a man amidst mankind: back again to dasein

[Ecmandu]

wrong thread

=) No problem here... sorry that happened to you.

[iambiguous]

This...

https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/Why_We_Cant_Agree

...is more or less in alignment with the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein [and conflicting goods] out in the world of human interaction.

Not being able to agree about some things is basically a description of the human condition itself.

[iambiguous]

Came upon this quote from Salman Rushdie:

Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old films, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.

Yes, this also captures the manner in which I try to convey the meaning of dasein. All the variables -- some of which we are barely cognizant of -- coming together over the years to predispose us to one rather than another meaning. A very personal meaning to say the least.

What then are philosophers to make of this? How are they able to pin down the one true objective meaning when that meaning revolves around conflicting values -- around the question "how ought one to live?"

[iambiguous]

How is the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasien in the OP not applicable to you?

This is a rather transparent sort of Kafka trap with 'objectivist' used in place of 'bigot'. If I answer that 1.) it is applicable to me, then you take it to mean you're right about everything, and I'm obligated to go on criticizing horrible objectivists. If I try to explain how it's 2.) not applicable to me, then I'm guilty of being an 'objectivist', which to you is a dirty, dirty intellectual bad guy who thinks the rules don't apply to him.

What on earth does this actually have to do with the points that I raise? Consider:

I am an individual....a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 6,500,000,000 additional men and women that constitutes what is commonly called "mankind". So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological "self" [the me "I" know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me "I" project -- often as a chameleon -- in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventitiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perspective of a 20th century United States citizen?

How is this not applicable to everyone? How is this not applicable to you? Depending on when we are born historically, where we are born culturally, and the actual accumulation of personal experiences that we encounter, how will the manner in which any particular individual's moral and political values not be profoundly implicated in this?

How do your own transcend it?

Instead, the role of philosophy [in my view] is this: After acknowledging these profoundly existential/problematic components of any particular individual's indoctrination as a child, what, using the tools of philosophy, can we then go on to establish is within the framework of a rational and virtuous behavior?

In other words, what isn't "bullshit"? And don't the moral and political objectivists insist that what isn't bullshit is what they value? what they embrace as the "ideal"?

Again, you choose the value judgment and we can explore our respective assessments regarding the "conflicting goods" in the philosophy forum.

Or, with respect to extreme behaviors in which there is an overwhelming consensus regarding right and wrong, good and evil, you can address my point regarding the extreme narcissist who roots morality [in a world sans God] in that which he or she construes to be in their own self-interest.

[iambiguous]

"Heidegger and ethics: from Dasein as being-in-the-world to Dasein as ethical"
Eric Robert Panicco
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/view ... ool_theses

Note: I choose this merely because in Googling "Dasein and ethics" this was the first scholastic account I came upon.

The aim of this thesis is to show that we can understand Dasein as ethical. In order to do this we first need a reason to think Dasein might be ethical. Heidegger certainly never gives anything resembling a positive account of ethics. It is extremely rare for him to even bring up ethics. So then, why should we think that his characterization of Dasein should be ethical? As an initial answer, our interest stems from Dasein as fundamentally engaged in the world.

Yes, it's been a long time since I have construced myself as a "serious philosopher". Instead, of late, my focus has always been on connecting the dots between those who do think of themselves as taking philosophy seriously and the extent to which someone of this sort implicates philosophy in human interactions out in a particular world that come to clash over conflicting goods.

Sure, there are any number of aspects embedded in human interactions in which that is not the focus at all. Instead "I" here goes about the business of connecting dots between those facets of human interaction that appear to be true for all of us. The stuff that revolves around going through the day knowing that if you do this, that will be the result. It will be that result for anyone who does it. That's the nature of the either/or world. And to the extent that folks like Heidegger can offer us new insights into this re "the human condition", fine.

I've no doubt that there are any number of "technical issues" here to consider. Techincal issues revolving around perception and conception; revolving in turn around that which is deemed to be rational in sync with that which we either can or cannot know.

But for Heidegger to explore the nature of Dasein and "rarely even bring up ethics"....?

I'm sorry but for folks like me, that seems nothing short of preposterous. Unless, of course, he always intended to bring the "technical" facets of his philosophy out into the world that he lived in. In order to examine them in the context of the particular conflicting goods that were swirling about him in Nazi Germany.

What of Dasein and "the final solution"?

After all, when most Daseins become "fundamentally engaged in the world" around them, they quickly become immersed in "rules of behavior" that garner either rewards or punishments. Indeed, any newspaper or newscast reveals just how being fundamentally engaged with others precipitates all manner of turbulent headlines and editorials.

And this is where my own rendition of Dasein comes in. The existential dasein. The existential "I".

[Karpel Tunnel]

Back to the beginning. I realized a place we may be talking past each other where I can be clearer.

Contraptions

Two otters approach a river.
Otter A looks both ways, just a quick check for predators, then enters the water.
Otter B looks both ways, back up into the bushes, looks both ways again, then spins in a circle before entering the water.

Why the difference?

Otter A has instinctive caution in open spaces, but beyond that nothing.
Otter B has been attacked several times before entering water by predators. Not only does this make Otter B more nervous than Otter A, but Otter B also, early after the second attack he went through, spun in a circle before entering the water. He has not been attacked since that time. He associates spinning around with making himself safe. (to see how this can happen in animials and also then humans see the experiment described here...

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-pigeons-get ... us-5746904
)

I think it might be useful to call Otter B's ritual/activity a contraption, as a metaphor.
I think it would not be useful to call Otter A's behavior a contraption.

This does not mean that Otter A's process is correct. Perhaps otters like B will survive and those like otter A will be selected out. Or perhaps Otter B type otters are nicer and God loves them more and one day it will be shown that God wants otters to have that ritual.

I black box all value judgments about the two behaviors.

