thirdform

pass the sick bucket
why would we need to countenance the opinions of trumpists or democrats for that matter? politics rarely if ever concerns individuals, it's just a platform they wish they to project their desires onto. Unless there was an actual nazi party in the whitehouse, which there is not. in which case one would not debate with a fascist because that inter alia signals that you see their exclusionary politics as being compassionate.
 

version

Well-known member
in which case one would not debate with a fascist because that inter alia signals that you see their exclusionary politics as being compassionate.
This is why I'm wary of the "treat all opinions as equally valid" stance. Reminds me of an argument I read online where someone was losing their shit because their attempts to debate the merits of genocide were being shut down.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I know luke likes to egg @constant escape on but not everything is poetic wordplay only i can battle Lucius and he should understand how he (CE) is playing into dualistic schmidtian political friend/enemy distinction.

Schmidt of course probably the most intellectually advanced fascist.
 
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woops

is not like other people
funny that you should post that @thirdform cos i was thinking about it the other day when @version claimed the old postmodernism thing about the failing of grand narratives is itself a grand narrative. i mean it's a bit of a shit narrative to say that the grand narratives have all failed / there aren't any, not very grand if you ask me.

then we got on to is there any universal truth, i was wondering if @padraig (u.s.) was gonna pursue a similar line of reasoning i.e. to claim there are no universal truths is itself a universal truth.

this would have allowed me to deal a stunning death blow to wit, existence is not a predicate. the ontological argument is that god is perfect in all ways including existence, therefore exists. sooner or later though some bright spark pointed out that existence is not like other qualities in that you can say "some pencils are red and some aren't", but you can't say "some pencils exist and some don't". the non-existent pencils don't exist to have the quality of non-existing, they're just not there to talk about, like universal truths in the argument, but it turned out padraig is quite happy with a universe full of uncertainty and maybe my name is edwin after all.

oh well
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
yes, you can't tackle postmodernists without mastering the highest points of pre-enlightenment scholastic philosophy. And what is philosophy but the most abstract and intellectualised form of religion? Rejecting religion as a demiurgical punish/rewardment belief system doesn't give you the right to forfeit its underpinnings.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Nietzsche - christianity is neoplatonism for the masses, and so on.

This however would not be so funny if Nietzsche didn't himself succumb to a neoplatonism with the concept of a suprahistorical ubermensch (overman) Hence transvaluation becomes a term used as a placeholder, as something to intuit but cannot be systematised into any form of practice, self-defeating in other words. noone is obliged to except your free spirit, whereas the true ubermensch must at least cary some degree of appealing to discontented sentiments. Because Nietzsche is unable to handle dialectics he destroys the passive nihilist of the post-christian western age, only for it to reemerge, victorious slobbing on another double whopper from burger king.
 

luka

Well-known member
i think philosophy should only be attempted by those who have rigourously avoided reading any philosophy.
 

woops

is not like other people
it's another @luka enlightened riddle, may as well say philosophy should only be read by those who have rigourously avoided attempting any philosophy
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Well after reading the above, my first instinct is to reiterate that it might just be a semantic hangup on my part.

By valid I don't mean correct, or exempt from progressive revision, but again that could be a semantic misunderstanding on my part. Could just be poor word choice.

By valid I mean evidently within the set of actual opinions, rather than just theoretical positions. So maybe actual is a better word. I just think it is a mistake to assume that a given opinion came out of nowhere, or that it is entirely incorrect and reflects no aspects of our shared and many-sided reality. Granted, that might be bring new points to the table, but that is near the point I was trying to make earlier.

Its a naive and prototypical attempt to frame ideology within an empirical framework. I certainly don't claim to understand the existing literature or theories on neuroscience or studies of consciousness, but I tend to believe that such studies will continue to yield evidence that the psyche is rooted in purely physical processes.

Assuming that is the case - and it is an assumption, at this point - I'm led to the conclusion that because a particular opinion is formed, that means it is within the set of possible psychic "readings" of the environment of the psyche. Once you begin to factor in what psychoanalysis brings to the table, things get clouded even more, no? The primary difficulty here is that I am treating as empirical that which has not yet proven itself empirically, namely consciousness.

But again, even if we hypothetically stick to the notion that all opinions are valid, I still also believe that there is an optimal attractor, which means that not all opinions are equally optimal. I still tend to think that a synthesis across the board of opinions will have more in common with the kind of egalitarian sentiments that seem to be commonly held here. If the optimal seems to indicate a non-egalitarian sensibility, that would likely be the tipping point, the point where I would then shift gears into resisting the cosmos rather than channeling it.

And I do believe it is possible to exert will upon something as nebulous as the "optimal". In fact, I believe it moves in accordance to the developments of the psychic circuitry that it erects, only the vast majority of the time such developments are not in alignment with human will, but more unconscious forces. So it would be profoundly exceptional for a conscious and willful agent to impact the optimal around which they themselves gravitate.

And @version your point about the dangers of living in a world of ideas is spot on, and I can always use a reminder.

I also think it is insufficient to limit your opinions to what is evident. I think what is evident should inform your opinions, perhaps even determine them, but not dictate them. The tree is enabled by its most radical part, yet not limited to it.

But the opposite extremity, as you point out, I think is equivalently insufficient, trafficking purely through the abstract and constantly ignoring/deferring the need for evidence. In other words, basing opinions entirely on factors that depend on belief, rather than acknowledgement of evidence.

And @thirdform I wish I could respond or bring something to the table, but Schmidt is another one I'm totally unfamiliar with.
 

version

Well-known member
Just reading this thing in Harper's about the new Gaddis reissues. Seems appropriate,
But the book (J R) is more profoundly a portrait of a world that has given up on transcendent values. Gaddis himself described it as “a secular version of its predecessor.” (The Clementine Recognitions are sometimes called the “first Christian novel,” and Gaddis remarked that his own might be the last.) The great consolation of the earlier book—“Thank God there was the gold to forge”—is gone; we have left the gold standard for the world of fiat currency. That there is no “reality” in back of the mask—that the mask cannot be dropped, or that behind it will be found simply another one—is the key contention of the postmodern tradition of which Gaddis is commonly treated as a precursor.
 

version

Well-known member
@constant escape

What I mean by valid in this specific context - Trump saying something then people denying he said it despite direct evidence of him saying it - is an opinion that works from the basis of him having said it. Your definition of valid seems to be anything that someone can think simply because they're able to think it. That isn't what I'm talking about.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Then yeah, I'd agree that the position of denying something that clearly happened is an untenable position, yet one that, as you say, is seemingly held widely.

So hypothetically: what to do with such people?

I'm inclined to believe that they express this position more as a reaction to a unfavorable or frustrating reality. Whether or not they need to be frustrated with their reality, whether or not the reality they are frustrated with is their reality, are additional questions, no?

Maybe its just the benefit of the doubt, but I have trouble imagining someone actually believing that Trump didn't say something that he evidently did. Either they don't actually believe it, and are essentially lashing out, or they do believe it, and Trump et co are brainwashers of a cosmic caliber. If the latter is the case, then damned near everyone has severely underestimated Trump et co.

edit: So hypothetically: what to do with such people? I'm still learning about what reality looks like from the other side of the tracks line. I haven't had to work for a living, I'm largely living in a world of ideas, so personally I've a bit of ground to cover in terms of investigating reality from such angles.
 

version

Well-known member
Trump seems to have replaced the facts for these people. Their opinions don't change according to the facts, they change according to Trump. If Trump says something's bad then it's bad, if he says the exact same thing's good then it's good. Whether the thing itself has changed at all seems to be irrelevant.
 
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