex. anger towards a spouse fades instantly when we learn she wasn't cheating after all) but not always. Here's an imaginary scenario to drive the point home: you are hiding from a crazed murderer who wants to take your life. You are overwhelmed with fear--a perfectly fine example of an emotion--now while you stay put in your hiding place, you consider your usual arguments about dasein and how this fear you feel is no less the existential embodiment of dasein than your stance that murder is wrong--you consider that if you were in the murderer's shoes, you may well believe that there is nothing wrong with killing. It might even be a thrill. Short of feeling terrified, you'd feel elation if you were in the murderer's shoes. But as clear as that line of thinking is to you, no matter how impossible it feels to refute it, you still can't shake the fear from your bones. You acknowledge that, with respect to your emotions, you might as well have gone in the other direction (elation); you even acknowledge that, not being privy to some ultimate demonstrable objective proof that either your fear is the right emotion to have or the murderer's sense of elation is the right emotion to have, you can't even feel indifferent; you can't even feel emotionally suspended in some nihilistic limbo, suspended until you can somehow figure out what the right emotion to have is. No, you continue to be overwhelmed with this relentless fear, a heart pounding fear that just won't go away, that won't listen to your dasein arguments or considerations of other ways to feel like that of the murderer. It persists in your chest in defiance of every intellectual contraption you bring to bear against it.

Now, can you tell me why this is? Why would you continue to feel fear while hiding from a murderer who's out for your blood when you know, had it been a belief, a thought, a conviction on some highly important political issue, your considerations about dasein would at least have brought doubt to your mind if not thrown out the belief, thought, or conviction all together? I'll tell you why? Because unlike thought and our intellectual stances on things, emotions aren't about the truth--they aren't trying to get at what's universally true for all of us--they're about our own self-interest. What's right for you is not what's right for the murderer. What's right for you is that you stay alive. What's right for the murderer is that he kills you. Emotions aren't interested in your eternal questions, in what is the most rational manner in which to react such that all rational men and women would be obligated to agree with you--they are only interested in what serves your own self-interest--whether morally right or morally wrong--and that is a matter that is often settled before you can even begin to contemplate what might be the ultimate objective truth that, once and for all, applies to all human beings.

This is why, despite agreeing with your dasein arguments on an intellectual level, I can still feel a certain way about this or that issue. I still feel strongly about supporting the truckers despite knowing there is no ultimate rational and objectively real argument I could put forward to convince all rational men and women, once and for all, that they should feel the way I do about the truckers. I feel, on an instinctual level, that the truckers' cause serves my own interests more than that of the vaccine mandate proponents, so it is impossible for me to stay neutral. I find myself, without even choosing, taking a stance anyway.

What objective statements?

*Ugh* This one here!

"That there is no objective morality in a No God world."

...you know, the one that prompted me to say "Careful Biggy--that sounds like an objective statement!"?

And please, you make tons of objective statement all... the... fricken... time... yes, even of the is/ought variety.

But I guess your my-philosophy-applies-to-me trick turns them into subjective statements, right? Or is it that the my-philosophy-applies-to-me trick makes it so that it wasn't really "you" who uttered those objective statements (you don't have an "I" after all)?

As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them.

Cite some examples of these "objective sounding statements" of mine...pertaining to the trucker protest.

Why pertaining to the trucker protest? My charge against you (that you utter the occasional objective statement) applies generally (as you use the my-philosophy-applies-to-me even outside discussions on the trucker protest).

So let's start with these:

"As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them."

"And of course from the perspective of others here I am the subjectivist pinhead."

And from elsewhere in this thread:

"Just another example of a "political prejudice" that you refuse to see as such."

"There's the mentality that there is one and only one way in which to both understand and to react to the protest -- the right way, mine -- or there is the assumption that as with most conflicting goods there are rational arguments to be made from both ends of the political spectrum and that the "best of all possible worlds" is to grapple with policies that take into account the arguments from different political prejudices."

"On the contrary, if I were another Urwong, I'd be insisting that others were wrong times a 1,000 if they did not share my own set of assumptions about you."

"Yes, one way or another. A subjectivist -- a moral nihilist -- starts with the assumption that one would have be omniscient in order to grasp every single component of the truckers protest. He would have to be fully knowledgeable about every aspect of the covid pandemic and the role of government down through the ages. Then the one and the only manner in which to grasp it all together."

"I make it clear that in examining the arguments of those at both ends of the political spectrum here reasonable points can be made given certain intial assumptions above covid and government and the well-being of a community in terms of healthcare policies. Neither side is able to make the points raised by the other side just go away. So, given my own initial assumption regarding "I" as the existential embodiment of dasein re my signature threads here, I am "drawn and quartered". I'm not into calling those who don't agree with me necessarily wrong because they are not "one of us"."

"It really comes downs to how one construes "I" at the existential -- historical, cultural, experiential -- intersection of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given a particular set of circumstance."

"My point, however, is that for the moral and political objectivists among us, not only do they include their own political dogmas -- really just political prejudices rooted in dasein -- in their set of assumptions but exclude the assumptions of all who don't think exactly like they do."

"Then back to where you fit in here re the trucker protests such that you explore this in coming down out of the sky. Not a fulminating fanatic pinhead like Urwrong but not fractured and fragmented like me."

And that's just from this thread (I could dig up more if I decided to go beyond 8). Imagine what we'd find if we combed this entire site.

What a truly foolish challenge it is for you to press me to find quotes from you that sounded like you were making objective statements. Did you really think you never made them?

Choose a context involving conflicting behaviors revolving around conflicting value judgments and let's explore our respective moral philosophies.

I know! How bout the trucker protest?!

Again, note some of these "objective sounding statements" as they pertain to the distinction I make between the trucker protest re the either/or world and our reactions to it re the is/ought world.

Will the above suffice?

Yes. That's the whole point of this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The objectivist belief can be anything. It's the belief itself that is the main point. Or, rather, my main point. Their reactions to the trucker strike is often just a springboard to convey their reactions to the role of government in our lives itself: "I" vs. we", "capitalism vs, socialism", "genes vs. memes" and on and on.

Great! So you do understand. Then you will understand that 1) to say that you cause your contenders discomfort at the thought that your arguments might apply to them is trivial; it's no different than saying the thought that one could be wrong in their convictions causes them discomfort (d'uh!). And 2) insofar as you are human, it applies to you no less than to any other human being. So yeah, the thought that your arguments might apply to your contender might cause them discomfort, but all the same, the thought (in your head) that your contender's points might apply to you causes you discomfort.

Strip that away from a man, no matter what it is, and he will feel discomfort, panic, and rage against you. This is true of you especially, Biggy, as I have not seen a more tightly controlled and narrow comfort zone than yours, and the way you defend it--sometimes flatly blocking out the slightest suggestion that there may be a world of thought beyond your comfort zone--and always channeling every ounce of your energies into keeping the discussion within the bounds of your comfort zone--tells me that you're the poster boy for the point I'm making--namely, that we have a natural instinct to fend off ideas and arguments whose effect is to draw our minds away from the worldviews we've adapted to.

Again, if you choose to construe my own frame of mind here as source of comfort and consolation, I can only note how completely preposterous that is. To live with the existential belief that my own life is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that I have access to no capacity to differentiate right from wrong behavior and that any day now "I" will tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion...To believe that could possibly be a comforting way to construe one's reality?

Aaand your understanding is lost. Look, I have no idea how comfortable or uncomfortable your worldview is (though when it's convenient, you tell us of how liberating your views are), my point is you hang onto it like a life raft because any other worldview is 10 times worse. The discomfort you would feel if someone convinced you that your outlook is wrong--even if that painted a much brighter, rosier picture of the world--would be unbearable compared to what you might feel at the thought of your meaningless, purposeless existence, your lack of a moral compass, and the oblivion that awaits your fall into the abyss of death. I thought above you understood the point that it has absolutely nothing to do with the content of your belief--that an atheist coerced into believing in God feels just as much pain as a theist coerced into doubting God--why then are you now appealing to the content of your beliefs, of the lack of purpose and meaning, of moral compass, and of salvation from the abyss? Why, when you supposedly understand that the pain comes from the act itself of having your beliefs torn to shreds?

Then it all comes back to whatever the hell this means...

And I have delivered. You've already gotten a taste of what it looks like when I tie my metaphysical philosophies about consciousness and mind to the trucker protest. It doesn't compute for you. It won't compute with any subsequent attempt.

Holy shit! The fact that it does not compute itself fails to compute!

You truly are an enigma to behold, Biggy.

...in regard to the trucker protest the role of government and whatever else you subsume inside your own "metaphysical philosophy about consciousness and mind".

Hey, you wanna try it again? I'd be delighted to oblige. It would be hilarious watching you run in circles, failing to remember the consequence of every round (some obscure definition of insanity comes to mind).

But so much more to the point [mine] it's not what this epistemological/intellectual contraption philosophy means to me but what it means to the truckers doing the protesting.

Run it by them or anyone else protesting something that the government does wholly in sync with your political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein, and get back to us.

How about the war in Ukraine?

Well, as long as you understand that however we got onto the subject of my metaphysical philosophies on consciousness, it was never my intention (I don't think) to relate it to the trucker protest or the war in Ukraine. You were the one who insisted I tie it to the trucker protest. So whatever outcome we get from me bringing my philosophies of consciousness to the truckers, that's for you to deal with, not me.

Nonetheless, I'll see if I can get the ball rolling vis-a-vis a discussion with a trucker, protester, or supporter.

[gib]

A sad and tiny minority of Trumpers.

It was actually quite a turn out--several thousands just in Ottawa--and that's not to mention the movement they spurred all around the world--the numerous trucker rallies that rose up in multiple countries against the kinds of governments whose dicks you like to suck. And who says they were all Trumpers? These are simply people who don't want to lose their jobs because they chose to exercise their right not to be vaccinated. I don't know where Trump enters the picture.

They got more publicity than they deserved and melted away at the least provocaion.

Did they now? You call the Emergency Act, a war time measure to squash any opposition against the government by force, the "least provocation"? Police were trampling people on horse back, they were freezing people's bank accounts, throwing dissidents in jail... least provocation my ass.

And I don't know how much less publicity you can get when all videos uploaded to youtube in support of the truckers got taken down as soon as the movement was squashed.

Opposition has nukes. Folks got mouths to feed. Gonna take divine intervention or mutually assured destruction to end what’s coming.

Amen to that!

[gib]

Ok, we got a thread going in which I can engage any truckers, protestors involved in the trucker protest, or just supporters of the cause here:

Any truckers, protestors, or supporters here?

I even invite anyone who's against the trucker protest or what they stand for to join as that, I think, is where the real juice you, Biggy, are looking for will flow from.

[iambiguous]

My point was only to suggest the obvious: that in regard to situations when citizens are angry at one or another government policy, any number of them will feel an obligation to protest that policy. Not that they must protest. Very well then. After all, each of us is in a particular situation. For any number of reasons protesting may not be an actual option for us. We might lose our job, or a relationship or in some instances or very lives might be in danger. If, for example, the government policy is being pursued by someone like Vladimir Putin. Think the Nazis and the Jews.