However, I think in one case we have an extra behavior which has been arrived at through the combination of Otter B's innate tendencies - perhaps towards caution or something else - and dasein.

Of course, Otter A's behavior is also a result of the same thing, however there is nothing extra. There is no, for example, behavior caused by conceiving and understanding of pragmatism in Otter A's behavior. He has less contraptions - barring other exceptions - than Otter B.

So when I encounter you in a discussion and I lack an interest in, say, working out whether determinism is the case, this does not mean I have a contraption you do not have. THAT MIGHT BE THE CASE.

But it also could be the case that your temperment + dasein has led you to believe that seeking the answer is necessary. And I think we can agree that seeking the answer to the issue of determinism/free will is an extra activity. It goes beyond the basic activities we need to engage in.

Now, I do not know if you are like Otter B on this issue and I am like Otter A.

But it seems completely off the table that you might have EXTRA CONTRAPTIONS that make it seem obvious that one would try to figure out determinism/free will, and that one must try to find the solution to conflicting goods.

I suspect that latter is based on a contraption coming out of the very moralistic memes that most of us in the West have been exposed to via the Abrahamic religions. That one must know the good. And if one doesn't then, even if one doubts it exists, still do all one can to find it.

Obviously I could be wrong about this.

I am not making an issue here of trying to prove my point that you have the extra contraption that shapes your focus, a focus I do not have.

I am trying to create a frame where you would see how this is possible AND that this is the basis of my saying 'No, I lack a contraption on that issue.'

When I say this you respond as if I have said 'My approach is better and your should have it.' Or 'I am free from the influence of dasein and innate temperment.'

Nope.

The extreme example of a schizophrenic who thinks he must get permission from a door before opening it or the OCD suffering who thinks he must wash his hands 20 times after dinner or he will suffer something terrible are examples where most of us would think it

at least possible

that extra contraptions are involved

and that someone not doing these things could say 'I lack a contraption that says I must ask the door permission before opening it and I lack a contraption that I have to clean my hands more than once after dinner'

is not saying they are free of dasein or innate tempermental tendencies. (or free from determinism for that matter)

You have tended to drop, recently, adding in that my contraption is one that gives me comfort. And I appreciate that. It's a ridiculous assumption, since perhaps your engaging in these issues is giving you comfort. But more fundamentallly, it is a mere assumption, based on yourself as the norm.

If you have a different focus than I do, you have that because you need some delusion that gives you comfort because I am suffering this issue.

That is making a universal judgment based on your own temperment and psychology, which are in turn based on your genetics AND your dasein, which are very specific.

Just mull that over in the spirit of charitable reading.

I am going to stay away from you for a while, because I think I have done the best I can without me changing quite a bit in approaching you. I wish you had someone in your corporeal life who could read over your shoulder and give their take.

I certainly have extra contraptions. I see those a combination of dasein and my inborn temperment - not that it is easy to separate out which is the cause in many instances. I am married. In any marriage that works when it works I would guess, but certainly in mine, the fact that we have different extra contraptions and then different lacks of contraptions allows us to respond to each other when these contraptions get hold of us, the negative ones that is. Extra contraptions can be great. I mean, I have worked in the theater and had to develop all kinds of contraptions to make me a decent actor. I chose to learn those, to have them. Some make us feel bad. Some make us feel bad but are useful - as far as I can tell. Like, yes, eating a lot of food after an argument can feel sort of good and facing the feelings that came up can feel bad, but the contraption that I might appreciate not comfort eating the food - a response that is itself a contraption based on dasein and temperment. And I have appreciated such contraptions, some of them leading to the dissovling of the pattern that was not helping me and in th e long run made for more pain, and then itself.

In your world there are just contraptions and there is no way to know which is right.
In my world I feel better overall without extras in many areas and I think I can tell the difference which ones for me, I do not want. Not infallibly. LOL. It is a human skill.

I think that when you focus on what everyone should have as contraptions, you close a door on figuring out which ones you want for yourself, which make your life feel better. When you try to figure out what will make the poeple in Huntsville love eachother, you haven't even started to find out how to feel OK about yourself. I could be wrong, but I smell a lot of guilt in your incredulity that someone would nto focus on finding the perfect argument that all rational people will listen to and end conflicting goods. That seems like a cross to bear and that seems to me to come from Xiantity, however much you are not a theist.

That cross is a contraption.

Unless you are doing something else here, and it is all a front for being a gadfly to fuck with the objectivists. Well, OK.

I used to think that was the case. That really your approach was rage based, sticking it to them.

If that is the case - and I don't assume it is either/or or that you would know it - then it's all fine and dandy, because then on some level you are having a grand time.

But if the OCD guy comes to you and says you have a contraption that means you don't spend half your day cleaning your hands and you have this contraption to comfort you...

you iambiguous may think - sure, I have a contraption.

Me, I find no gain in hallucinating that I have a contraption in that discussion of the OCD guy.

[iambiguous]

So when I encounter you in a discussion and I lack an interest in, say, working out whether determinism is the case, this does not mean I have a contraption you do not have. THAT MIGHT BE THE CASE.

It depends on the manner in which you construe the meaning of "contraption" here.

For example: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&h ... ontraption

From my frame of mind, "I" is an existential contraption in that it is pieced together from day to day based on the accumulation of hundreds and thousands of unique and personal experiences, relationships and access to ideas that you made contact with. It is contrived -- constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed -- out of all of these variables in a world awash in contingency, chance and change.

It is also deemed an intellectual contraption by me because many piece together a sense of self out of the meaning that they impart to a particular collection of words they use to descibe themselves.

Now, some will argue that the human brain is one of nature's own contraptions. It is extremely complicated and put together in a way that we have barely scratched the surface in exploring.

Also, a contraption able to actually invent the word "contraption" and then squabble over what it is said to really mean.

All the while [some insist] having no actual capacity to do so freely. I "chose" to use the word contraption the way I do here because I was never able not to.

