Postmodernism?

[whynaut]

To begin with, I know a large community of people who do not believe thievery is wrong: Thieves. There is also a Buddhist parable that recounts a thief climbing a mountain to steal from a monk. When the thief discovers the monk has no possessions, the monk gives the thief the monk's clothes. While one can dismiss these people by calling them "fringe," one must also consider that being believed by a majority does not imply inherent truth. If I am wrong and and majority does indeed imply truth, we can also look to see how societies too have changed drastically over time with no resemblance to the societies that birthed them. For instance, Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century funded privateers who acted as government sanctioned pirates; one of their main functions was to attack and steal from foreign ships. One could even imagine Britian's modern day MI6 to enlist spies that may steal things; if not for wealth, than for information.

But I stand by what I said and what you may have inferred, morality is not objective 100% of the time. Does this mean that everyone goes around killing people? No, of course not. Subjectivity does not mean that everyone gives into their base emotions. It only means that morality is based on mutable and individual subjects and not the strict immutable object. Everyone's morality is based on individual upbringing, and I even go so far as to doubt that there are two people on this earth with the exact same morals on everything. Even institutions with strict guidelines, like religions, waver wildly amongst the individuals participating in them.

While you and I may feel guilty about a select few actions, this does not make our morality "law." I assure you, there are people in this world who do not feel any guilt to killing, stealing, nor delivering pain. This is also to say that, under extreme circumstances, there could emerge a situation that could change you or I so drastically that we no longer feel guilt about committing such actions as well. While this situation would hopefully involve a brain injury, one cannot dismiss it and claim that any sort of "law" binds us to a morality.

The morality that you have is based on your individual and subjective experienced of life. Somewhere along the line, your morality that causes you to object to something like murder was ingrained into you through society's influence through a near infinite array of channels. I do not believe that there is any shame in that; it did the same thing to me too. I just do not support the pretense that my individual morals are derived from some sort of universal mechanism and all those who stray from this mechanism are only aberrations.

I will agree with you that Postmodernism derives no practical ends as you may define practical. But the assumption may be flawed here in that it assumes that philosophy must take action that could lead to a desired end, rather than just being tossed around by the whims of reality. If I am mistaken with your assessment, I do apologize. But aside from that, I assure you that postmodernism still endeavors to find truth and, with the exception of a few postmodernists, still derives more in-depth philosophies everyday. It is not something that has stopped or will necessarily ever stop in the exploration of reality. The only difference between us in your 'boat towards the horizon analogy', is that while you look for the island, I am content to examine the water and admit the possibility that water is all we have to look towards.

Though, be sure that your argument did leave me with one or two thought that disturb even me, as I am not sure how to explain them. One point involves your statement concerning the consistent rules of mathematics, scientific law, and pure logic. Mathematics and Logic puzzle my brain in particular because they are both concrete and also abstract. They are concrete in the sense that, if understood correctly, the mechanism cannot be observed differently by different people. However, they are abstract in the sense that they do not exist in any real way except in our heads and how we apply them to things. You may be right, but I wonder if it is fair to call a rule that we invented all the angles for as inherent truth? Again, it might be, but I will have to think about it. And my only argument against science is that it's "facts" too have changed over time and that the results of scientists are are based on subjective interpretations. Beyond that, I do not like to touch science because it is based on drastically different rules than philosophy. Foucault claimed that there are three schools of thought: Imperial science (Science), Human science (Psychology and Sociology), and Philosophy (Philosophy smile lol) . Each, by their own set of rules, debunks the other two.

The other thing that you said that bothered me is what postmodernist refer to as the "postmodernist impasse." How can one know something when nothing is knowable? You referenced this as how I could claim to not "know" anything, yet make claims to know "morality is a myth." This I cannot answer, save to say that my philosophy makes the claims that we all have this problem.  

[Niniva]

whynaut

To begin with, I know a large community of people who do not believe thievery is wrong: Thieves. There is also a Buddhist parable that recounts a thief climbing a mountain to steal from a monk. When the thief discovers the monk has no possessions, the monk gives the thief the monk's clothes. While one can dismiss these people by calling them "fringe," one must also consider that being believed by a majority does not imply inherent truth. If I am wrong and and majority does indeed imply truth, we can also look to see how societies too have changed drastically over time with no resemblance to the societies that birthed them. For instance, Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century funded privateers who acted as government sanctioned pirates; one of their main functions was to attack and steal from foreign ships. One could even imagine Britian's modern day MI6 to enlist spies that may steal things; if not for wealth, than for information.