Absolutely!

Indeed, and how are our individual reactions to any particular government policies not rooted existentially in dasein? Some support the policy. Some protest it. Why one way and not the other?

I note my own subjective narrative in explaining that here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

But I'm still trying to grasp yours. Where exactly you fit in along that moral and political spectrum from the fulminating fanatic objectivist pinheads like Urwrong on one end to the fractured and fragmented personalities like me on the other end.

Well, maybe you ask yourself that question, but trust me, one can allow the above to sink in and not bother to ask that question.

Sure they can. But then most don't construe moral and political value judgments as I do. As the existential embodiment of dasein. Clearly objectivists don't think it through as I do.

Perhaps a discussion on how you construe dasein is warranted. I've been assuming it doesn't deviate far from Heidegger's meaning since he coined the term, but maybe that's a false assumption.

That thread already exists here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529

And I've taken my own distinction elsewhere: https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtop ... =5&t=34319

In other words, a very "false assumption". Heidegger's Dasein is but another "up in the clouds" intellectual contraption to me. My dasein is considerably more "down to earth".

Instead, you and your ilk are almost always more comfortable in a "world of words":

I would think I'd ask the question if I was an objectivist. Objectivists definitely believe there is a most rational manner in which to react and moral objectivists definitely believe it matters. Granted, a staunch objectivist probably wouldn't budge from his or her original position on matters like the trucker protest or vaccine mandates or whatever else, and therefore wouldn't end up in a mind state where they begin to doubt their position and were thus compelled to ask the question, but I would still think that however one ends up in such a mind state, the compulsion to ask the question could only be motivated by a quasi-desperate attempt to restore some form of objectivism. A true subjectivist would have no problem letting go of the question.

Okay, how is this relevant to your position on the trucker protest? You were once an objectivist regarding things like this but now you're not? A subjectivist of my ilk recognizes that both the questions we ask and the answers we give in regard to "conflicting goods" of this sort can only lead to a fractured and fragmented frame of mind until one day a philosopher is able to come up with the optimal or the only rational manner in which to react to it. Then there would be no need to feel ambiguity and ambivalence and uncertainty.

Now, what am I to make of this:

Although, from my frame of mind, you seem more than capable of playing one here.

Yes, I'm capable of playing one. I can easily slip into the role. I can easily slip into many roles. I guess it's one of my talents. I can take another person's point of view and slip myself into their world. And since we live in a largely objectivists world--especially when you consider objectivism is more or less the brain's "default" paradigm--it's exceedingly easy to slip into an objectivist frame of mind.

Here, of course, I'm trying to imagine you among the truckers explaining your "support" for their protest. How do you suppose they would react to this? As opposed to the far more fanatically fierce support offered to them from the Urwrong pinheads here among us.

Here I go back to "the gap". There's what "here and now" "I" think about "the most rational manner" in which to think about the trucker protest, and there's all that can be known about it. After all, there may well be a God. And there may well be His secular equivalent...a Humanist argument that nails it. It's like the moral equivalent of the black swan. I don't think objectively it is possible here in a No God world, but all it takes is one argument here or elsewhere to bring that crashing down all around me.

So is this an argument from ignorance? As in, I [iambiguous] don't know whether there is a most rational manner in which to react, therefore I ask the question just in case?

Ignorance? Like there isn't an unimaginably vast reservoir of ignorance between what you and I think about the trucker protest here and now and all that there is to be known about it going back to an actual understanding of Existence itself?!!!

The question is going to be asked because there is in fact a covid pandemic and there are in fact governments reacting to it with policies. Then we're back to my understanding of subjectivism here and whatever the hell your understanding is. Which still largely escapes me.

I note this...

Again, the truckers protesting, others reacting to the protest. All of the existential contingences in your life that would have to fall into places in order for you to be drawn into it deeply. There was always the chance that had your life been different for any number of reasons at any number of junctures, you would have had no interest in it at all. And then any subsequent changes in your life [experiences, relationships, info/knowledge] that cause you to drop your commitment. Or switch to the other side.

And you respond:

So it sounds like "contingency and chance" refer to the multitude of random variables that steer us in the directions our lives take us and "change" refers to the effect, the consequences of how these numerous variables continually influence us, possibly compelling us to change our minds. Ok, so contingency, chance, and change is indeed a powerful force that most likely would condition us--you and I--to draw different conclusions after letting all that we have talked about sink in--you being prompted to ask the question "what then is the most rational manner in which to react" and me feeling not the slightest compulsion to ask this question.

Baffled as ever.

You admit that contingency, chance and change can result in conflicting subjective/existential leaps of faith such that you're here supporting the truckers and others are here protesting them...but so what?!

We don't need to wonder here if there might be the most rational manner in which to react to their behavior?

How does that make any sense at all?! Why on earth do you suppose the world we do live in is still bursting at the seams with religious and philosophical and ideological and moral and political and "genes trumps memes" Satyrion objectivists?

Why? Because to the question "how ought one to live?" human beings are clearly hard wired psychologically to insist that there is but one and only one true answer: their own. But being hard wired to seek an answer/the answer doesn't necessarily make your answer the winner. Why yours and not the countless other answers out there?

You acknowledge...

To be clear, I'm not 100% sure I have a solid position on the trucker protest (or any controversial issue). I'm driven primarily by emotion and, if I have to, I put together a rational sounding justification after the fact--and only to the extent that I have to. What I'm okay with is following my emotions insofar as it doesn't bother my conscience too much.

Right, like our emotional reactions -- and "a bit of faith" -- regarding government policies is any less rooted existentially in dasein.

But my point is then this: If John recognizes that his support for the truckers is just the existential embodiment of dasein and Jane recognizes that her rejection of the truckers is also just the existential embodiment of dasein, can they come to a philosophy forum such as this and arrive at the most rational reaction to the protest?

Does the most rational reaction include throwing one's hands up in the air and saying "I don't know"? Because that's what I imagine John and Jane would do if they really took your dasein argument to heart (and thought it through as you do).

Look, you either recognize that what you think you know is a manifestation of dasein [as I encompass it above] or you come to an argument that makes this go away. Did the truckers do the right thing? Well, there's what you think here and now. But you are admitting that had things been different in your life you might be here instead thinking just the opposite.

So, which is it, subjectivism...or objectivism? Damned if I can grasp which one you think it is. Some murky combination of both...based on what you "feel" is true. Or is your frame of mind like MagsJ? She [like Maia] is in possession of this "intrinsic Self" such that she "just knows" she ought to support the truckers.

You too?

I don't see any other conclusion to draw from the fact that whatever our political prejudices, it's all just existential embodiments of dasein, than that there is no obvious One and Only objectively correct or best rational manner in which to react--it would all appear to be put on equal footing, so to speak--equally arbitrary, equally vacuous--so what else could John and Jane do but both agree to give up trying to figure out it? (I suppose then at least they would stop butting heads with each other.) <-- If that counts as a most rational manner in which to react after taking your dasein argument into account, then I suppose there is hope for an affirmative answer: there is at least that reaction.

Here "for all practical purposes" it comes down to who can accumulate the most facts about the covid pandemic. Suppose, for example, hard evidence comes to light indicating that the pandemic really was just a hoax employed by the liberals in order to sustain their Big Government policies. Or irrefutable facts emerge that the vaccination really is a dangerous concoction...tens of thousands of those vaccinated [like me] start to drop like flies. Here we have to put our trust in those in the scientific and medical communities who don't have a political ax to grind. Their concern really being the "general welfare" of citizens.

Personally, I've always felt that conflicting goods can be looked at as a tragedy--that we live in a tragic world in which the most fair outcome can't always be realized. Everyone has a right to be protected from deadly diseases like COVID; yet at the same time, everyone has a right to their own bodily determination, including whether a vaccine is injected into it or not (and without having to choose between the vaccine and their livelihood or freedom). What the trucker protest shows is that we don't always have a way to satisfy both, so the outcome inevitably ends up being tragic for some.

Yes, that's exactly how "conflicting goods" work...reasonable arguments can often be made from those on both the left and the right. And from those in the middle. With the fulminating fanatic objectivists however [left and right] it's always one or another authoritarian dogma that is championed.

That's where the tragedies often come into play. When either the political dogmatists prevail or those in the medical industrial complex interested only in fattening their wallets prevail. Here the most dangerous aspect of government policy often revolves around crony capitalism. Government policy [through Wall Street contributions and through K street transactions here in America] results not in what is best in term of public health but what makes those who own and operate Big Pharma and Big Medicine and the insurance industry richer.

Then [again] the part where we are clearly "stuck":

From my frame of mind, you could hardly be misunderstanding my points more. Otherwise you would recognize your support as still just a particular political prejudice of yours rooted largely in dasein. Same with vaccinations and reacting to the authority of the government and regarding all the other moral and political conflagrations that beset us. There's objectivism on one end of the commitment spectrum and a fractured and fragmented ambivalence on the other end. And how "I" understand it, and how you do.

You know, Biggy, I think you're just out of touch with your emotions. You seem to live in a world of pure intellectualism, and if you acknowledge emotions at all, it's only to dismiss them as "just another existential embodiment of dasein".

Okay, there's how you think about the trucker protest. And there's how you feel about it. Explain to us this "gap" you embody such that what you feel is not in turn rooted existentially in the experiences and relationships and access to information and knowledge that you have accumulated over the years. Most folks who think it through and support the truckers feel angry at the government polices that prompted the protest. And vice versa.

You seem to think that, at the end of the day, any support for or against issue X, any stance one can take, or any attachment or commitment to a belief or a moral position, amounts to nothing more than a purely intellectual thought structure--a thought structure that stands or falls depending on if its host believes in it absolutely and finally--i.e. that it must be true for all men and women in all situations or it's not true at all--and that whoever takes this stance or supports this or that side of an issue believes wholeheartedly that he or she grasps the absolute truth of the matter and "knows" indubitably that he or she is irrevocably correct--and if any sliver of doubt enters in, he or she cannot help but to drop his or her stance entirely--black and white just like that.

Bullshit. That's your take on my take here. For me, our emotional and psychological reactions to government policies can be no less ambiguous and ambivalent...depending in large part on how dead certain we are that what we think about them reflects the optimal or the only rational reaction.

Aren't these two aspects of our value judgments profoundly related? Why on earth do you suppose particularly fierce objectivists here like Urwrong on the right are reduced down time and again to sliming the liberals. Or on the left those like Sculptor in regard to conservatives.

Is there no room in your world for "I could be wrong but I still believe"? Can one not say "I'm not sure what the ultimate defense of my position is but I support it nonetheless"? Of course there is, but only because you believe people who say this haven't truly grasped the gravity of what your dasein argument entails.

Sure, existential leaps of faith are taken all the time. But these folks clearly don't think dasein through as "I" do here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

All I can do is to note my own "fractured and fragmented" reactions to things like abortion and feminism and gun policies and trucker protest and the role of government. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to think and feel fractured and fragmented in regard to these things. It doesn't to you.