On the other hand, the manner in which I do "choose" to use it here...what does that have to do with the behaviors of otters?

What do otters know of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

I'm at a loss to understand your point about them.

You act as though I were trying to reconfigue the word "contraption" into this...thing. As though I can take it out of my pocket and say, "look everyone, a contraption".

The extreme example of a schizophrenic who thinks he must get permission from a door before opening it or the OCD suffering who thinks he must wash his hands 20 times after dinner or he will suffer something terrible are examples where most of us would think it

Schizophrenia might be thought of as one of the mental illness "contraptions" the brain is able engender in any particular mind. A classic example of how the brain itself takes charge of "I" and chemically, neurologically compels it to think and feel and say and do any number of things it would never have chosen before the illness took root.

Unless of course even a disease free mind itself is doing only what nature compels it to do.

In your world there are just contraptions and there is no way to know which is right.

No, in my world, "I" struggle to understand the extent to which I can ever really be certain of any of this. There are relationships that appear to true objectively for all of us. Relationships that appear to be entirely correlated year in and year out such that most of us speak of them as inhabiting the "either/or" world.

What I then ponder is whether in a determined universe even the is/ought world is just another manifestation of the either/or world.

I think that when you focus on what everyone should have as contraptions, you close a door on figuring out which ones you want for yourself, which make your life feel better. When you try to figure out what will make the poeple in Huntsville love eachother, you haven't even started to find out how to feel OK about yourself. I could be wrong, but I smell a lot of guilt in your incredulity that someone would nto focus on finding the perfect argument that all rational people will listen to and end conflicting goods. That seems like a cross to bear and that seems to me to come from Xiantity, however much you are not a theist.

So, is this or is this not just psycho-babble? Have you "captured" me here? Maybe.

But my concern with the people at Huntsville is the same as my concern with the people here: the extent to which they are themselves able to make that crucial distinction between what they believe is true or think they know "in their head" and what they are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe and know.

There are "the facts" about any particular execution. There is the fact of the execution itself. But what are the facts when the discussion shifts to capital punishment as a value judgment.

That is when I tumble down into my hole. Why? Because given how I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, it makes sense to.

But: How I have come to understand them is no less an existential contraption. I have no way myself in which to demonstrate that others ought to share my point of view.

I used to think that was the case. That really your approach was rage based, sticking it to them.

As near as I can figure myself out here [re motivation and intention] it somehow revolves around this:

"He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest." John Fowles

But how would I even begin to go back over the course of my actual lived life and piece together all of the thousands upon thousands of existential variables that predisposed me here and now to note that?

It's like that scene from sex, lies and videotape...

Ann: I just wanna ask a few questions, like why do you tape women talkin' about sex? Why do you do that? Can you tell me why?
Graham: I don't find turning the tables very interesting.
Ann: Well, I do. Tell me why, Graham.
Graham: Why? What? What? What do you want me to tell you? Why? Ann, you don't even know who I am. You don't have the slightest idea who I am. Am I supposed to recount all the points in my life leading up to this moment and just hope that it's coherent, that it makes some sort of sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I was there. I don't have the slightest idea why I am who I am, and I'm supposed to be able to explain it to you?

I'm basically Graham here.

And I suspect that any number of folks react to my frame of mind here as they do because they suspect that I seem to be suggesting that they are too.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I hope you have noticed that Faust is now saying similar things to what I have been saying about the way you engage in dialogue: that you shift the context of statements and do not actually (in many cases) respond to points made. And that after shifting the context, you then say that what we said 'failed', where this failure has nothing to do with our intentions or the context.

Phyllo has had similar reactions.

If you have the goal to gain some sense of 'how to live life' or how to resolve conflicting goods or any other issue via dialogue, you might want to notice that other people you claim to respect have similar reactions to your ability to actually read and listen to the people you are having a dialogue with.

You can tell each of us individually that 'really' we are afraid of your probing or we are objectivists or we are using psychobabble or we are serious philosophers or what we are saying are mere contraptions...

but perhaps noticing the pattern with you as the locus, you might want to consider that you are contributing to the reduced liklihood of finding solutions to your questions or learning something else, or being a worthwhile discussion partner.

Perhaps those are not actually your goals. Being a gadfly, trying to irritate people, having a pastime that is a distraction from pain...as a few other possibilities off the top of my head, are also human endeavors. If they or something other than having a real dialogue are your goals, well, steady ahead. Perhaps I am naive for taking your expressed goals as your real goals.

Steve Colbert with his lovely conservative character expresses conservative goals while actually, obviously, doing something else and having other goals.

[iambiguous]

I hope you have noticed that Faust is now saying similar things to what I have been saying about the way you engage in dialogue: that you shift the context of statements and do not actually (in many cases) respond to points made. And that after shifting the context, you then say that what we said 'failed', where this failure has nothing to do with our intentions or the context.

Phyllo has had similar reactions.

If you have the goal to gain some sense of 'how to live life' or how to resolve conflicting goods or any other issue via dialogue, you might want to notice that other people you claim to respect have similar reactions to your ability to actually read and listen to the people you are having a dialogue with.

You can tell each of us individually that 'really' we are afraid of your probing or we are objectivists or we are using psychobabble or we are serious philosophers or what we are saying are mere contraptions...

but perhaps noticing the pattern with you as the locus, you might want to consider that you are contributing to the reduced liklihood of finding solutions to your questions or learning something else, or being a worthwhile discussion partner.

Perhaps those are not actually your goals. Being a gadfly, trying to irritate people, having a pastime that is a distraction from pain...as a few other possibilities off the top of my head, are also human endeavors. If they or something other than having a real dialogue are your goals, well, steady ahead. Perhaps I am naive for taking your expressed goals as your real goals.

Steve Colbert with his lovely conservative character expresses conservative goals while actually, obviously, doing something else and having other goals.

Note to others:

What on earth does any of this have to do with the points I raised above?!!

