15 replies to this topic

[Lord Draculea]

 

 

Thoughts?

[Redezra]

Hey FYI, this guy isn't religious, he's philosophising. It's got about as much truth in it as any other philosophical view, that being fuck all. It's about as factual as a ham sandwich, it doesn't make sense to talk about facts wrt it.

 

I mean, I don't disagree with the basis of his argument, for example the metacharacter idea, but that's fantastically old, just look at concepts like the Monomyth. Humans have general behavioural goals, and our characters are designed around what we believe we should behave as. The reason why some cultures can have monstrous heroes and some don't has to do with what that culture believes is a positive thing to do. Many of these are similar due to biological constraints of mankind.

I'd actually argue to that the metacharacters are generated from common human biology.

 

What I strongly disagree with is the outcome of the argument. These things are intrinsic so we need to accept them. I see the story of mankind as one of progress, one of overcoming our shortcomings and limitations. I see that everything, everything that makes us human should be ripped up, inspected, and if necessary discarded. Conveniently, I see this happening at the moment, I just worry about people who are afraid of this process and are trying to dial it back. Sure Jordan's arguing within my framework, but he's also arguing that we shouldn't mess with our core beliefs. I think we should.

[Redezra]

I mean seriously, he literally says there is no alternative to his way of thinking or being than hell. That's such a stupid and fatalistic viewpoint. Spiritualism has no answer. The only objective is to prevent other people from using it to tell you what to do.

[Redezra]

"there's no evidence for a relationship between intelligence and morality"

Possibly because morality is the same kind of metaconstruct as the characters? Possibly because it's not real?

[Redezra]

Right cause Auschwitz is comparatively equal to transgenderism. Wow. What a way to end what started off as a half reasonable argument.

 

I mean, to begin with it was all fine, all legit and logical. But by the end of it all I was hearing was astounding hypocrisy. This guy was literally being what he all of five minutes ago said he was fighting against. There are people who are honestly helped by people accepting their experienced gender. I can think of at least one member of these forums specifically. Does that honestly harm anyone? Does that change anything about them? Does that breakdown moral rules of society? No, no, and no. Even if you're the most extreme, top tier skeptic who doesn't believe it's possible and that these people are all deluding themselves, does it harm them? Because it is not about you.

 

The end of that was just one guy forgetting he'd just told everyone to do the right thing for others and not letting others impose their views and will and morals on them... and proceeding to do just that, telling people what was right and wrong, what was good and bad, and what they should and should not be. This is what fucking infuriates me the most about moralistic spiritualistic types. It's not about you. Life is not a team sport. Everyone dies alone, everyone is born alone, and although you can get sideline support from your friends, family, and others, the things in your mind you have to face alone. No matter what anyone chooses for themselves, they are right, even when you disagree.

[Lord Draculea]

But of course it's philosophy! Why did you implicitly assume I would claim otherwise? By its nature, philosophy is designed to be the middle ground between science and religion, because it can question the most general principles inbuilt in our notions of truth, goal, meaning, method, good/bad and so on.

Edited by Lord Draculea, 20 December 2016 - 05:11 AM.

[Lord Draculea]

My first observation about your posts: you seem to be a passionate supporter of the "factual" truth. And while I agree that "Contra factum non est argumentum", we should never forget that the truth is a broader concept than the "facts". If you want an example, here it is: I'm putting my hand on my chair. It's solid, it's real; its existence is a fact and you can't pretend that it's not. I look out the window and I see two trees and three little birds; these are also "facts" though I can't hold them in my hand, like I do with my chair. Then I say: "So, one chair, two trees... oh, numbers!". What's that? Are numbers facts? Can I touch/hold/see them? The answer is no. Numbers are not facts. I can see two trees, or three birds, but I can't see/hear/hold the number 2 or 3. So what's happening, am I going insane? (Well, maybe I am, but that's not the point here...) What's happening is that I've started to use my inbuilt faculty of abstract reasoning, and by doing that I've begun to come accross a different category of truths - the abstract truth.
At this point, you could say: "Yeah, but those kind of (pieces of) abstract truth, like the numbers, are not real!" To which I'd say: really? In 100 years, nothing will be left of the chair I'm sitting on, or the three little birds singing in the tree in front of my house, but my guess is that the numbers will still be out there (where? in the mathematical, non-physical universe, of course). In a million years, the human species (or is it race? I would hate to violate some PC norm here...) may long be extinct, but guess what? The infinite series of prime numbers would not have changed a bit from what they were when first discovered (by humans). So if we give it a thought, which are more real: my chair or the 3 little birds on one hand (factual truth), or the series of prime numbers (abstract truth)?

Edited by Lord Draculea, 20 December 2016 - 06:45 AM.

[Redezra]

Well, actually, I will argue that they don't exist. See I'm an epistemological nihilist, an odd one that believes that nihilism gives the world more beauty, but anyway...