While a very astute example I wonder how many of those theives....when stolen from...shrug it off as happenstance. What actions we take does not depict morality as it is clear people throughout history do the wrong thing. What is truely important though is that even in a theives guild they do not steal from each other and each of them would consider it disloyal to steal from another, and each of them would hate to be stolen FROM....thus the idea that it is wrong. Just because you do it does not mean you condone other people doing it to you.

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But I stand by what I said and what you may have inferred, morality is not objective 100% of the time. Does this mean that everyone goes around killing people? No, of course not. Subjectivity does not mean that everyone gives into their base emotions. It only means that morality is based on mutable and individual subjects and not the strict immutable object. Everyone's morality is based on individual upbringing, and I even go so far as to doubt that there are two people on this earth with the exact same morals on everything. Even institutions with strict guidelines, like religions, waver wildly amongst the individuals participating in them.

But of course this is true, but that is how morality works. It works on a system of downgrade. We start with something broad....murder....all societies consider mudering a "fellow" man wrong. Now....what's a "fellow man" Is it a human? Is it a country man? Is it simply a member of the theives guild? We all agree that -such and such- action is wrong when done to US....or else when accused of this action we would shrug our shoulders and say "so?" but we do not, we inherently defend ourselves by trying to justify it somehow. Lying....someone says you broke a promise...you say 'well I wouldn't have promised if....' as though you are excused for it. If breaking promises or lying wasn't wrong then you would not feel the need to justify why you did it...you would simply say "yeah....so?"

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While you and I may feel guilty about a select few actions, this does not make our morality "law." I assure you, there are people in this world who do not feel any guilt to killing, stealing, nor delivering pain. This is also to say that, under extreme circumstances, there could emerge a situation that could change you or I so drastically that we no longer feel guilt about committing such actions as well. While this situation would hopefully involve a brain injury, one cannot dismiss it and claim that any sort of "law" binds us to a morality.

Once again we are talking about circumstances in which we believe we are no longer commiting the same act. It is not murder if it is justified....it is not stealing if it is justified....it is not lying if it is justified.....and the list goes on. Governmental pirates who steal from other countries, steal from other countries because it isn't stealing if it's from THOSE people...they aren't PEOPLE after all....and so on and so forth. This does not suggest they do not think stealing is wrong...it suggest that they do not believe their action to be stealing.

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The morality that you have is based on your individual and subjective experienced of life. Somewhere along the line, your morality that causes you to object to something like murder was ingrained into you through society's influence through a near infinite array of channels. I do not believe that there is any shame in that; it did the same thing to me too. I just do not support the pretense that my individual morals are derived from some sort of universal mechanism and all those who stray from this mechanism are only aberrations.

I have heard this arguement before, and it is a strong one I suppose but it still does not explain what I have mentioned above. If this is true then why throughout history has there always been the same "natural law" for humanity? Natural law meaning that within each society they find ways to justify doing actions that they inherently know would be wrong IF....there wasn't a justifiable reason. It is more likely to me that they have dilluded themselves into NOT being moral rather then the opposite. More likely that they KNOW it is wrong to murder, and so they come up with a way to do the wrong action so that they 'feel' justified to convince themselves it is right, but justification would not be needed if the action was right in the first place.

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I will agree with you that Postmodernism derives no practical ends as you may define practical. But the assumption may be flawed here in that it assumes that philosophy must take action that could lead to a desired end, rather than just being tossed around by the whims of reality. If I am mistaken with your assessment, I do apologize. But aside from that, I assure you that postmodernism still endeavors to find truth and, with the exception of a few postmodernists, still derives more in-depth philosophies everyday. It is not something that has stopped or will necessarily ever stop in the exploration of reality. The only difference between us in your 'boat towards the horizon analogy', is that while you look for the island, I am content to examine the water and admit the possibility that water is all we have to look towards.