Instead, I become the point. He "exposes" me. The pulls back the curtain and reveals what I am really all about here. Over and over and over again.

In other words, revealing far more what he is really all about in reacting to me.

You know, whatever that is.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Note to others:

What on earth does any of this have to do with the points I raised above?!!

It has nothing to do with those points. It has to do with you. I think that is very clear. I always cite portions of your posts when I respond to them. Here I am obviously reacting to you and what you do here and the pattern of reactions to you from a number of people, including those you claim to respect.

I did read your 'response' to my earlier post with the otters. I saw no effort at all to try to understand the distinction between the two otters' behavior or why I react to your position the way I do. It was quite a bit of effort on my part to see if the communication around contraption could be better between us. I was trying to bridge the way we use the term 'contraption' and react to it. And you avoided actually dealing with the core example or asking for clarification. IOW no effort to show you understood me, to counter the specific points I raised or to interact with the ideas. As per usual you used it as a stimulus to restate your opinions.

IOW: You did not 'raise any points', you simply restated your position.

So, why did I focus on you, then.....?

Online discussion forums tend to be limited communities, but still, like any group that meets with some focus - book clubs, hiking groups, whatever - a person's behavior in the group may become the focus of conversation between that person and one or more others.

In individual posts, reacting to each of us, you claim that our reactions are really about us. You dismiss any criticism either as because we are afraid of the horror of your hole or as not answering your core questions, as if we were trying to do the latter. Once there is a pattern, sometimes people reevaluate. Hey, I have heard this same kind of criticism from a number of people. Perhaps there is some truth in what each of them says.

You don't seem to be a person who reevaluates. I have responded to other people in a similar way that I respond to you here. IOW posted focused on their patterns of communication. In every other case this lead to some kind of exchange where I noticed the other person reevaluate some of their patterns. They didn't necessarily agree, but they made clear attempts to understand and by the end did understand what I meant. Generally the reaction included the intention to consider the idea if not agreeing that their was something to it. This included pms.

Your responses are either winking to the gallery or flat denial or repeating yourself.

I don't expect much from you, anymore. But holding the mirror up to you entails my making the mirror. And the kind of patterns of denial, distraction and narcissism I see in you, are patterns I encounter irl. It is useful for me to notice and point them out. As I said elsewhere, not to you, there is a part of me that is still surprised, after all this time, that people behave the way you do. That naivte needs to be whittled away.

Think of yourself as an opportunity for me to really get that people can behave like you do, while at least presenting as having no idea themselves. And obviously dasein is involved here to a high degree in the why of the way you are and your unwillingness to even for a moment consider that someone else's criticism of your behavior might have merit.

I love the irony of you saying I did not respond to your latest post. You seem to think, as a rule, that restating your position is a response. I am not sure you can interact with other people's ideas and/or have an interest in doing so, which makes your participation in a philosophy forum...hm...strange.

And it really is funny watching you over and over, even in recent posts, criticize people for not solving your philosophical problems when their focus is on something else and the threads are not even yours.

It's a kind of narcissism which assumes that everything either satisfies your desires or fails to. That other people might have their own goals and contexts and interest seems unthinkalbe to you. I am sure you know this at the abstract level, that we have these things, but in every specific context, you are oblivious.

[Karpel Tunnel]

And then Faust's last response to you in the problem of abstraction thread. Where he points out that it is a thread he started so the fact that it is not satisfying your needs is not his problem. Narcissism. And then that what you are asking near the end has already been explained. Poor reading or a lack of interest in reading what people actually write.

Now you can comment that I am 'revealing you' and imply to the gallery that 'we all know' what my real motives are. Or you could consider what I and others are writing.

When you wink to the gallery as if there is an obvious intepretation, you undermine all of what you are saying about dasein, since dasein leads to humans acting in an incredibly wide range of ways given their backgrounds, cultures, innate tendencies, personalities.

The 'oh, we all know what his actual motivations must be' winking to the gallery is both hypocritical - given what you repeat over and over here about how different we all are - and cowardly. Since you avoid openly making what would be a silly claim to knowledge.

[iambiguous]

Online discussion forums tend to be limited communities, but still, like any group that meets with some focus - book clubs, hiking groups, whatever - a person's behavior in the group may become the focus of conversation between that person and one or more others.

My "behavior" here revolves first and foremost around my quotes, film and music threads.

Mostly for all of the virtual friends I have bumped into over the years online,

Beyond that is my interest in probing the question "how ought one to live" in a No God world seeminly devoid of objective morality.

And then my interest in the bigger questions like determinism and why there is something instead of nothing.

So: If the manner in which I communicate my points here is not someone's cup of tea, they can simply move on to others.

Then stuff like this:

In individual posts, reacting to each of us, you claim that our reactions are really about us. You dismiss any criticism either as because we are afraid of the horror of your hole or as not answering your core questions, as if we were trying to do the latter. Once there is a pattern, sometimes people reevaluate. Hey, I have heard this same kind of criticism from a number of people. Perhaps there is some truth in what each of them says.

Which particular posts relatings to which particular contexts? Cite actual examples of this so that we can bring these accusations down to earth. But let the examples revolve around the points that I make in the OP here.

I don't expect much from you, anymore. But holding the mirror up to you entails my making the mirror. And the kind of patterns of denial, distraction and narcissism I see in you, are patterns I encounter irl. It is useful for me to notice and point them out. As I said elsewhere, not to you, there is a part of me that is still surprised, after all this time, that people behave the way you do. That naivte needs to be whittled away.

This is the part where I suggest that as a philosopher, you'll make a great psychiatrist.

My advice is that you give up on me and move on to psycho-analyzing others.

Perhaps even charge them.

And trust me: this sort of thing tells us far more about you anyway.

Among other things, it sounds like a personal problem.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Online discussion forums tend to be limited communities, but still, like any group that meets with some focus - book clubs, hiking groups, whatever - a person's behavior in the group may become the focus of conversation between that person and one or more others.