 

You think that's a chair. You think those are birds. You may even think you know what species. But what are species, chairs, birds, numbers? Categories. Human creations that simply do not exist in the real world, an overlay of our reality generated quite nicely by our mind. Numbers, all numbers fall into this. All mathematics does to. Can you empirically prove that a prime number is real? Sure you can write a mathematical proof perhaps, but that's still mathematical. You may rely on set theory, which is categorical. It's all not real. Sure it's fantastically handy at describing our universe, but it is not our universe. We may have very good facsimiles, but we don't actually know anything. A truth exists, probably, somewhere, but we are forever barred from knowing it, all we can do is watch and try to emulate.

 

So what we have are "real" things that we think we see and perceive, and unreal things that we think of. There are different levels of unreal, things that roughly agree with our rules for reality (like math), and things that simply don't, or aren't required by those rules (like morals, for example)... but in essence nothing at all that people think of can be trusted.

[the rebel]

Someone got triggered *looks at Red*

[He who posts]

Someone got triggered *looks at Red*

[Lord Draculea]

One observation that comes to my mind then is that, since "nothing at all that people think of can be trusted", it follows that what you're saying can't be trusted either, right? So I hope you won't mind if I don't trust it since, according to you, you shouldn't trust it either...

Edited by Lord Draculea, 22 December 2016 - 07:48 AM.

[He who posts]

Well, actually, I will argue that they don't exist. See I'm an epistemological nihilist, an odd one that believes that nihilism gives the world more beauty, but anyway...

 

You think that's a chair. You think those are birds. You may even think you know what species. But what are species, chairs, birds, numbers? Categories. Human creations that simply do not exist in the real world, an overlay of our reality generated quite nicely by our mind. Numbers, all numbers fall into this. All mathematics does to. Can you empirically prove that a prime number is real? Sure you can write a mathematical proof perhaps, but that's still mathematical. You may rely on set theory, which is categorical. It's all not real. Sure it's fantastically handy at describing our universe, but it is not our universe. We may have very good facsimiles, but we don't actually know anything. A truth exists, probably, somewhere, but we are forever barred from knowing it, all we can do is watch and try to emulate.

 

So what we have are "real" things that we think we see and perceive, and unreal things that we think of. There are different levels of unreal, things that roughly agree with our rules for reality (like math), and things that simply don't, or aren't required by those rules (like morals, for example)... but in essence nothing at all that people think of can be trusted.

[Lord Draculea]

And if nothing that we say can be trusted, then why should we trust that "2+2=4", rather than "2+2=5"? It shouldn't matter to you, should it? Or if I said: "Because the grass is green, it follows that the sky is red.", would you mind? Why are you so passionate when it comes to social justice issues? From your nihilistic perspective, it should make no difference if someone said "transgender rights are unalienable and should be observed regardless the circumstances", or "transgenders are wrongdoers who, according to their karma, have been reincarnated in the wrong bodies, and therefore must suffer throughout their lives"? Tell me please!

Edited by Lord Draculea, 22 December 2016 - 08:25 AM.

[Redezra]

And if nothing that we say can be trusted, then why should we trust that "2+2=4", rather than "2+2=5"? It shouldn't matter to you, should it? Or if I said: "Because the grass is green, it follows that the sky is red.", would you mind? Why are you so passionate when it comes to social justice issues? From your nihilistic perspective, it should make no difference if someone said "transgender rights are unalienable and should be observed regardless the circumstances", or "transgenders are wrongdoers who, according to their karma, have been reincarnated in the wrong bodies, and therefore must suffer throughout their lives"? Tell me please!

 

Now you're just making a strawman of the nihilist perspective.

 

Think of a computer game. Do the rules of the game mean anything while you're in it? Of course they do. Are they real? No. But if they're not real, why do they mean anything? Cause you're buying into it. That's basically how math works. That's basically how society works. It's not an actual thing, it's just an internally consistent ruleset. All my views are based then on the outcomes of those rulesets. I'm trying to win the game, if you will.

 

Oh, for those of you still playing, you just lost the game.

Edited by Redezra, 22 December 2016 - 11:01 AM.

[The Dark Empire]

Dammit I lost the game

[Lord Draculea]

Then, if the different layers of the universe (in a broad sense) are not "real", but are internally consistent, what gives them that internal consistency that you're buying?

And another thing: you seem to discriminate among the different layers of "reality" (which to you is the "un-reality"). As I understand, you regard the empirical layer (things that can be tested with our senses) as somehow more "real" than the mathematical, or the moral layers. How come? If none of those layers are true, but each of them is internally consistent (and that's what you said, didn't you? that the game we're in isn't real, but is internally consistent, and that's what you're buying), then you have no basis to proclaim the empirical "unreality" as being superior in any sense to the other layers. If everything consists of just sets of internally consistent rules, then your preference towards "facts" and the empirical (un)reality seems arbitrary to me.

Edited by Lord Draculea, 22 December 2016 - 10:00 PM.