Again, maybe we can come to a better understanding of our respective reactions and maybe we can't. What I do note though is that you seem closer to my own frame of mind than those that I call the "pinheads" here.

From my frame of mind, your frame of mind is all about establishing that "comfort zone" where you can claim to grasp the points I make here but still feel assured that your support of the truckers is, what, the most rational argument? If so, you understand practically next to nothing about how "I" react to them.

Hopefully, what I said above about the role of emotions in sustaining beliefs and values and the positions one takes on controversial issues like the trucker protest sheds some light on your confusion.

Not really. Again, to take that existential leap of faith to supporting the truckers because you "just feel" it's the right thing to do...how is that any different from those who take an existential leap of faith to protesting them because they "just feel" it's the right thing to do? Where does the part here about dasein go away?

In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are right"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to win." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Or...

In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I don't support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are wrong"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to fail." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Again: we understand dasein here differently. I respect the thought you've put into it in this exchange...and, sure, your frame of mind might actually be more reasonable than mine. But: "here and now" I don't either think or feel that it is.

Thus...

Actually, my point is more along the lines of how you will react when these objectivists truckers and objectivists apologists here are the ones who toss you into the waste bin, not me. They'd expect me to argue as I do, they wouldn't expect you to argue as I do. Or, rather, up to the point where you say you don't. Confusing them all the more.

Oh, you mean you would direct me to take my arguments to the truckers. And in this chain of the thread, we're talking about taking my arguments about the metaphysics of consciousness to the truckers. Unfortunately, I don't think this would help you at all; I don't think the truckers could make heads or tells of my metaphysics of consciousness any more than you could, let alone how it ties into the trucker protest.

Okay, but your "metaphysics of consciousness" either has profound "for all practical purposes" implication for the truckers or it doesn't. I know that my own existential contraption here...

"If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically."

...does.

My point is still the same. The girl who stood you up might well have been that crucial "contingency, chance and change" component in your life that led you to being here insisting instead that you are comfortable with the stance you take rejecting the trucker protest. She might have been the one able to provide you with the thinking that others were and are not.

That wasn't your point. You're point was that values are not illusory to the nihilist, remember?

No, my point is that the moral and political values we all must take our existential leaps to if we choose to interact with others are derived subjectively re individual daseins out in a particular world understanding it in a particular way.

At least your brand of nihilism:

No. The existential fabrications/concoctions are derived from the actual life that you lived, the actual experiences that you had.

Yes, derived... but they are not themselves real any more than hallucinations are real just because they are derived from drugs which are real.

Again, how you connect the dots between points like this and the truckers protest itself is beyond my grasping.

And now it isn't.

And now what isn't? We interact with others socially, politically and economically. Out in a particular world understood in a particular way. As such, over time, our own value judgments [rooted in dasein] can come into conflict with those of others [also rooted in dasein]. The interactions are not illusory. Our reactions to them are not illusory. Instead, it comes down to the extent to which [philosophically or otherwise] we can determine which reactions reflect the optimal or the only rational reactions. And then the extent to which we think and feel more or less fractured and fragmented in our own existential leaps.

It's true, you did make a point about the girl who stood me up waaay back, and it's a fine point--no qualms here--but it's a distraction now.

That's ridiculous. Had she not stood you up she may well have been the one who yanked your thinking about the truckers to a frame of mind other than what you think and feel now.

That's the whole point of coming to grips with the "for all practical implications" of thinking about dasein as "I" do here and now.

Our life is not only about the experiential trajectory that we took but all the other trajectories that we might have taken instead if any one of hundreds and hundreds of experiences had turned out otherwise given all the variables/factors that come at us from every direction.

Again, as I noted above, it comes down to how you and I react differently to this: https://youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI

But those reactions [to me] are no less rooted in dasein...as "I" understand it "here and now".

What I would broach here is that there are no essential, objective reasons for or against the protest. There are only the subjective reasons derived from political prejudices embodied in dasein. [color=blue]EXACTLY!!! Imagine their reaction to that. And then you saying, what, "that's true but you can still feel comfortable with your 'stance' as the most rational frame of mind."

Drop the "as the most rational frame of mind". It's not "as" anything. It's just whichever side of the debate/protest they're on.

Come on, this is a philosophy forum! And given that to most philosophy is still construed to be the "search for wisdom", what is that but the assumption that there is the most rational manner in which to think and feel about our own value judgments. There are the facts about the covid pandemic and the facts about any particular government's reaction to it. Truths applicable to all of us. But what of our moral and political conviction in reacting to the protest itself? What are the indisputable facts there?

I do doubt my own value judgments here. And for all the reasons I've given.

And for some reason, you take me as having absolutely no doubts in my own value judgments.

What?! You have made it clear [to me] that you are not one of Urwrong's pinheads here. But how are you not "fractured and fragmented" as "I" am? That's what our exchange is basically about to me. You "feel" comfortable enough with your "stance" that you are not drawn and quartered as "I" am.

Okay, fine, that "works" for you. And for others here such as Moreno and/or Karpel Tunnel.

Well, it doesn't work that way for me. It still "feels" reasonable to me that, given my understanding of dasein "here and now" "I" am fractured and fragmented.

To clarify, by being the embodiment of dasein, I assume that you mean the emotions that are invoked in a person when he hears about the truckers being forced to vaccinate depend almost entirely on that person's history--how they we raised, what in regards to vaccines, truckers, etc. they experienced in the past, what media sources they are regularly exposed to, etc., etc., etc.. One person might react favorably to the news that the government is mandating vaccines for truckers who cross the border--"Good! It's about time someone forced them to vaccinate!" they might think--and another person might react unfavorably--"What?! The government has no right! How dare they!" <-- Is that the idea?

Yeah. At least until someone comes along with the optimal or the only rational argument for or against vaccination. Or, say, Jesus Christ comes back and settles it Himself once and for all?

Then consider this--what does it mean for one to take the "right" stance on a debate such as the trucker protest? I take it to mean that we assume there is an objective truth out there that is reflected in one's stance, that is aligned with it. And assuming for the moment that we can cleanly separate any emotions from one's stance (such that, like Spock, one is completely unattached to one's stance--one just happens to have it at the moment), if it was shown to a person that the truth actually differs from his stance, it would seem strange were he to stay committed to his stance--as though he were suffering some form of brain abnormality or acting completely irrationally. Typically, the stances we take (without involving emotions for the moment) hinge on the truth as we know it. Change what we know about the truth, and we subject our stances to change.

Yep. Only given the complexity of all the variables involved in producing the covid virus in "nature" and all the complexities involved in grappling with the policies of any particular government "here and now" what are the chances of finally resolving it once and for all.

But now turn to emotions. How are emotions effected by changes in how we see the truth? Well, sometimes they change just like the stances we take (ex. anger towards a spouse fades instantly when we learn she wasn't cheating after all) but not always. Here's an imaginary scenario to drive the point home: you are hiding from a crazed murderer who wants to take your life. You are overwhelmed with fear--a perfectly fine example of an emotion--now while you stay put in your hiding place, you consider your usual arguments about dasein and how this fear you feel is no less the existential embodiment of dasein than your stance that murder is wrong--you consider that if you were in the murderer's shoes, you may well believe that there is nothing wrong with killing. It might even be a thrill. Short of feeling terrified, you'd feel elation if you were in the murderer's shoes. But as clear as that line of thinking is to you, no matter how impossible it feels to refute it, you still can't shake the fear from your bones. You acknowledge that, with respect to your emotions, you might as well have gone in the other direction (elation); you even acknowledge that, not being privy to some ultimate demonstrable objective proof that either your fear is the right emotion to have or the murderer's sense of elation is the right emotion to have, you can't even feel indifferent; you can't even feel emotionally suspended in some nihilistic limbo, suspended until you can somehow figure out what the right emotion to have is. No, you continue to be overwhelmed with this relentless fear, a heart pounding fear that just won't go away, that won't listen to your dasein arguments or considerations of other ways to feel like that of the murderer. It persists in your chest in defiance of every intellectual contraption you bring to bear against it.

The fear or elation that someone feels when being stalked by someone who wants to kill them or in stalking someone that he wants to kill is one thing. The fear or elation one feels in reacting to the covid virus or the government policy to fight it, another thing altogether. My understanding of dasein above is far more applicable to the latter.

Yes, the experiences you have in your life can be instrumental in making you choose to be a killer but, in fact, you either choose to or not. But now switch gears to our emotional reactions to the killing -- murder -- of another. How, in fact, ought we to think and feel here? A very different take on dasein once we switch from the either/or to the is/ought world.

And here my take on our emotional reactions is different from yours. You seem more inclined to give weight to emotions here that "I" don't. They are still far more just another manifestation of the subjective/existential parameters of dasein to me.

This is why, despite agreeing with your dasein arguments on an intellectual level, I can still feel a certain way about this or that issue. I still feel strongly about supporting the truckers despite knowing there is no ultimate rational and objectively real argument I could put forward to convince all rational men and women, once and for all, that they should feel the way I do about the truckers. I feel, on an instinctual level, that the truckers' cause serves my own interests more than that of the vaccine mandate proponents, so it is impossible for me to stay neutral. I find myself, without even choosing, taking a stance anyway.

This is just psychological bullshit to me. A way for you to make my arguments about dasein less problematic so that you can "just feel" strongly about supporting the truckers even though any number of changes in your life might well have found you here "just feeling" strongly that they are wrong to protest.

As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them.

Cite some examples of these "objective sounding statements" of mine...pertaining to the trucker protest.

Why pertaining to the trucker protest? My charge against you (that you utter the occasional objective statement) applies generally (as you use the my-philosophy-applies-to-me even outside discussions on the trucker protest).

So let's start with these:

"As per usual what you think you are telling others about me is not at all what I think I am telling them."

"And of course from the perspective of others here I am the subjectivist pinhead."

And from elsewhere in this thread:

"Just another example of a "political prejudice" that you refuse to see as such."

"There's the mentality that there is one and only one way in which to both understand and to react to the protest -- the right way, mine -- or there is the assumption that as with most conflicting goods there are rational arguments to be made from both ends of the political spectrum and that the "best of all possible worlds" is to grapple with policies that take into account the arguments from different political prejudices."

"On the contrary, if I were another Urwong, I'd be insisting that others were wrong times a 1,000 if they did not share my own set of assumptions about you."

"Yes, one way or another. A subjectivist -- a moral nihilist -- starts with the assumption that one would have be omniscient in order to grasp every single component of the truckers protest. He would have to be fully knowledgeable about every aspect of the covid pandemic and the role of government down through the ages. Then the one and the only manner in which to grasp it all together."

"I make it clear that in examining the arguments of those at both ends of the political spectrum here reasonable points can be made given certain intial assumptions above covid and government and the well-being of a community in terms of healthcare policies. Neither side is able to make the points raised by the other side just go away. So, given my own initial assumption regarding "I" as the existential embodiment of dasein re my signature threads here, I am "drawn and quartered". I'm not into calling those who don't agree with me necessarily wrong because they are not "one of us"."