My "behavior" here revolves first and foremost around my quotes, film and music threads.

Irrelevent. Are you really saying that my points about your behavior don't matter since most of your posts are in threads where other people do not participate?

Mostly for all of the virtual friends I have bumped into over the years online,

Beyond that is my interest in probing the question "how ought one to live" in a No God world seeminly devoid of objective morality.

And then my interest in the bigger questions like determinism and why there is something instead of nothing.

So: If the manner in which I communicate my points here is not someone's cup of tea, they can simply move on to others.

It's cute wording: 'they can simply...'

IOW you are not interested in how your behavior affects other people, even though you want to know how one ought to live.

But further, I said why I point out your behavioral patterns. They are fascinating. And the lengths you go to never acknowledge anything is also fascinating.

I could simply stop. But then, I don't want to.


Then stuff like this:

Which particular posts relatings to which particular contexts? Cite actual examples of this so that we can bring these accusations down to earth. But let the examples revolve around the points that I make in the OP here.

I've done that time and again. The implication here is that I just make general critiques, when I have time and again, with careful citation of instances where you are doing these things.

This is the part where I suggest that as a philosopher, you'll make a great psychiatrist.

Psychologist thank you. Not much of a fan of psychiatry. And sure, I do this in relation to you as you do in relation to me and others. But, unlike the roleo of a psychologist, I point out behavioral patterns in your interactions with others that either contradict your own philosophy and supposed goals, or end up functioning like trolling. Obviously your behavior does not matter to you despite your supposed interest in finding out how one ought to live. It's not therapy, it's a kind of single case research. And I am happy, right now, to have you as a test subject. Never seen anything like this.

And trust me: this sort of thing tells us far more about you anyway.
Among other things, it sounds like a personal problem.

[/quote]I'd say ' it sounds like that to you' but I don't even believe that. But nice implied objectivism. We all know what this means. LOL
The man who suggests that dasein can lead to a range of beliefs and motivations in a single person, always implies that there is only one motivation for each behavior, like mine here, when he is in conflict with someone. And this interpretation is one that either insults others or makes himself look good. Coincidentally, of course.

From the OP....

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables---some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are "thrown" into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of "reality" suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

But of course when it comes to dealing with someone critical of you, their criticism can only come from one motivation, because when push comes to shove, you don't really believe your ideas around dasein. Or you can't be honest with yourself and others.

And as usual, the man who wants to know how one ought to live is not the slightest bit interested in how he is living, how it affects other people and what he might be doing interpersonally that is reducing effective communication, misrepresenting others and judging them incorrectly.

If you don't like it, don't read it, he says.
.
I certainly will stop reading it the day I understand what you are doing. I may stop for other reasons, if the repetition gets too boring. But so far, you still manage to pull out new and interesting ways to not acknowledge anything, to distract and complain and to find ways to make it seem like you are responding when you are not.

[iambiguous]

Either make this about the manner in which the OP is applicable to you -- with respect to "I" at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power -- or move on to others.

I get enough of the "accusations" and the "retorts" you dump on me above from the Kids.

You may well grasp my "behavioral patterns" here better than I do myself. But how does that make the points I raise in the OP any less applicable to you?

That's basically my aim here. To take those points and to situate them "out in the world" that we live in. Lives that often result in conflicts over value judgments.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Iambiguous-
Same old stuff. I am going to cut off the lines we have gotten into since I keep meeting the same patterns. So, reset from zero. We will meet again in new spots and from here on out I will use the shorthand set out below. Should you actually respond and appear to have read what I wrote, I will then respond normally. Otherwise..... shorthand
SAOAR: Shifting away onus and responsibility.
NIST: Narcissistic Illogical Shift of Topic. Treating something as a failed solution to your core problems and/or bringing up your core topic as if it is a response when it is a change of topic.
RR: Redundant Request. That is requests for things already done which led nowhere.
SCMR: Self-congratulatory mind reading claims

[iambiguous]

Iambiguous-
Same old stuff. I am going to cut off the lines we have gotten into since I keep meeting the same patterns. So, reset from zero. We will meet again in new spots and from here on out I will use the shorthand set out below. Should you actually respond and appear to have read what I wrote, I will then respond normally. Otherwise..... shorthand
SAOAR: Shifting away onus and responsibility.
NIST: Narcissistic Illogical Shift of Topic. Treating something as a failed solution to your core problems and/or bringing up your core topic as if it is a response when it is a change of topic.
RR: Redundant Request. That is requests for things already done which led nowhere.
SCMR: Self-congratulatory mind reading claims

Okay, it's settled then. We move on to others.

[iambiguous]

"Identity and Freedom in Being and Nothingness"
Stephen Wang in Philosophy Now magazine.

Why does someone do one thing rather than another? What explains the action? Our answers to these questions will point to a great range of causes, reasons, motives, or motivations. In ordinary conversation we do not distinguish between these words very carefully. But a satisfying answer will often tell us something about who the person is and what they are like: “She treats the patient because she is a doctor”; “He runs away because he is a coward”; “They care for their children because they are devoted parents.” These explanations refer in some way to the identity of the person acting. So we can understand why human beings act by looking to some aspect of their personal identity.

Me, I start here of course: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Thus making what I construe to be a crucial distinction between those aspects of "I" that appear more rather than less beyond our control, and those aspects that appear to be more rather than less in our control but are rooted more rather than lessin in dasein.

Jean-Paul Sartre, however, is unsatisfied with this kind of explanation, because he thinks it is back-to-front. In his view it is not true that we act in a certain way because of our identity. Rather, it is by acting in a certain way that we establish an identity. Instead of saying “He runs away because he is a coward,” we should say “He is a coward because he runs away”; instead of saying “They care for their children because they are devoted parents,” we should say “They are devoted parents because they care for their children.” This kind of description can be counter-intuitive, and may even seem forced. Surely, to take my first example, she is a qualified doctor, whether she treats the patient or not.