I see your point here, and I am not one to argue the worth of one over the other. It just is my preferance to read and study those philosophers who are looking for something they do not have as opposed to those who want to re-evaluate what is already in front of us. Much like a pure scientist would say "Hmmm I wonder what would happen if I did......this......I bet it'll do this...." and then gives it a try to see if he guessed right. Rather then those afterwards who say "Well I see that when you did this and got this....you were wrong...but now that you have this, should you have it?" which is how I view Postmodernists. They are not very fond of discovery...and in fact are perfectly content that we never really find anything new as even those new things are not provable anyway so whats the point. All in all I don't find that to be very exciting.

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Though, be sure that your argument did leave me with one or two thought that disturb even me, as I am not sure how to explain them. One point involves your statement concerning the consistent rules of mathematics, scientific law, and pure logic. Mathematics and Logic puzzle my brain in particular because they are both concrete and also abstract. They are concrete in the sense that, if understood correctly, the mechanism cannot be observed differently by different people. However, they are abstract in the sense that they do not exist in any real way except in our heads and how we apply them to things. You may be right, but I wonder if it is fair to call a rule that we invented all the angles for as inherent truth? Again, it might be, but I will have to think about it. And my only argument against science is that it's "facts" too have changed over time and that the results of scientists are are based on subjective interpretations. Beyond that, I do not like to touch science because it is based on drastically different rules than philosophy. Foucault claimed that there are three schools of thought: Imperial science (Science), Human science (Psychology and Sociology), and Philosophy (Philosophy smile lol) . Each, by their own set of rules, debunks the other two.

What you have said above is why I barely sleep at night durring the school semesters constantly thinking it over and mulling things through my brain. There is one thought though that I believe you are viewing incorrectly, this one:
"You may be right, but I wonder if it is fair to call a rule that we invented all the angles for as inherent truth?"

The trouble with this view is that mathmatics is not a human invention. It is a human discovery. The concept is not the numerals written on paper, those are much like words used to describe a concept. Symbols to make it easier to grasp, but the concepts are not man made and the "angles" are not at all generated by man....they are merely discovered by man. Man did not make a right triangle by saying "Hmmm....we'll call this a right triangle, and how about this guys....lets make sure that everyone knows when we make a right triangle that the rule is A squared plus B squared has to equal C squared." What happened what man made a triangle with a right angle and then looked it over and said..."Huh, look at this! if you square the two sides and add them you end up with the square of the hypotnose! I wonder if that works every time." And then he rubs his chin, thinks it over and tries it with every triangle making them of all lengs shapes and sizes and he DISCOVERS...that it works. This is why mathmatical rules are rules...because we didn't make them, they simply are, and we discovered them. 1+1=2, and it will always equal 2 no matter if you call 1 four. Because you "call" it something that does not change what it is at it's base. One...is a singular amount....or "this many". When you add "this many" to "this many" or combine them together you wind up with what? "This many" twice....so we give "this many" a name....1...and we give "this many twice" a name....2 And so when you add "this many (1)" +"this many (1)" you get..."This many twice (2)" and you always will no matter what. But not because man says so...but because that is just simply the way of things. Hold up your hand....now hold up your other hand....now you are holding up how many hands? Two....you can say "five" but all you are doing is applying a different term to the actual amount. You can call it "cat" number of hands for all I care but you are still giving a name to the same thing as I am when I say "two", calling it "cat" does not change the actual number of hands you are holding up. This is metaphysics....this is where postmodernists avoid.

I think I need to deal with this as well:

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Again, it might be, but I will have to think about it. And my only argument against science is that it's "facts" too have changed over time and that the results of scientists are are based on subjective interpretations. Beyond that, I do not like to touch science because it is based on drastically different rules than philosophy.

As I think you are talking about something that isn't really science. What you are describing here is not science, it is "scientism" or the interpretation of scientific data and publication of that which is called a theory. Science's true aim is not to say anything about the metaphysical...or make any claims at all about "facts" that are applicable in any major temporal sense. It says "hey...look at that! Hmm I wonder if I put some of this with it what will happen. HOLY HELL! IT EXPLODED! Lets do it again...I bet it explodes again! HOLY HELL I WAS RIGHT! I wonder if it explodes every time!" This is of course whitty banter to incite in you the idea that the scientific method is ALL that you can rightly call science. After the experiment is over and the data, or "what happened" at the end is collected science stops, and scientism begins. The two are not the same but 99% of the world's populace confuses the two. Ask a scientist what he actually "knows" and he will tell you "Nothing really, I can only theorize, and that does not give us fact" thanks to good old David Hume and the Problem of Induction. So the two are not conceptually the same in their purest sense. You would like David Hume I think judging by your skeptical nature.