"It really comes downs to how one construes "I" at the existential -- historical, cultural, experiential -- intersection of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy.

Given a particular set of circumstance."

"My point, however, is that for the moral and political objectivists among us, not only do they include their own political dogmas -- really just political prejudices rooted in dasein -- in their set of assumptions but exclude the assumptions of all who don't think exactly like they do."

"Then back to where you fit in here re the trucker protests such that you explore this in coming down out of the sky. Not a fulminating fanatic pinhead like Urwrong but not fractured and fragmented like me."

Over and over and over and over again, I make it clear that points like this from me are in no way excluded from my own assumptions about points like this. Given the life that I have lived "I" am now "here and now" predisposed to think like this from anyone. But in no way am I arguing that this reflects the most reasonable manner in which all rational men and women are obligated to think in turn. I would never exclude my own "self" here from my own set of assumptions. Instead, what most perturbs the objectivists among us [and not just those "I" construe to be pinheads] is that this may wll be applicable to their own moral and political and spiritual value judgments.

Thus...

Yes. That's the whole point of this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The objectivist belief can be anything. It's the belief itself that is the main point. Or, rather, my main point. Their reactions to the trucker strike is often just a springboard to convey their reactions to the role of government in our lives itself: "I" vs. we", "capitalism vs, socialism", "genes vs. memes" and on and on.

What, did you think I excluded myself from this?

Great! So you do understand. Then you will understand that 1) to say that you cause your contenders discomfort at the thought that your arguments might apply to them is trivial; it's no different than saying the thought that one could be wrong in their convictions causes them discomfort (d'uh!). And 2) insofar as you are human, it applies to you no less than to any other human being. So yeah, the thought that your arguments might apply to your contender might cause them discomfort, but all the same, the thought (in your head) that your contender's points might apply to you causes you discomfort.

Look, all I can note here is how much discomfort my own thinking brings to me.

And, existentially, to extrapolate from that to others who are now nestled in their comforting and consoling objectivist cocoon coming to believe that my frame of mind really is applicable to them.

After all, I went through this three times myself. Once when I lost the Christian God, again when I lost the Unitarian God and then when I lost Marxism. Being fractured and fragmented is not just a "theoretical" thing for me. I really have come to "think" and to "feel" that my own existence is essentially meaningless and absurd, that there is no moral "stance" I can "just know" -- "just feel" -- is the best one, that oblivion itself is just around the corner existentially for me.

Then this thing: http://www.mm-theory.com/

...in regard to the trucker protest the role of government and whatever else you subsume inside your own "metaphysical philosophy about consciousness and mind".

Hey, you wanna try it again? I'd be delighted to oblige. It would be hilarious watching you run in circles, failing to remember the consequence of every round (some obscure definition of insanity comes to mind).

Yeah. On this thread or start a new thread.

I'm always more than willing to allow others to decide which one of us is spinning our wheels more futilely here.

But so much more to the point [mine] it's not what this epistemological/intellectual contraption philosophy means to me but what it means to the truckers doing the protesting.

Run it by them or anyone else protesting something that the government does wholly in sync with your political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein, and get back to us.

How about the war in Ukraine?

Well, as long as you understand that however we got onto the subject of my metaphysical philosophies on consciousness, it was never my intention (I don't think) to relate it to the trucker protest or the war in Ukraine.

Come on, how many times have I made it abundantly clear that my own interest in philosophy here revolves around this:

"How ought one to live in a world bursting at the seams with both 1] conflicting goods and 2] contingency, chance and change?"

Your theoretical contraptions are either applicable there or they are not. So, on the contrary, it's entirely up to you to go or to not go there.

You know, given human autonomy.

[Peter Kropotkin]

gib: to IAM....
Why is Urwrong your pinhead poster boy?

K: UR should be EVERYONES pinhead poster boy....

Kropotkin

[gib]

That thread already exists here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529

That's what I thought. It doesn't seem to deviate much from Heidegger's "dasein" but you do put a lot of emphasis on the fluidity of the concept of the "self".

And I've taken my own distinction elsewhere: https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtop ... =5&t=34319

Again, I don't really see a distinction but rather a difference in emphasis. Whereas Heidegger seems to emphasize our preoccupation with our own ontology, you emphasize the difficulty with which we grapple to find objectivity in our assessments of our own ontology.

In other words, a very "false assumption". Heidegger's Dasein is but another "up in the clouds" intellectual contraption to me. My dasein is considerably more "down to earth".

Ha! Given the distinction in emphasis I noted above, you are several orders of magnitude higher up in the clouds than Heidegger.

And I'm not seeing how it makes a difference to my understanding of your arguments.

I would think I'd ask the question if I was an objectivist. Objectivists definitely believe there is a most rational manner in which to react and moral objectivists definitely believe it matters. Granted, a staunch objectivist probably wouldn't budge from his or her original position on matters like the trucker protest or vaccine mandates or whatever else, and therefore wouldn't end up in a mind state where they begin to doubt their position and were thus compelled to ask the question, but I would still think that however one ends up in such a mind state, the compulsion to ask the question could only be motivated by a quasi-desperate attempt to restore some form of objectivism. A true subjectivist would have no problem letting go of the question.

Okay, how is this relevant to your position on the trucker protest? You were once an objectivist regarding things like this but now you're not? Yeah, sure. A subjectivist of my ilk (you're not a subjectivist) recognizes that both the questions we ask and the answers we give in regard to "conflicting goods" of this sort can only lead to a fractured and fragmented frame of mind until one day a philosopher is able to come up with the optimal or the only rational manner in which to react to it. Then there would be no need to feel ambiguity and ambivalence and uncertainty.

I'm still on the specific question of "What is the most rational manner in which to react?"... a true subjectivist has no issue letting this question go.

Here, of course, I'm trying to imagine you among the truckers explaining your "support" for their protest. How do you suppose they would react to this? As opposed to the far more fanatically fierce support offered to them from the Urwrong pinheads here among us.

What, you mean support that hinges on me slipping into an objectivist's role or support regardless of what role I slip into? Because I'll tell you from the start, my support for the truckers doesn't hinge on what "role" I slip into--objectivist or subjectivists--because, as I said in my previous post, my support hinges more on how I feel about the protest emotionally, which doesn't change whether I'm a subjectivist or an objectivist. So that leaves explaining to them my support for their protest, or explaining to them how I'm a subjectivist but can slip into the objectivist role. The former, I think they would accept with open arms. The latter, I don't think they would understand or care about.

Ignorance? Like there isn't an unimaginably vast reservoir of ignorance between what you and I think about the trucker protest here and now and all that there is to be known about it going back to an actual understanding of Existence itself?!!!

So that's a yes?

The question is going to be asked because there is in fact a covid pandemic and there are in fact governments reacting to it with policies.

That there is a covid pandemic and governments reacting to it with policies has nothing to do with you and I having this discussion on ILP--it has everything to do with the truckers and protestors on the ground in Ottawa (or it did) who are not interested in doing armchair philosophy to figure out the metaphysical implications of objectivism and subjectivism in the context of nihilism and idealism. They are chiefly concerned with the question of what the most rational manner in which to react is because both sides, in putting forward their positions as the most rational, are assuming there is a most rational manner in which to react, and verily they are in the middle of an extremely contentious disagreement about what that is. So obviously, the question is of great import to them--if settled, it may well resolve the entire situation. But for us, it is of no greater import than the extent to which we find it philosophically interesting. You in particular would ask the question not only to the extent you find it philosophically interesting, but to the extent you think it possible that there is a most rational manner in which to react. In other words, the question is asked out of ignorance.

I note this...

Again, the truckers protesting, others reacting to the protest. All of the existential contingences in your life that would have to fall into places in order for you to be drawn into it deeply. There was always the chance that had your life been different for any number of reasons at any number of junctures, you would have had no interest in it at all. And then any subsequent changes in your life [experiences, relationships, info/knowledge] that cause you to drop your commitment. Or switch to the other side.

And you respond:

So it sounds like "contingency and chance" refer to the multitude of random variables that steer us in the directions our lives take us and "change" refers to the effect, the consequences of how these numerous variables continually influence us, possibly compelling us to change our minds. Ok, so contingency, chance, and change is indeed a powerful force that most likely would condition us--you and I--to draw different conclusions after letting all that we have talked about sink in--you being prompted to ask the question "what then is the most rational manner in which to react" and me feeling not the slightest compulsion to ask this question.

Baffled as ever.

Not surprising

You admit that contingency, chance and change can result in conflicting subjective/existential leaps of faith such that you're here supporting the truckers and others are here protesting them...but so what?!

Well, I get why you're asking the question. I just don't put my life on hold until I get a definitive answer. My life is too important to me to spend it dwelling over questions like that. So I put the question on hold and move on with my life.

We don't need to wonder here if there might be the most rational manner in which to react to their behavior?

I don't

How does that make any sense at all?! Different strokes for different folks Why on earth do you suppose the world we do live in is still bursting at the seams with religious and philosophical and ideological and moral and political and "genes trumps memes" Satyrion objectivists?

Contingency, chance, and change?

Why? Because to the question "how ought one to live?" human beings are clearly hard wired psychologically to insist that there is but one and only one true answer: their own. But being hard wired to seek an answer/the answer doesn't necessarily make your answer the winner. Why yours and not the countless other answers out there?

If we're all hard wired for this, yet you're able to be aware of it (and just how problematic it is), why can't others also be aware? Why can't I be aware of this? Why would you continually insist that I'm not?

And do you rise above your own hard wiring? Given that you never fail to remind us of your my-philosophy-applies-to-me trick, I would think the answer is no. But then how on Earth does it strike you as fair to ask this question of others--Why yours and not the countless other answers out there?--but not yourself? And if you do ask this of yourself (in the privacy of your own head?), what's your answer? Could this answer not suffice for others?

Until you can understand how a stance can be rooted in emotion rather than certainty in being right (and how emotions don't play by your rules), you'll never get a satisfactory answer to this question.

To be clear, I'm not 100% sure I have a solid position on the trucker protest (or any controversial issue). I'm driven primarily by emotion and, if I have to, I put together a rational sounding justification after the fact--and only to the extent that I have to. What I'm okay with is following my emotions insofar as it doesn't bother my conscience too much.

Right, like our emotional reactions -- and "a bit of faith" -- regarding government policies is any less rooted existentially in dasein.

You're missing the part about "I'm not 100% sure I have a solid position..." If you're asking the question "Why yours and not the countless other answers out there?" don't you think this makes a difference? If I'm not 100% sure I have solid position, then I'm obviously not saying my answer is the winner.

Does the most rational reaction include throwing one's hands up in the air and saying "I don't know"? Because that's what I imagine John and Jane would do if they really took your dasein argument to heart (and thought it through as you do).

Look, you either recognize that what you think you know is a manifestation of dasein [as I encompass it above] or you come to an argument that makes this go away. Did the truckers do the right thing? Well, there's what you think here and now. But you are admitting that had things been different in your life you might be here instead thinking just the opposite.