Here, however, my own refrain is basically, "one way or the other it's still largely dasein." Whether we act in a certain way because of our identity or act in a certain way and thus establish our identity, we still live in a world bursting at the seams with contingency chance and change. A world in which both our identity and our actions are predicated only more or less on our control of new experiences, new relationships and contact with new information, knowledge and ideas.

The identity that we think we have "here and now" is predicated in large part on our indoctrination by others "there and then" as a child in a particular world historically and culturally. And the choices that we then make, the actions that we then take to reconfigure "I" existentially are [in my view] still ever a work in progress from the cradle to the grave. And never within reach of a moral narrative that establishes one's true identity in sync with the right thing to do.

In other words, the existentialists focus on "authenticity" in order to suggest that attempts to objectify the self are "inauthentic". Either the selves of others or your own. But while I can clearly understand this given the manner which objectivists among us are the rule, there is only so much one can accomplish in pinning down "authentic" choices in the is/ought world.

Was Sartre being authentic when he placed his bet on "ultra Bolshevism" and Maoists? Or was he instead succeeding only in objectifying his own political narrative in the name of taking that "condemned to be free" existential leap?

My point in regard to identity here is that there do not appear to be right or wrong answers to questions like this. There is only what appears to be "I" as an existential contraption rooted in dasein.

[promethean75]

Was Sartre being authentic when he placed his bet on "ultra Bolshevism" and Maoists? Or was he instead succeeding only in objectifying his own political narrative in the name of taking that "condemned to be free" existential leap?

in a nut shell sartre's turning to communism in his critique of dialectical reason was a conclusion arrived at necessarily to resolve what he perceived as THE fundamental problem humanity is faced with. and that is - in his language - the objectification of the 'other' as a being-in-itself, something that causes the for-itself to forego its freedom... and this was a no-no for sartre. capitalist society... with its commodification of labor and the alienation of the proletariat, was exemplary at creating this problem... so the logical solution to him was the inception of a classless society.

of course for sartre, hell would always be other people, but society would be less of a hell if there was far less objectification going on. he didn't want people to be 'things', as being such is a tremendous restriction of freedom.

[barbarianhorde]

I know what Sartre felt from when I was living in the same house as another philosopher and his girlfriend below a cartoonist who did things like rollerskating and gamelan practice on our very thin ceiling.

Ultrabolshevism, Maoism, is interesting in that it represents a very clear minded passion, unapologetic in its will to power. Bolshevism in general is naked wtp vs menshevism which is more western. I don't know Sartre enough to say this for sure but he was likely disgusted enough with the world not to have any illusions. But he wasn't German in that he wanted to do all that nasty power grubbing himself all too literally. The French always have the problem of refined taste which isn't compatible with direct expressions of will to power, they always need some explosive human Other to do the job for them.

[iambiguous]

Was Sartre being authentic when he placed his bet on "ultra Bolshevism" and Maoists? Or was he instead succeeding only in objectifying his own political narrative in the name of taking that "condemned to be free" existential leap?

of course for sartre, hell would always be other people, but society would be less of a hell if there was far less objectification going on. he didn't want people to be 'things', as being such is a tremendous restriction of freedom.

More to the point [mine] hell is not just other people. It is also yourself. One way or another you turn yourself into a "thing" -- an "object" -- when you make distinctions between the right thing to do -- or in living authentically -- and the wrong thing to do -- or in living inauthentically. Morally and politically in other words.

On the other hand, in the either/or world, there very often is a right and a wrong way to do things. I would bring this up with Mr. Reasonable for example. If you start with the assumption that capitalism is the right political economy and you set yourself a goal of becoming financially secure as a capitalist, then you either accomplish this by choosing the right behaviors or you don't by choosing the wrong behaviors.

But if someone comes along and insists that buying and selling stocks is a component of the necessarily evil capitalist political economy, what then?

How is it determined that either capitalism or socialism is more clearly in sync with living an authentic life? And how are the objectivists on either side here not basically reconfiguring "I" from an existential contraption rooted in dasein and conflicting goods into an insufferably self-righteous authoritarian hell bent on turning the world into "one of us" vs. "one of them"?

Camus seemed to place his bet more on individual freedom -- a man or a woman choosing to live an authentic life by rejecting overarching moral and political dogmas. But that doesn't make the points raised by, among others, Marx and Engels go away.

The personal is always going to be political when the "rules of society" are set into place by those who have accumulated the most economic and political power.

[iambiguous]

"Identity and Freedom in Being and Nothingness"
Stephen Wang in Philosophy Now magazine.

In this article we will see what Sartre does and doesn’t mean by this awkward inversion of everyday language. In his reflections on action Sartre goes to the very heart of what it is to be human. He argues that our free actions are not the consequence of our identity, they are its foundation – and it is our nature as human beings always to go beyond who we are towards a freely chosen self.

Here though Sartre would have had to note for me an action that he chose, and then clearly described for me this juncture at which his sense of identity is the starting point for the action or the action itself is the starting point for his identity. How in the world can they not be all tangled together in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods?

Unless of course I am simply missing the point here.

The act that he embodied in choosing an existential leap to Maoism flowed in large part from all of the existential variables in his life that predisposed him to go in that direction.

Sort of his own personal rendition of the points I raise here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

And then having acted from that trajectory he creates many new existential variables that will propel "I" further. He has new experiences, new relationships, access to new ideas [in a world of contingency, chance and change] and thus "I" evolves accordingly.

It's not like he woke up one morning, turned to Simone, and just blurted out "I'm a Maoist!". Of course the manner in which his own particular "I" was predisposed to go in that direction played an enormous part in the action to choose itself. And that he acted as he did in itself precipitated new factors that would impact profoundly on the life that he lived.