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The other thing that you said that bothered me is what postmodernist refer to as the "postmodernist impasse." How can one know something when nothing is knowable? You referenced this as how I could claim to not "know" anything, yet make claims to know "morality is a myth." This I cannot answer, save to say that my philosophy makes the claims that we all have this problem.

We all may make this mistake yes, but postmodernists are the only people who simply shrug it off and say, "Bah! So what?" Actually the first skeptical work by a greek philosopher by the name of Sextus Empericus who was aware of this problem and very very careful to say also "I may also be wrong and thus take what I say with a grain of salt" (paraphrased of course) which I respected but that is not good philosophy. Makes statments that say "WHOA! you should believe this because there's no real way to prove it and so we shouldn't believe in anything!....but don't believe me either." Sounds to me like a babbling idiot rather then anything coherent but that is essentially what Sextus Empricus said. His writings said specifically that we should believe in nothing because nothing is provable beyond doubt...it can always be doubted because every proof requires another proof to prove it and then another and another ad infinitum......and then he ended his work by saying....BUT! Don't believe me when i say don't believe in anything either!

In spite of being completely self defeating Sextus Empiricus was actually the first of the skeptics and spurred DeCartes to spend all those years in a cabin in the frigid cold writing his meditations in an attempt to defy the skeptic and make it so we can trust our senses.....he eventually failed pretty misserably with most of it but he did defeat the skeptic fairly well in the first two meditations.

I hope this is all pretty clear.  

[whynaut]

Your answers were very well spoken and logical, so much so that I actually debated with myself on whether I should argue the points. I assumed that our base philosophy differed so wildly that it would be futile to argue. However, seeing the new Batman movie sort of renewed my faith in chaos (if you've seen it you'll understand). So even though we may never agree on this philosophy, I can't say that I don't get gratification from debating. This probably has something to do with Baudrillard's thoughts of how opposites give power to one another by claiming that without their influence the opposite would become the only other option (leapfrogging, of course, the concept that either of them are the only options or that they exist at all).

Anyway...

Bhuddists monks do not mind people stealing from them because they do not believe in personal wealth as a priority.

One anonymous rapist and murder told police, ""Do I feel bad when I hurt someone? Yeah, sometimes. But mostly it's just like… uh… (laughs). I mean, how did you feel the last time you squashed a fly?"

To every "law" (at least moral law) that you have described there are always exceptions: there are people who don't mind thievery and there are people who do not mind murder. It is a postmodernist belief that if there is an exception to the rule than there is no rule.

Your argument against the above statement, if I may be so bold, is that these people do indeed think these things are bad, but justify their actions by saying "this is THEM, not US." While I do agree with you that people do justify their actions, I submit that they do this for a completely different and postmodernist reason. Hopefully the below will also address some of the other points you made in your last post.

Ted Berrigan

L

I like to beat people up
absence of passion, principles, love. She murmurs
What just popped into my eye was a fiend’s umbrella
and if you should come and pinch me now
as I go out for coffee
… as I was saying winter of 18 lumps
Days produce life locations to banish 7 up
Nomads, my babies, where are you? Life’s
My dream which is gunfire in my poem
Orange cavities of dreams stir inside “The Poems”
Whatever is going to happen is already happening
Some people prefer “the interior monologue”
I like to beat people up

Consider this poem. What does it mean? This was the question asked to my class by our creative writing teacher. We came up with varying ideas on the subject. Interpretations varied from humanity's subjugation by consumerism, appearance vs. reality, and even the loss of innocence. What we all agreed on, however, was that this was a very violent poem and that they poet was definitely trying to say something. And we were wrong. Berrigan developed this poem by taking the first lines from a dozen poems he had thrown out and then piecing them together. I found this to be a wonderful metaphor and example of postmodernism.