Don't dismiss the above question. Does the most rational reaction include throwing one's hands up in the air and saying "I don't know"?

So, which is it, subjectivism...or objectivism? Neither! Subjectivism/objectivism has nothing to do with my stance on the trucker protest! Damned if I can grasp which one you think it is. Some murky combination of both...based on what you "feel" is true. I'm primarily a subjectivist who can accommodate objectivism. Or is your frame of mind like MagsJ? She [like Maia] is in possession of this "intrinsic Self" such that she "just knows" she ought to support the truckers.

No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say I'm in possession of an understanding of the nature of consciousness that you don't (and never will) comprehend. I don't claim my understanding is at all correct, just as you don't claim that your political prejudices are at all correct, but it is an understanding, just as you have an understanding of your own political prejudices, and this understanding allows for being a subjectivist who can accommodate objectivism.

I don't see any other conclusion to draw from the fact that whatever our political prejudices, it's all just existential embodiments of dasein, than that there is no obvious One and Only objectively correct or best rational manner in which to react--it would all appear to be put on equal footing, so to speak--equally arbitrary, equally vacuous--so what else could John and Jane do but both agree to give up trying to figure out it? (I suppose then at least they would stop butting heads with each other.) <-- If that counts as a most rational manner in which to react after taking your dasein argument into account, then I suppose there is hope for an affirmative answer: there is at least that reaction.

Here "for all practical purposes" it comes down to who can accumulate the most facts about the covid pandemic. Suppose, for example, hard evidence comes to light indicating that the pandemic really was just a hoax employed by the liberals in order to sustain their Big Government policies. Or irrefutable facts emerge that the vaccination really is a dangerous concoction...tens of thousands of those vaccinated [like me] start to drop like flies. Here we have to put our trust in those in the scientific and medical communities who don't have a political ax to grind. Their concern really being the "general welfare" of citizens.

And how well did that pan out for the truckers and protestor? How well did it pan out for their opposition? Each side is claiming to be in possession of opposing science. One side says they have the science to backup the claim that vaccines are perfectly safe. The other side, that the vaccines are dangerous. One side claims to have science showing masks work. The other side, that they don't work. It doesn't seem to me that pulling the debate down from the is/ought world to the either/or world makes it any more soluble. Which, given the manner in which our access to the science itself is severely limited, I again see no other option than for John and Jane to throw their hands in the air and say, "I don't know."

Now is this the most rational manner in which to react?

And like hell the scientific and medical communities don't have a political ax to grind. Doctors are losing their jobs simply for wanting to prescribe ivermectin to their COVID patients. Professionals are being silenced for voicing expert opinions that happen to go against the mainstream narrative. And you know as well as I, Big Pharma (particularly Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, etc.) stand to make a fortune in these desperate times. No ax to grind my ass.

Okay, there's how you think about the trucker protest. And there's how you feel about it. <-- That's the most insightful distinction you've made so far. Explain to us this "gap" you embody such that what you feel is not in turn rooted existentially in the experiences and relationships and access to information and knowledge that you have accumulated over the years. Why would I do that when that's not what I believe? Most folks who think it through and support the truckers feel angry at the government polices that prompted the protest. And vice versa.

Yes, yes they do. But like I said, it's the distinction between what I believe about my stance on the trucker protest (that it's rooted in dasein) and how I feel about the trucker protest (I want the truckers to win); NOT the distinction between emotions being rooted in dasein and emotions not being rooted in dasein. The latter is a false interpretation on your part. The only point I'm making is that, despite both being rooted in dasein, my beliefs about the trucker protest (its moral ins and outs) is at odds with my feelings about the trucker protest (wanting them to win).

Aren't these two aspects of our value judgments profoundly related? Yes, but not inseparable. Why on earth do you suppose particularly fierce objectivists here like Urwrong on the right are reduced down time and again to sliming the liberals. Or on the left those like Sculptor in regard to conservatives.

Because the likes of Urwrong and Sculptor have their beliefs and emotions perfectly aligned. I don't. And I'll further add that I don't care to align them.

Not really. Again, to take that existential leap of faith to supporting the truckers because you "just feelwant to" it's the right thing to do...how is that any different from those who take an existential leap of faith to protesting them because they "just feelwant to" it's the right thing to do? Where does the part here about dasein go away?

You keep making the same mistake that I keep trying to correct. Forget "the right thing to do". Forget "I think". It isn't "I feel... therefore, I think..." It isn't "I feel it's the right thing to do". It's just "I feel like it." I support the truckers 'cause I feel like it. I don't know if it's the right thing to do. I don't have a defense. I don't draw any intellectual/rational conclusions based on how I feel. It's just the feeling in isolation--or rather, the feeling leading directly to action (with some bullshit justifications maybe conjured up along the way). You keep wanting to sneak some cognitive/intellectual stance in there. You keep assuming that before one can act or speak in defense of one side of an issue or another, they have to form a cognitive opinion or argument to back up that defense--like it's impossible to go from the feeling directly to the acting or speaking in defense. Once you drop that assumption, it's not hard to see how feelings can be both rooted in dasein and drivers pushing us to act/speak in defense of one side of the issue or the other.

Having a preference for which side you want to win is really no different than having a preference for what flavor of pizza to order. Suppose you and a room mate couldn't agree on what flavor of pizza to order--you want pepperoni, she wants Hawaiian--and so you have a case of "conflicting goods". Would you honestly expect to get into a debate over who has the best objective moral argument about which flavor you both ought to order? What flavor you both ought to prefer? Even if you both, for whatever bizarre reason, agreed that your pizza flavor preferences were rooted in dasein, that would not make your preferences go away. You would not stop liking pepperoni pizza and she would not stop liking Hawaiian. It would be absurd to get into an argument about suppressing or denying your preferences for the sake of some greater moral good. Instead, you would probably settle on a compromise--half and half--or if you were feeling especially vicious, force and coercion.

Now, obviously, the trucker protest is a much more significant and important issue to have preferences over than pizza--but when someone like myself agrees with your dasein argument, I see no other choice than to abandon any attempt to arrive at the best, most objective, moral justification for supporting one side or the other--and that leaves me with only my preferences--my emotionally based desire to see the truckers win--without a moral justification--without a solid argument in my defense--just a raw amoral, irrational, subjective desire to see the truckers win; the only difference between you and I at this point is that whereas you would panic because you need a moral, rational, and objective argument/justification to have a preference, your "I" fragmenting and fracturing if you don't get one, I don't; I don't panic because I don't care about having a moral, rational, objective justification for having the preferences I have. I just accept that I have them and strive to satisfy them--amorally so to speak (yes, I'm a horrible, wicked, evil person)--for purely selfish reasons--just 'cause I "feel like it".

Not really. Again, to take that existential leap of faith to supporting the truckers because you "just feel" it's the right thing to do...how is that any different from those who take an existential leap of faith to protesting them because they "just feel" it's the right thing to do? Where does the part here about dasein go away?

In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are right"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to win." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Or...

In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I don't support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are wrong"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to fail." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Yes, two people can want different conflicting outcomes--even despite understanding your arguments about dasein--so what?

Okay, but your "metaphysics of consciousness" either has profound "for all practical purposes" implication for the truckers or it doesn't.

It doesn't.

The only reason I brought it up is because you asked me to tie it to the trucker protest. I warned you that it has nothing to do with the trucker protest (and therefore tying it in is pointless), but you insisted that the only way you would understand it is if I tied it into the trucker protest... so I did. Not a huge shock that you couldn't make heads or tails of it.

It's true, you did make a point about the girl who stood me up waaay back, and it's a fine point--no qualms here--but it's a distraction now.

That's ridiculous. Had she not stood you up she may well have been the one who yanked your thinking about the truckers to a frame of mind other than what you think and feel now.

That's the whole point of coming to grips with the "for all practical implications" of thinking about dasein as "I" do here and now.

Our life is not only about the experiential trajectory that we took but all the other trajectories that we might have taken instead if any one of hundreds and hundreds of experiences had turned out otherwise given all the variables/factors that come at us from every direction.

Again, as I noted above, it comes down to how you and I react differently to this: https://youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI

But those reactions [to me] are no less rooted in dasein...as "I" understand it "here and now".

This tangent is a dead horse not worth beating. I'll just chock it up to you not understanding the point I was making. So back to the subject main subject matter.

Drop the "as the most rational frame of mind". It's not "as" anything. It's just whichever side of the debate/protest they're on.

Come on, this is a philosophy forum! And given that to most philosophy is still construed to be the "search for wisdom", what is that but the assumption that there is the most rational manner in which to think and feel about our own value judgments. There are the facts about the covid pandemic and the facts about any particular government's reaction to it. Truths applicable to all of us. But what of our moral and political conviction in reacting to the protest itself? What are the indisputable facts there?

This is precisely the kind of response that indicates to me that you're not the least bit interested in understanding. I said to drop the "as the most rational frame of mind" because I thought you were trying to understand the stance I take on the trucker protest. I'm trying to get through to you that I support the truckers but not as the most rational frame of mind one can have on the issue. You want facts? <-- That's a fact. It actually is the truth about the stance I take on the truckers. And as soon as you realize this, you suddenly want me to have a "most rational frame of mind"? You all of a sudden tell me "com on, this is a philosophy forum"--like I'm supposed to have a most rational frame of mind--so that you can (what?) criticize it for not falling in line with your dasein argument? What do you think it means that I understand and agree with your dasein argument? It means that I wouldn't take a stance on the grounds that it's "the most rational frame of mind". And now, here you are, insisting that I do. Why? No doubt, so that you can say, "See? You don't understand dasein as I do!"

If you really were interested in understanding my point of view, this was a golden opportunity. It seemed like you did understand, but rather than respond with "Ah, I see, gib. You're not aiming for the most rational frame of mind. That makes a bit more sense," you respond with "come on, have a most rational frame of mind." You need me to have a most rational frame of mind because challenging that with your dasein arguments is all you know how to do here.

So I guess at this point, I don't need to belabor the point--you seem to understand what I meant by "drop the 'as the most rational frame of mind'" but you don't want to hear it--so I'll leave it there and let you do what you want with it.

What?! You have made it clear [to me] that you are not one of Urwrong's pinheads here. But how are you not "fractured and fragmented" as "I" am? That's what our exchange is basically about to me. You "feel" comfortable enough with your "stance" that you are not drawn and quartered as "I" am.

Okay, fine, that "works" for you. And for others here such as Moreno and/or Karpel Tunnel.

Well, it doesn't work that way for me. It still "feels" reasonable to me that, given my understanding of dasein "here and now" "I" am fractured and fragmented.

Whenever I hear about your "fractured and fragmented" self, I fall back on the interpretation which I believe you provided that it means you have lost your sense of certainty in knowing who you are--what you understand yourself to be--a good god-fearing conservative--and later, an enlightened left-wing liberal--and now you find yourself suspended in nihilistic limbo, unable to grip onto any objectively solid definition of yourself, any certainty in knowing who you are; instead, you only have fractures and fragments of a self-concept that you are at a loss to put together.