Our commitments allow us to become people we might not have become and illuminate a set of priorities that might have remained obscure. Yet we are not slaves to but creators of our existence, and our freedom allows us constantly to redesign and rebuild our identity.

But only [in my view] to the extent that one comes to recognize "I" as an existential contraption rooted in dasein.

[iambiguous]

"Identity and Freedom in Being and Nothingness"
Stephen Wang in Philosophy Now magazine.

In a section of Being and Nothingness concerning angoisse (‘anguish’), Sartre gives two examples of individuals who discover that their identity is insecure. First, the cliff walker. Someone is walking along the side of a dangerous cliff, on a narrow path, without a guard-rail. He is anxious. It is not a straightforward fear that the path will give way (it looks firm enough) or that a gust of wind knock him over (the air is calm): it is a fear that he might willingly throw himself off and jump to his death. He doesn’t trust himself.

You either get this or you don't.

But: How to explain it if you do.

For me it's an overpass at Herring Run Park. On some days it became a real ordeal making it from one end to another. The knowing that I was never quite sure if I wanted to tumble over into oblivion. And grappling with the tug of war being waged inside my head by psychological forces I would never be able to actually explain. Not even to myself.

It was an entirely different kind of anguish because it came from deep down inside myself. It was like grappling with the reality of existing itself but not knowing what the hell that actually meant.

And [of course] right around the corner from Sartre's nausea. Which was in turn largely ineffable. "I" free to topple over into the abyss. But never quite believing that I ever would. But never absolutely certain of it.

Many people have had an experience of vertigo akin to this. On the one hand, looking into the abyss, we want to live; on the other hand, we become aware of our total freedom. We notice that the ‘will to live’ is not an unchangeable part of our psychological make-up. The more we reflect on it, the more we realize that we are not bound by it, and we become dizzy with the possibilities that open up before us. We could be reckless and jump, for no reason at all – and this is what really terrifies us.

And this frame of mind can be directed outward towards others as well. All of the terrible things that you can inflict on them if only "I" comes around to a set of circumstances that makes it all the more possible.

What could you do? What are you convinced that you could not do? I still recall an incident at college when, in Vaneeta Burkhardt's abnormal psychology class, the discussion got around to murder. "Could you murder someone?", she asked. And of course the students [all fresh out of high school] were absolutely certain that they could not. But I had enrolled in college on the GI Bill. I had just been discharged from the Army, having spent a year in Vietnam. An experience in which the man I was before the war had been completely reconfigured into basically a whole other person. At least in some important respects.

I knew [intellectually, viscerally] how a set of circumstances could prompt you to do things that, before the experience, you never even imagined that you could or would do.

[iambiguous]

"Identity and Freedom in Being and Nothingness"
Stephen Wang in Philosophy Now magazine.

The second example of anguish is the reformed gambler. This person has sincerely decided never to gamble again. He has taken a firm resolution to quit. He considers himself to be a reformed gambler, and he relies on this identity to get him through the temptations that come. Yet as he nears the gaming table, his resolution melts away:

“What he apprehends then in anguish is precisely the total inefficacy of the past resolution. It is there, doubtless, but fixed, ineffectual, surpassed by the very fact that I am conscious of it. The resolution is still me to the extent that I realize constantly my identity with myself across the temporal flux, but it is no longer me – due to the fact that it has become an object for my consciousness. I am not subject to it, it fails in the mission which I have given to it.”

This is basically surreal to me. As though "I" can decide never to gamble again in the same manner in which one's sexual behaviors can be changed through, say, surgical castration. "I" make a resolution in one set of circumstances not to gamble but this can be sustained only to the extent that those circumstances never change. Once the circumstances change all bets are off. In my view, only if "I" here was in fact a "thing" able to be commanded surgically [or through medication] such that biologically a new set of imperatives is set in place, would the resolution be sustained with any real degree of certainty.

Otherwise, new experiences and new relationships in a world of contingency, chance and change still prevails.

The identity the gambler has established for himself as reformed is fragile. He wishes it constrained him and guaranteed his new way of life, but this very wish betrays his knowledge that both gambling and not gambling are equally possible for him.

Exactly. Only if he puts himself in a situation where he literally cannot gamble is "I" here on a secure leash.

His present identity as resolved and reformed is illusory – it is really a memory of a previous identity (who he was at the time of his resolution): it is already surpassed, and the resolution will not be effective unless it is remade once more.

In other words, each new set of circumstances requires a new resolution. And, sure, if "I" here was not an existential contraption ever subject to dealing with these new contingencies, a more objectivist sense of self might be possible.

I merely note the extent to which all of this is true in regard to "I" acquiring moral and political values in turn; and then embracing one or another objectivist font in order to reconfigure "I" into I.

[promethean75]

How is it determined that either capitalism or socialism is more clearly in sync with living an authentic life? And how are the objectivists on either side here not basically reconfiguring "I" from an existential contraption rooted in dasein and conflicting goods into an insufferably self-righteous authoritarian hell bent on turning the world into "one of us" vs. "one of them"?