In the early days of movies, Russian psychologists made a film that consisted of nothing but random images that they then played to an audience. The film would contain something like a few seconds of a man in chair, then a cabbage, then a bomb dropping. The psychologists found that audience actually wove a story through the random images. They would say things like, "Oh, the man obviously hated cabbage."

This is what postmodernist refer to as the metanarrative. It is the belief that "this happened and caused that" and it is a fiction.

Human beings are hit with an infinite array of input all the time, every second, for the entire length of our lives. Instead of screaming everyday at the sheer volume of it all, people weave a story through a handful of it in order to get through the day. For example, let us say that you saw a woman speeding in her car and then she gets pulled over by a policeman. You would tell yourself, "That woman broke the law, so she is getting punished by the police." A nice neatly packaged story. But what really took place involved so much more complicated that you could never weave a story through all off it: the policeman had to be in the area, the policeman had to pick out the woman's car amongst all the other cars that were speeding (maybe she had a flashy car or maybe the policeman picked at random), the device the policeman used to gauge speed had to be working, the woman had to respect the law enough to pull over for the policeman, etc, etc. It took a near infinite amount of events to make this incident happen at this place and at this time; most of which had nothing to do with how fast the woman was driving. Thus blowing the myth of continuity out of the water even past what Problem of Induction could have dreamed.

Even the murderer kills a person because of the exact same amount of infinite random events. His "justification" comes from picking out a a fraction of these events and constructing his own metanarrative with of them. This is the same as us judging the woman and the policeman, the Russian audience, and my creative writing class.

Benjamin Franklin

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Animals act without reason; they do not even have a language to convey reason. It is only a human compulsion to justify actions by creating metanarratives in this way.

Like everything else, this is what philosophy is. The universe performing millions of billions of trillions of actions all the time. It is so complex as to be practical chaos. What we as philosophers are trying to do is write a little story about the universe that begins with "Once upon a time..." and ends with "...happily ever after." But I highly doubt that the universe cares what we think about it. This may be a sort of answer to the postmodernist impasse. That just saying, "the universe is chaotic and humans merely write a metanarrative," is a massive understatement to how chaotic the universe really is.  

[Niniva]

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Bhuddists monks do not mind people stealing from them because they do not believe in personal wealth as a priority.

No but I'd lay a gentleman's wager on the idea that if one of them stole from another they would be hurt by it. Feel betrayed, the pain of a brother falling to sin...whatever you want to call it. The point is they can say it all they want to, in the end they are just good at forgiving. They would still teach you not to take that which does not belong to you.

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One anonymous rapist and murder told police, ""Do I feel bad when I hurt someone? Yeah, sometimes. But mostly it's just like… uh… (laughs). I mean, how did you feel the last time you squashed a fly?"

Certainly we can all agree that a rapist and muderer who believes himself to be so great that killing another human being is much like squashing a fly is hardly of a sound and rational mind. This example is not just an exception to the rule....this is not even a test subject that is plausable.

In adressing your poem, I don't formulate any cohesion to the sentences at all. Right off the bat I look at them and say to myself, "Whoever wrote this is either completely insane for thinking they have come up with something remarkable, or this is some sort of abstract excersize on chaos" And look...I was right. It is sentences muddled together. It is not Chaos, it was put together for a purpose, showed to a class for a purpose, and the class was baited by authority in to thinking that it also had purpose. I'd be willing to bet that the very first time you read the lines you also thought "this looks like nonsense to me" until the teacher asked you to gather meaning from it. And so you do...you make an attempt to bring rationality to something irrational. I won't deny it is in human nature to attempt to find order within things, to look for patterns, but it is hardly an astounding find, to note that when a teacher tells students to look for order, that they assume there is some there somewhere. That is only rational...a figure of authority says "Look for order here" and so you do...because she wouldn't be a teacher if she hadn't learned what order was, you also trust she won't lead you astray and thus rationally you conclude there must be order, if only you could find it. And so you create it somehow. This is psychology, not really philosophy but I do not see at all how this supports any form of chaos, because as you can see by my points (hopefully) it is not chaotic at all. It is very systematic and purpose driven.