^ This is what I don't experience.

However, that's not to say I don't experience any kind of similar tension or loss. For one thing, I wish I could close the gap between what I think I know and all there is to know--with respect to the trucker protest or any other issue of serious import; it would be nice to know that my support for the truckers actually contributes to a good cause. For all I know, maybe the truckers are horrible, horrible people who are doing nothing but making the world a worse place--and then what kind of a low-life asshole would I be?--but I've resigned to the fact that I'll probably never know, and that all I have is the limited and distorted information I'm getting from the media--and then my feelings--so I find it relatively easy to give up trying to close that gap, not dwell over it into perpetuity, and instead deal only with how I feel about the trucker protest. And for the most part, this works for me--I generally don't care that I don't know everything I need to know about the trucker protest in order to be certain I'm doing the right thing--but if I'm being perfectly honest, I do on occasion feel guilty that I'm not doing more to fortify my knowledge and certainty in regards to all the facts surrounding the trucker protest--usually when I start thinking about it too much. So if your struggle is with your "fractured and fragmented" self, mine is with (among other things) the guilt I feel over not doing more to close the gap between what I think I know and all there is to know (though there seems to be a difference in degree as well).

Yeah. At least until someone comes along with the optimal or the only rational argument for or against vaccination. Or, say, Jesus Christ comes back and settles it Himself once and for all?

Can't get any closer to a God's eye view than that.

The fear or elation that someone feels when being stalked by someone who wants to kill them or in stalking someone that he wants to kill is one thing. The fear or elation one feels in reacting to the covid virus or the government policy to fight it, another thing altogether.

Well, not really. My point hinges on the fact that our emotions are evolved to serve our own self-interest, unlike our moral convictions which are supposed to be universal and apply to all, even if that means great sacrifices to one's self. This is obvious in the case of a killer hunting you down. You fear the killer for the sake of preserving your own life. But it is no less true of the trucker protest. I want the truckers to win (emotionally) for personal, selfish reasons, not moral reasons. I don't feel nearly as threatened by COVID than some of the more vulnerable people in society, and I certainly don't want to live in a police state where the government can force me to receive whatever medical treatments it deems necessary or else be penalized. So for my own self-interest, which doesn't change whether it turns out that the truckers are in the moral right or the moral wrong, I want (emotionally) the truckers to get their way.

But just to make this more interesting (and more relevant), let's alter the scenario above (about the killer hunting you down) just a bit such that the killer experiences rage against you instead of elation. He experiences rage because, in his view, you have done him a grave injustice. I'll leave it up to your imagination what you did, but he feels so horribly wronged by you that it warrants, in his mind, your murder. So in his mind, it would not only bring great elation to kill you but would count as an act of true justice and moral right. You, of course, don't think so. According to you, whatever it is you did to him, you had every right, or at least it wasn't your fault, and you certainly don't deserve to be killed. So not only do you feel profound fear, but you feel that this is a grave moral wrong (not that you didn't think so in the first scenario but...). Now it's a question of moral right or moral wrong just like the trucker protest.

So here's the question... according to my point, even if you were to be persuaded that you did, in fact, commit a horrible wrong against the murderer and you therefore owe him your life, you would still feel fear because your emotions serve only to preserve your own self-interest, your own life. But according to you, if you were persuaded that you did commit a horrible wrong against the murderer and you therefore owe him your life, you wouldn't feel fear at all. You would feel (what?) anger towards yourself? Such incredible rage that you would take your own life in order for justice to be served no later than you would have the murderer take your life? That you would feel elation at the thought that you were going to die for what you did? And supposing you weren't convinced that you deserved to die, but just felt stuck in the usual nihilistic limbo you always claim to be stuck in--not knowing how to determine whose morality is correct--yours or the murderer's--you would feel (what?) ambivalence? Confusion? Emotional numbness? Determination to find the answer? But certainly not fear?

And here my take on our emotional reactions is different from yours. You seem more inclined to give weight to emotions here that "I" don't. They are still far more just another manifestation of the subjective/existential parameters of dasein to me.

And to me too. They don't need to not be.

This is why, despite agreeing with your dasein arguments on an intellectual level, I can still feel a certain way about this or that issue. I still feel strongly about supporting the truckers despite knowing there is no ultimate rational and objectively real argument I could put forward to convince all rational men and women, once and for all, that they should feel the way I do about the truckers. I feel, on an instinctual level, that the truckers' cause serves my own interests more than that of the vaccine mandate proponents, so it is impossible for me to stay neutral. I find myself, without even choosing, taking a stance anyway.

This is just psychological bullshit to me. A way for you to make my arguments about dasein less problematic so that you can "just feel" strongly about supporting the truckers even though any number of changes in your life might well have found you here "just feeling" strongly that they are wrong to protest.

And what do you do differently? Do you feel a certain way about the trucker protest? For or against it? If you do, what do you do with those emotions? Do you suppress them until you can figure out which side is right and which side is wrong? Do you pretend not to feel them? Do you lock them away in your unconscious so that on a conscious level, you feel nothing? An emotional nothing to match your intellectual nothing--that is, your intellectual suspension in nihilistic limbo? How do the dynamics between your emotions and your intellectual position play out in your mind?

Given the degree to which you claim to be utmost concerned over issues like this, I would imagine it's quite a struggle in there--a struggle between holding at bay any feelings you may have for or against the issue (whatever issue that may be) and your indecision over which side is right and which side is wrong--a struggle you willingly perpetuate because knowing with absolute certainty what is, once and for all, the right thing to do morally and objectively is of tantamount importance to you, a first priority. Well, it isn't as important for me. Not caring to be as certain as you want to be comes naturally to me. So I would say I'm not putting any effort into trying to make your arguments about dasein go away but rather resisting your efforts to convince me that I should care--just as you resist my efforts to make you not care--something we both have to do only on the rare occasions when we engage each other.

Over and over and over and over again, I make it clear that points like this from me are in no way excluded from my own assumptions about points like this.

D'uh! That's not in question at all. The question was: when have you ever made any "objective sounding statements," remember?

Cite some examples of these "objective sounding statements" of mine...pertaining to the trucker protest.

So nice try. You can't have it both ways. You have to decide, which is it? Do you deny that you make "objective sounding statements" or do you admit it with the caveat that your reasoning about dasein applies to your statements just as much as to anyone else's? Don't scurry around the question. Face it like a man. If I rose to your challenge (i.e. cited examples of how you make "objective sounding statements") just admit it gracefully.

Yes. That's the whole point of this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The objectivist belief can be anything. It's the belief itself that is the main point. Or, rather, my main point. Their reactions to the trucker strike is often just a springboard to convey their reactions to the role of government in our lives itself: "I" vs. we", "capitalism vs, socialism", "genes vs. memes" and on and on.

What, did you think I excluded myself from this?

Would you drop your persistence on this point! We get it! Your arguments about dasein apply to you. I don't think you could be any more clear about this. I'm not denying that you apply your own arguments to yourself, I'm denying that that's a valid move. Every time you bring up this point, I ask: does that make your points (your "objective sounding statement") not really objective? Or does it mean it wasn't really "you" making those statements (you don't have an "I" after all)? Are you acknowledging that you made a mistake in uttering those "objective sounding statements"? And if so, don't you think it's a little hypocritical of you to go around accusing others of making "objective sounding statements"? Hypocritical to deny others the right to regard their own "objective sounding statements" in the same way? As being subject to dasein? You certainly don't seem to grant me that right.

Look, all I can note here is how much discomfort my own thinking brings to me.

Sure, but that wasn't my point.

And, existentially, to extrapolate from that to others who are now nestled in their comforting and consoling objectivist cocoon coming to believe that my frame of mind really is applicable to them.

I'm offering an alternative to that.

After all, I went through this three times myself. Once when I lost the Christian God, again when I lost the Unitarian God and then when I lost Marxism. Being fractured and fragmented is not just a "theoretical" thing for me. I really have come to "think" and to "feel" that my own existence is essentially meaningless and absurd, that there is no moral "stance" I can "just know" -- "just feel" -- is the best one, that oblivion itself is just around the corner existentially for me.

Hmm, that's interesting. Didn't know about your transition from the Christian God to the Unitarian God. We might delve into that sometime... but not now, obviously because it has no relevance to the trucker protest.

Then this thing: http://www.mm-theory.com/

What about that thing?

Hey, you wanna try it again? I'd be delighted to oblige. It would be hilarious watching you run in circles, failing to remember the consequence of every round (some obscure definition of insanity comes to mind).

Yeah. On this thread or start a new thread.

All righty then. Round and round we go. This is round two. Tell me if this makes any sense to you:

I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

Does it make sense this time?

Come on, how many times have I made it abundantly clear that my own interest in philosophy here revolves around this:

"How ought one to live in a world bursting at the seams with both 1] conflicting goods and 2] contingency, chance and change?"

Your theoretical contraptions are either applicable there or they are not. So, on the contrary, it's entirely up to you to go or to not go there.

You know, given human autonomy.

You're forgetting that this is my thread. So sure it's up to me to go there, but I'm not trying to accommodate your interests. I don't care what you're interested in, I post what I'm interested in. That and 90% of the time, I'm responding to your questions and your demands. I brought up my metaphysics of consciousness because you asked about it.

PS - Not having much luck finding a trucker or protester to engage with on my metaphysics of consciousness and its relation to the trucker protest. You might want to drop by this thread and clarify some of the requirements more specifically. Ex, would it suffice if I engaged with Urwrong? He's not a trucker, and he took no part in the protest, but I think he'd react to my comments about my metaphysics of consciousness and its relation to the trucker protest the same way as your typical trucker/protestor.

[gib]

gib: to IAM....
Why is Urwrong your pinhead poster boy?

K: UR should be EVERYONES pinhead poster boy....

Kropotkin

I'm not sure you're any less of a pinhead than urwrong, at least according to Biggy. Biggy reserves the "pinhead" title for those who believe dogmatically that their points of view are the absolute objective truth. The thing is, Biggy is a closet case lefty so he enjoys picking on urwrong waaay more than picking on you or Sculptor or any of the other lefties on this board.

[iambiguous]

Part one edited

That thread already exists here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529

That's what I thought. It doesn't seem to deviate much from Heidegger's "dasein" but you do put a lot of emphasis on the fluidity of the concept of the "self".

And I've taken my own distinction elsewhere: https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtop ... =5&t=34319

Again, I don't really see a distinction but rather a difference in emphasis. Whereas Heidegger seems to emphasize our preoccupation with our own ontology, you emphasize the difficulty with which we grapple to find objectivity in our assessments of our own ontology.

Heidegger's Dasein is but another "up in the clouds" intellectual contraption to me. My dasein is considerably more "down to earth".

Ha! Given the distinction in emphasis I noted above, you are several orders of magnitude higher up in the clouds than Heidegger.

If this is actually how you think about his Dasein and my dasein, we are no doubt wasting each other's time. Still, in regard to things like abortion or public health policies or feminism, or Nazis, note some examples of how you construe Heidegger as being considerably more "down to Earth".