Camus seemed to place his bet more on individual freedom -- a man or a woman choosing to live an authentic life by rejecting overarching moral and political dogmas. But that doesn't make the points raised by, among others, Marx and Engels go away.

no i'm with you one hundred percent. spend enough time doing philosophy... and doing it right... and you end up at the logical conclusion of nihilism. but this nihilism isn't rooted in some existential dread or anxiety from the knowledge of meaningless. things are quite meaningful, in fact. rather philosophical nihilism, for me, is a kind of post-wittgensteinian conclusion to the ineffability of sense in the philosophical language game. for years i was part of it, then i got out of it, and from that vantage point i was able to see how it worked more clearly than ever. i see it all the time now; i read a text and immediately recognize how many different ways and to what ends it can be interpreted by other writers/readers who have in mind something entirely different when using such concepts and ideas. the apparent 'fusion' of agreement that you see when posters correspond is a state that's reached not necessarily because what is being said is sensible, but because there is nothing against which its sense and reference can be tested so to be shown to be wrong. it is this frictionless atmosphere that philosophy exists in which allows it such passage, and the scrutiny of the natural sciences can't touch it (unfortunately). so long as you realize that philosophy is nothing more than play, you'd not invest too much seriousness in it to be disappointed when you discovered you've been misunderstood.

the important things in life are handled by the sciences... and if you'll notice, the ethical problems tend to work themselves out naturally and without much guidance from philosophy. think of it as a natural 'correcting' mechanism that works very slowly and over vast periods of time. you'll note also how both those in power as well as those without are by and large philosophically illiterate. what then is running the show? what then is guiding that great hegelian dialectic of the real being/becomming rational, whatever whatever? it certainly isn't attributed to philosophy. what it is is what marx had made a point of explaining in so many ways; that the material relations of a society have absolute influence on the engendered ideas that rule an epoche... that ideology does not organize society and its material relations, but vice-versa. that philosophers need only realize that their language is a distorted language of the actual world. so on and so forth.

that being said, the engine that moves progress will always tend toward the greater distribution of a hedonic calculus that works out naturally... kinda like a set of governing rules that oversees society's development which philosophers can't quite get at completely, though their business is always to try and describe/explain it. but as said above, these theories always come 'after the fact', out of the exiting material relations, and therefore reflect the ambitions and orientations of the theorists themselves who are embedded very certainly in some circumstances that either benefit them or not. as it stands, there are more people than not who are not benefiting from the present circumstances... hence, the forwarding of that correcting mechanism that works above and beyond any philosophical attempt to grasp its nature. marx was spot on when he removed this dialectic from the hegelian metaphysics and put it back into the concrete, social sphere as an expression of real progress... how societies evolve.

so don't think of marx and engels in terms of 'philosophical objectivists' who are trying to persuade philosophers to 'join them'. that's for ideologues, not marx and co. if these two did anything, it was to show how despite the ways in which we interpret the world philosophically, history follows a very rational course always trending toward increasing the hedonic margins for the population of the planet. in other words, greater reward for physical labor. i know, its an embarrassingly simple formula and philosophers hate that it's so easy. they'd prefer to complicate the matter... especially those who profit from the present system.

so forget about what is 'right' or 'wrong'. the continuum isn't moving toward righter or wronger, but what is more efficient, cost effective, less wasteful, more distributed, etc. this shit works automatically, bro. you could make philosophy disappear and it would still happen. philosophy is not the source of it, nor can it stop it. there simply cannot be a philosophical narrative that could convince people they shouldn't want to better their lives... and since the vast majority are struggling at the advantage of a much smaller minority, that mechanism works to resolve the conflict. its like a collective sixth sense, so to speak. these people don't know the first thing about 'philosophy'. perhaps because 'philosophy does not real work (W)'?

yeah so no, my nihilism is not at all what the existential theater has portrayed it to be. it's no passive resignation to fate or any bullshit like that. rather it's an active nihilism that invites radical, experimental change if even it puts the world in danger. i have a profound faith in man as a creature that is notorious for figuring out how to make shit work. my nihilism is not a loss of faith in man, but a high spirited casual withdrawal from philosophical floundering. i'm not interested anymore in asking stupid metaphysical questions. been there done that. i mean sure, i too have esoteric thoughts and weird ideas, but i realize that they cannot be talked about clearly... so with them i pass by in silence.

simplify dude. right shoe goes on the right foot, left shoe on the left foot. who was the eastern zen master who said that? i forget.

[iambiguous]

so forget about what is 'right' or 'wrong'. the continuum isn't moving toward righter or wronger, but what is more efficient, cost effective, less wasteful, more distributed, etc. this shit works automatically, bro. you could make philosophy disappear and it would still happen.

philosophy is not the source of it, nor can it stop it. there simply cannot be a philosophical narrative that could convince people they shouldn't want to better their lives... and since the vast majority are struggling at the advantage of a much smaller minority, that mechanism works to resolve the conflict.

Well put. And I basically agree. But we live in a world where the objectivists -- God or No God -- never, ever let you forget their own obligatory moral and political narratives.

All I can do is to yank their intellectual contraptions -- their "general descriptions" -- down out of clouds and force them to defend their "definitional logic" out in the world of actual conflictng behaviors.

yeah so no, my nihilism is not at all what the existential theater has portrayed it to be. it's no passive resignation to fate or any bullshit like that. rather it's an active nihilism that invites radical, experimental change if even it puts the world in danger.

Here though everything depends on the actual set of circumstances that you find yourself in. For example, before and after you have children. Or before and after you find yourself in a situation that is particularly satisfying. The last thing many will want then is to rock the boat.

And of course actual options have to be available to you. And then for most of us you still have to come up with a way of getting the bills paid. Compromise is almost always built into that.

From my perspective, the context and the point of view feed on and then sustain each other. And every individual's juncture here is going to be his or her own. Maybe others can understand it [or parts of it] and maybe not.

And I still have to contend with the manner in which I construe human interactions in my signature threads.

i have a profound faith in man as a creature that is notorious for figuring out how to make shit work. my nihilism is not a loss of faith in man, but a high spirited casual withdrawal from philosophical floundering. i'm not interested anymore in asking stupid metaphysical questions. been there done that. i mean sure, i too have esoteric thoughts and weird ideas, but i realize that they cannot be talked about clearly... so with them i pass by in silence.

The big questions never lose their fascination for me. But that's always embedded in dasein. And, again, the extent to which nihilism provokes a positive or a negative reaction to life itself is derived more from the life that you live than anything that philosophers might encompass didactically.

The crucial factor here is that as a nihilist your options are almost always increased because you don't have to keep your behaviors in sync with the "right thing to do".

Though, needless to say, "for better or worse.