That ought to be interesting.

I'm still on the specific question of "What is the most rational manner in which to react?"... a true subjectivist has no issue letting this question go.

A true subjectivist. And of course how you understand this is by default the starting point here.

Again, for me, until an objective morality can be established -- either re God or No God -- all of our moral and political value judgments are derived subjectively, existentially, from the life that we live. That's my starting point.

And what on earth does it even mean to have "no issue letting this question go"? Which question? Pertaining to what context? Whether in regard to a woman contemplating an abortion, or a trucker contemplating a protest against the government.

The questions are, "Is abortion moral or immoral"? "Is the trucker strike rational or irrational?"

Says who? Based on what argument that is not derived subjectively, existentially from the life he or she lived? I'm still waiting for such an argument from you.

And, for the objectivists among us, such questions can be asked, but there is always only one right answer: their own.

Here, of course, I'm trying to imagine you among the truckers explaining your "support" for their protest. How do you suppose they would react to this? As opposed to the far more fanatically fierce support offered to them from the Urwrong pinheads here among us.

What, you mean support that hinges on me slipping into an objectivist's role or support regardless of what role I slip into? Because I'll tell you from the start, my support for the truckers doesn't hinge on what "role" I slip into--objectivist or subjectivists--because, as I said in my previous post, my support hinges more on how I feel about the protest emotionally, which doesn't change whether I'm a subjectivist or an objectivist.

Unbelievable. Well, to me. As though you put your emotions up on a pedestal here and worship them instead. As though what we come to feel about things like the trucker protest is not in turn profoundly rooted existentially in dasein.

So that leaves explaining to them my support for their protest, or explaining to them how I'm a subjectivist but can slip into the objectivist role. The former, I think they would accept with open arms. The latter, I don't think they would understand or care about.

You to the truckers: "Hey, I feel the same way you do about the government policy. And let's all agree that this makes us right. And even though others feel that we are wrong our emotions trump theirs in the end."

How can it really be other than that? Sooner or later, however, you have to get around to explaining why you feel what you do. You have to align your feelings with your thinking. You have make arguments. Arguments in my view rooted largely in dasein.

The question is going to be asked because there is in fact a covid pandemic and there are in fact governments reacting to it with policies.

That there is a covid pandemic and governments reacting to it with policies has nothing to do with you and I having this discussion on ILP--it has everything to do with the truckers and protestors on the ground in Ottawa (or it did) who are not interested in doing armchair philosophy to figure out the metaphysical implications of objectivism and subjectivism in the context of nihilism and idealism.

Right, right. They can just shrug off the points I make here regarding how they acquired their points of view. They have them and that's that. And it's the fact they feel that they are right that allows them to huff and puff arrogantly at those who dare not to agree with them. And those on the other side against them. Both sides embody the fulminating fanatic objectivist mentality. But not here. There.

They are chiefly concerned with the question of what the most rational manner in which to react is because both sides, in putting forward their positions as the most rational, are assuming there is a most rational manner in which to react, and verily they are in the middle of an extremely contentious disagreement about what that is. So obviously, the question is of great import to them--if settled, it may well resolve the entire situation. But for us, it is of no greater import than the extent to which we find it philosophically interesting. You in particular would ask the question not only to the extent you find it philosophically interesting, but to the extent you think it possible that there is a most rational manner in which to react. In other words, the question is asked out of ignorance.

Come on, depending on which side prevails in the end millions might be impacted. So the bottom line is whether both sides insist that only their argument and feelings count, or whether they are willing to negotiate a compromise in which both sides get something but neither side gets it all.

The objectivists are interested only in a "my way, or the highway" solution. They don't really give a shit about establishing the most rational manner in which to achieve it.

You admit that contingency, chance and change can result in conflicting subjective/existential leaps of faith such that you're here supporting the truckers and others are here protesting them...but so what?!

Well, I get why you're asking the question. I just don't put my life on hold until I get a definitive answer. My life is too important to me to spend it dwelling over questions like that. So I put the question on hold and move on with my life.

No, instead, you take your own existential leap to the truckers side because you feel strongly it's the right thing to do. Like those on the other side aren't going exactly the same thing.

And, sure, if you dwell on questions like that too long, you might find yourself becoming increasingly more fractured and fragmented as well. You're just less inclined to go after me as scathingly as the hardcore objectivist pinheads here do.

...to the question "how ought one to live?" human beings are clearly hard wired psychologically to insist that there is but one and only one true answer: their own. But being hard wired to seek an answer/the answer doesn't necessarily make your answer the winner. Why yours and not the countless other answers out there?

If we're all hard wired for this, yet you're able to be aware of it (and just how problematic it is), why can't others also be aware? Why can't I be aware of this? Why would you continually insist that I'm not?

It's not a question of being aware of it but how we react to what we think that we are aware of. My own awareness less led me to believe that being drawn and quartered when confronting conflicting goods is reasonable. How has it not led the objectivists on both sides of the trucker protest or the abortion wars to feel that way? How have you managed to avoid it? Well, you just don't feel that way:

Until you can understand how a stance can be rooted in emotion rather than certainty in being right (and how emotions don't play by your rules), you'll never get a satisfactory answer to this question.

We will clearly have to agree to disagree about whether emotions play more by my rules or your rules. They are more embedded in dasein to me. That's why with few exceptions those who think the truckers are right also feel that they are right, and those that feel the truckers are wrong also think that they are wrong? Just a coincidence?

You claim to be "primarily a subjectivist who can accommodate objectivism". If you say so. In regard to the truckers protest, I still haven't a clue as to how "for all practical purposes" that would be communicated to them.

Note to others:

Take a stab at it. What on earth do you think he means by that. If you were able to, how would you explain it to the truckers?

Same with this:

...it's the distinction between what I believe about my stance on the trucker protest (that it's rooted in dasein) and how I feel about the trucker protest (I want the truckers to win); NOT the distinction between emotions being rooted in dasein and emotions not being rooted in dasein.

So, you acknowledge that had things been different in your life you might not believe in the truckers protest. In fact, you might be in here taking the side of those like KP and Sculptor. But that, what, you'd still want them to win?!! How you make your own emotions here less rooted in dasein is beyond my grasping. Again, for the preponderance of us, it certainly seems that what we think about something and how we feel about it are pretty much in sync. Except for those like me. Both my thinking and feeling have over the years fractured and fragmented together. Although, sure, given the manner in which the preponderance of my experiences have revolved around left wing folks my prejudices are largely there. But that too is no less existential. Take the Song Be Syndrome out of my life and I'd still probably be a reactionary politically and a Christian religiously.

And then this unintelligible [to me] distinction between what you feel and what you want. What we want is no less embodied in dasein to me.

You keep making the same mistake that I keep trying to correct. Forget "the right thing to do". Forget "I think". It isn't "I feel... therefore, I think..." It isn't "I feel it's the right thing to do". It's just "I feel like it." I support the truckers 'cause I feel like it. I don't know if it's the right thing to do. I don't have a defense. I don't draw any intellectual/rational conclusions based on how I feel. It's just the feeling in isolation--or rather, the feeling leading directly to action (with some bullshit justifications maybe conjured up along the way).

Okay, let's put this frame of mind in Vladimir Putin's head and ask him why he invaded Ukraine. Let's put this frame of mind in the heads of Alito and his ilk on the Supreme Court and ask them why they're gutting Roe v. Wade. As supposed to them presenting arguments wholly in sync with how they feel about what they are doing. With what they "want" to do.

You keep wanting to sneak some cognitive/intellectual stance in there. You keep assuming that before one can act or speak in defense of one side of an issue or another, they have to form a cognitive opinion or argument to back up that defense--like it's impossible to go from the feeling directly to the acting or speaking in defense. Once you drop that assumption, it's not hard to see how feelings can be both rooted in dasein and drivers pushing us to act/speak in defense of one side of the issue or the other.

No, I just assume that most people have reasons for why they think and feel what they do about things like government policies and abortion. I just explore the extent to which this is rooted [intellectually and emotionally] in dasein. And not in folks saying, 'well, it's just what I want."

Again, to take that existential leap of faith to supporting the truckers because you "just feel" it's the right thing to do...how is that any different from those who take an existential leap of faith to protesting them because they "just feel" it's the right thing to do? Where does the part here about dasein go away?

In essence, such a position can be held if strong emotions still rear their (ugly?) head. To say, "I support the truckers" needn't mean "I have the ultimate demonstrable proof that the truckers are right"; most of the time, it just means "I want the truckers to win." And one can still want this despite understanding your dasein arguments.

Well some such as you can, others such as me cannot. The crux of the matter. The part about you I don't understand and the part about me that you don't understand.

On the other hand, the objectivists -- especially the pinheads -- are often adamant that both their facts and they opinions reflect the most rational frame of mind.

Okay, but your "metaphysics of consciousness" either has profound "for all practical purposes" implication for the truckers or it doesn't.

It doesn't.

The only reason I brought it up is because you asked me to tie it to the trucker protest. I warned you that it has nothing to do with the trucker protest (and therefore tying it in is pointless), but you insisted that the only way you would understand it is if I tied it into the trucker protest... so I did. Not a huge shock that you couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Fine. But what interest me here are those factors that do have important implications for the truckers protest.

It's true, you did make a point about the girl who stood me up waaay back, and it's a fine point--no qualms here--but it's a distraction now.

That's ridiculous. Had she not stood you up she may well have been the one who yanked your thinking about the truckers to a frame of mind other than what you think and feel now.

That's the whole point of coming to grips with the "for all practical implications" of thinking about dasein as "I" do here and now.

Our life is not only about the experiential trajectory that we took but all the other trajectories that we might have taken instead if any one of hundreds and hundreds of experiences had turned out otherwise given all the variables/factors that come at us from every direction.

Again, as I noted above, it comes down to how you and I react differently to this: https://youtu.be/6Zp7dq6b2PI

But those reactions [to me] are no less rooted in dasein...as "I" understand it "here and now".

This tangent is a dead horse not worth beating. I'll just chock it up to you not understanding the point I was making. So back to the subject main subject matter.

To you perhaps but not at all to me. It's one of the most important factors of all in grasping the complex and convoluted nature of human identity out in the is/ought world.

Drop the "as the most rational frame of mind". It's not "as" anything. It's just whichever side of the debate/protest they're on.

Come on, this is a philosophy forum! And given that to most philosophy is still construed to be the "search for wisdom", what is that but the assumption that there is the most rational manner in which to think and feel about our own value judgments. There are the facts about the covid pandemic and the facts about any particular government's reaction to it. Truths applicable to all of us. But what of our moral and political conviction in reacting to the protest itself? What are the indisputable facts there?

This is precisely the kind of response that indicates to me that you're not the least bit interested in understanding. I said to drop the "as the most rational frame of mind" because I thought you were trying to understand the stance I take on the trucker protest. I'm trying to get through to you that I support the truckers but not as the most rational frame of mind one can have on the issue.

Right, you are more invested in what you "feel" about the protest. In the side you "want" to win. The fact that your life might unfolded differently such that you were predisposed to argue against them here wouldn't change how you feel and what you want? You'd still want them to win?

Again, you may be making a good point here...one I simply am not understanding. But it's certainly true that I don't understand it. I can't recall an instance in my own life where I thought through to one political conviction and still felt just the opposite. Wanting something that would bring about what I thought was wrong. But then, true, I was an objectivist myself then.

If you really were interested in understanding my point of view, this was a golden opportunity. It seemed like you did understand, but rather than respond with "Ah, I see, gib. You're not aiming for the most rational frame of mind. That makes a bit more sense," you respond with "come on, have a most rational frame of mind." You need me to have a most rational frame of mind because challenging that with your dasein arguments is all you know how to do here.

I've noted the distinction between you and those fulminating fanatic objectivists here who dismiss dasein altogether. They are absolutely fierce in insisting it's all about "one of us" [the rational, virtuous good guys] and "one of them" [the irrational, immoral bad guys]. But I'll be damned if I understand this distinction you make between the profoundly problematic nature of what one comes to to think, to know, to believe about the truckers protest and what one comes to feel and want instead. Suddenly the "profoundly problematic" part is shunted aside as you take an emotional and psychological leap of faith to this political prejudice rather than that political prejudice. As though emotions and wants themselves are somehow above and beyond all that existential stuff.

You have made it clear [to me] that you are not one of Urwrong's pinheads here. But how are you not "fractured and fragmented" as "I" am? That's what our exchange is basically about to me. You "feel" comfortable enough with your "stance" that you are not drawn and quartered as "I" am.

Okay, fine, that "works" for you. And for others here such as Moreno and/or Karpel Tunnel.

Well, it doesn't work that way for me. It still "feels" reasonable to me that, given my understanding of dasein "here and now" "I" am fractured and fragmented.

Whenever I hear about your "fractured and fragmented" self, I fall back on the interpretation which I believe you provided that it means you have lost your sense of certainty in knowing who you are--what you understand yourself to be--a good god-fearing conservative--and later, an enlightened left-wing liberal--and now you find yourself suspended in nihilistic limbo, unable to grip onto any objectively solid definition of yourself, any certainty in knowing who you are; instead, you only have fractures and fragments of a self-concept that you are at a loss to put together.

I am just as certain about myself as anyone else in regard to the empirical, biological, demographic, circumstantial etc., facts about my Self. It is in regard to my moral and political and spiritual values that dasein as "I" understand it becomes increasingly more applicable. I am not in possession of your "feelings" and "wants" such that I can just shunt this...

"If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically."

...aside, and feel, what, committed to either one side or the other?

Again, this....

However, that's not to say I don't experience any kind of similar tension or loss. For one thing, I wish I could close the gap between what I think I know and all there is to know--with respect to the trucker protest or any other issue of serious import; it would be nice to know that my support for the truckers actually contributes to a good cause. For all I know, maybe the truckers are horrible, horrible people who are doing nothing but making the world a worse place--and then what kind of a low-life asshole would I be?--but I've resigned to the fact that I'll probably never know, and that all I have is the limited and distorted information I'm getting from the media--and then my feelings--so I find it relatively easy to give up trying to close that gap, not dwell over it into perpetuity, and instead deal only with how I feel about the trucker protest.

...does work for you in a way that it does not for me. As for the gap between what you think you know and all there is to know? How far back do you want to go? To the part where the human species/the human condition itself is understood in the context of grasping the nature of Existence itself?

We don't even know for certain that free will is the real deal. And who among us is able to fully demonstrate that they are not in a sim world, a dream world or one or another Matix reality. Then the arguments for and against solipsism.

Then back to Rummy's Rule:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

What, you don't think that's applicable to the trucker protest?

The fear or elation that someone feels when being stalked by someone who wants to kill them or in stalking someone that he wants to kill is one thing. The fear or elation one feels in reacting to the covid virus or the government policy to fight it, another thing altogether.

Well, not really.

Well, from my frame on mind, really. The fear of someone stalking you is an immediate, wholly tangible experience. No ambiguity, no uncertainty. I'm afraid because someone is trying to kill me and I don't want tlo die. The fear of covid or of vaccinations or of government policy is far, far, far more complex and convoluted. There are many, many more variables involved. And the variables are understood differently by different people. The experiences are completely different. It's like the difference between an acute pain in which the cause is clear -- you broke your leg -- and chronic pain in which the doctors can't seem to pin down what is causing it. It may even be psycho-somatic.

My point hinges on the fact that our emotions are evolved to serve our own self-interest, unlike our moral convictions which are supposed to be universal and apply to all, even if that means great sacrifices to one's self.

First of all, how does one construe the "self" here...as I do, as you do, as Urwrong does? And then that great divide between those who insist that morality revolves first and foremost around "I", while others insist it must revolve around "we". And those particular fanatic Randroid egoists who will never sacrifice their Self for anyone.

But just to make this more interesting (and more relevant), let's alter the scenario above (about the killer hunting you down) just a bit such that the killer experiences rage against you instead of elation. He experiences rage because, in his view, you have done him a grave injustice. I'll leave it up to your imagination what you did, but he feels so horribly wronged by you that it warrants, in his mind, your murder. So in his mind, it would not only bring great elation to kill you but would count as an act of true justice and moral right. You, of course, don't think so.

Note a point I made above that would lead you to believe this. Of course someone might think like this. I'm sure there have been many murders in which the killer felt precisely that way.

According to you, whatever it is you did to him, you had every right, or at least it wasn't your fault, and you certainly don't deserve to be killed. So not only do you feel profound fear, but you feel that this is a grave moral wrong (not that you didn't think so in the first scenario but...). Now it's a question of moral right or moral wrong just like the trucker protest.

No, I am not arguing that whatever it is I did to him was right, but that "in my head", given the manner in which I construe the situation, given the manner in which existentially I was predisposed to construe it based on one set of existential prejudices rather than another, "I" thought myself subjectively into believing I was morally justified. But what's his side of the story? How do others construe it? Where's the God-like font that can settle it once and for all?

With you, it seems you're willing to admit that given different experiences in your life, your reaction to what someone does to you may vary considerably. But emotionally you are able to latch on to, what, the optimal reaction...the reaction that you finally want?

As for this...

So here's the question... according to my point, even if you were to be persuaded that you did, in fact, commit a horrible wrong against the murderer and you therefore owe him your life, you would still feel fear because your emotions serve only to preserve your own self-interest, your own life. But according to you, if you were persuaded that you did commit a horrible wrong against the murderer and you therefore owe him your life, you wouldn't feel fear at all. You would feel (what?) anger towards yourself? Such incredible rage that you would take your own life in order for justice to be served no later than you would have the murderer take your life? That you would feel elation at the thought that you were going to die for what you did? And supposing you weren't convinced that you deserved to die, but just felt stuck in the usual nihilistic limbo you always claim to be stuck in--not knowing how to determine whose morality is correct--yours or the murderer's--you would feel (what?) ambivalence? Confusion? Emotional numbness? Determination to find the answer? But certainly not fear?

There so many different existential contexts that can unfold, given those who have lived very, very different lives, you would have to focus in on an actual event. Examine the specific motives and intentions of the participants. Since I have never had someone stalk and attempt to kill me, I have nothing concrete to fall back on.

Then there are the sociopaths who don't give a shit about any of this. Everything is simple: what's in it for me? Fuck morality and who is right and wrong. And the psychopaths who, clinically, are not even able to make these distinctions.

[iambiguous]

Part 2

I had to split this because my post exceeded the 60,000 character limit!!

This is why, despite agreeing with your dasein arguments on an intellectual level, I can still feel a certain way about this or that issue. I still feel strongly about supporting the truckers despite knowing there is no ultimate rational and objectively real argument I could put forward to convince all rational men and women, once and for all, that they should feel the way I do about the truckers. I feel, on an instinctual level, that the truckers' cause serves my own interests more than that of the vaccine mandate proponents, so it is impossible for me to stay neutral. I find myself, without even choosing, taking a stance anyway.

This is just psychological bullshit to me. A way for you to make my arguments about dasein less problematic so that you can "just feel" strongly about supporting the truckers even though any number of changes in your life might well have found you here "just feeling" strongly that they are wrong to protest.

And what do you do differently? Do you feel a certain way about the trucker protest? For or against it? If you do, what do you do with those emotions?

Again, I don't exclude my own value judgments from my own point of view. Yes, my thoughts and my feelings about the trucker protest are more in the general vicinity of the left. But that is because I spent over 20 years as a far-left political activist. I clearly recognize that my reaction as a profoundly embedded existential prejudice that, had my life been different, I might have acquired very different prejudices. And in fact here and now those leftist prejudices have been profoundly diluted as a result of my having become a moral nihilist.

It's not a question of suppressing my emotions or pretending they don't exist or feeling nothing. It's simply recognizing that what I do feel is derived more from the manner in which my life actually unfolded existentially rather than from any argument [philosophical or otherwise] that would allow me to grasp how I ought to feel as a rational and virtuous human being. The way the objectivists/pinheads do. Their own emotions are nothing if not self-righteous, right?

I would say that everything going on with the trucker protest is a projection of my mind (and any other mind also aware of or experiencing it). But because the mind carries within it the seeds of being, it projects it as an actual event happening in the real world. That it is right or wrong receives a similar treatment. The morality of it projects from my mind (my emotions and conscience in particular) and becomes the actual moral standing of the trucker's cause.

Does it make sense this time?

Nope. And, again, the best way to test it is to take it to those protesting any government policy that you yourself protest. Run it by those out in the street actually confronting the government and its policy. Note their reactions and bring them back here.

And how close is your own understanding of projection to this one: "the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds".

Again, what is always most crucial to me is what the mind thinks given a particular context. And how close it can come to demonstrating that what it thinks others are obligated to think as well. And, in regard to value judgments, how what it thinks [and feels] is derived from dasein.

Come on, how many times have I made it abundantly clear that my own interest in philosophy here revolves around this:

"How ought one to live in a world bursting at the seams with both 1] conflicting goods and 2] contingency, chance and change?"

Your theoretical contraptions are either applicable there or they are not. So, on the contrary, it's entirely up to you to go or to not go there.

You know, given human autonomy.

You're forgetting that this is my thread. So sure it's up to me to go there, but I'm not trying to accommodate your interests. I don't care what you're interested in, I post what I'm interested in. That and 90% of the time, I'm responding to your questions and your demands. I brought up my metaphysics of consciousness because you asked about it.

Okay, approach it from that point of view, sure. But what I asked is for you to connect the dots between it and the trucker protest.

And then when I noted, "Okay, but your 'metaphysics of consciousness' either has profound 'for all practical purposes' implication for the truckers or it doesn't", you responded that it doesn't.

So, sure bring it in if you wish. But my own reaction to "general description intellectual contraptions" isn't likely to change. Well, unless, of course, given a new experience or access to new information and knowledge, it does.

[MagsJ]

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TLAR [A = aint]