Continuity is not a myth. It is a necessity as much as time is. Events happen based off cause and affect. If you would like to argue against causality then you go right ahead and try but if you do that then you had better be prepared to defend yourself against the pretty rock solid rules of logic. If causality is not true then neither is any science, mathmatics, or logical formula....and I don't think you want to go that far. Just because each affect has an infinite number of "possible" causes does not mean they were all present, and if she got pulled over speeding then there were a stronger set of causes that led to that then the opposing affect. Continuity is necesary, events have to take place not only temporally but they also have to take place in relation to each other.

Take any one of the causes out of the equation, and the affect will not take place. That is simply how the world seems to work, I'm not sure how you can combat this unless you are willing to say that if I have a marble in my right hand, and a marble in my left hand and then take the marble in my left and place it in my right that I DONT ACTUALLY have two marbles in my right hand now. In point of fact if continuity is a myth....then technically speaking I can't even use the words "if" and "then" together as they require a temporal relationship.

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That just saying, "the universe is chaotic and humans merely write a metanarrative," is a massive understatement to how chaotic the universe really is.

You do realize of course that this statement is a bold and blatant contridiction just by being written right? How can you formulate a sentence....and understand it....if the universe is just chaos? You can't. So I could type this sentence:

"houl klell als kn n nklaskn ln n nk lkhlh klj jlkn nkl lkhlhl"

And according to your philosophy it has exactly as much meaning as your sentence I have quoted above. The universe may have SOME chaos, but to claim it is complete chaos? That seems absurd to me. Try and defeat mathmatics if you don't believe what I have said.  

[whynaut]

Niniva

No but I'd lay a gentleman's wager on the idea that if one of them stole from another they would be hurt by it. Feel betrayed, the pain of a brother falling to sin...whatever you want to call it. The point is they can say it all they want to, in the end they are just good at forgiving. They would still teach you not to take that which does not belong to you.

[...]

Certainly we can all agree that a rapist and murderer who believes himself to be so great that killing another human being is much like squashing a fly is hardly of a sound and rational mind. This example is not just an exception to the rule....this is not even a test subject that is plausible.

Once again you dismiss the exceptions to your rules as aberrations from what you see as the fundamental human core of morality/truth/etc. For a moment, let us go back to the beginnings of postmodernism with one of its founding fathers Foucault. Foucault did not start off as a philosopher, but as a historian of sorts. He simply wanted to catalog the history of many groups considered by many to be "aberrations", specifically criminals and the insane. What he found was startling. Some criminals in one era became the pioneers in another, and people seen as the visionaries of yesteryear would be called crackpots today. Heck, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder by the psychiatric community until only a few years ago. In short, Foucault found that one could not necessarily agree with the majority on what concerned truth because every so often the aberrations or minority to that group could become the the new majority in time.

In fact, in a small way, your stance on this matter actually proves my point a little. You are being given a lot of random and conflicting information, so you attempt to weave a metanarrative through the parts that make sense to you and disregard the rest.

Niniva

I won't deny it is in human nature to attempt to find order within things, to look for patterns, but it is hardly an astounding find, to note that when a teacher tells students to look for order, that they assume there is some there somewhere. That is only rational...a figure of authority says "Look for order here" and so you do...because she wouldn't be a teacher if she hadn't learned what order was, you also trust she won't lead you astray and thus rationally you conclude there must be order, if only you could find it. And so you create it somehow. This is psychology, not really philosophy but I do not see at all how this supports any form of chaos, because as you can see by my points (hopefully) it is not chaotic at all. It is very systematic and purpose driven.

If my examples do not prove chaos, then at the very least they prove the possibility of chaos. Hypothetically, if you wish, if we lived in a chaotic universe and were told by an authority figure (parents, media, teachers) to "Look for order here" ("Make something of yourself," "You too can be rich," "knowledge is power") then our minds would indeed rationalize that chaos and try to write a sort of order out of it. Right? We could be living in one now and with metanarratives and our minds' ability to rationalize we would never know it.

Niniva

Just because each affect has an infinite number of "possible" causes does not mean they were all present, and if she got pulled over speeding then there were a stronger set of causes that led to that then the opposing affect. Continuity is necessary, events have to take place not only temporally but they also have to take place in relation to each other.

Take any one of the causes out of the equation, and the affect will not take place.

Very well, I will submit that continuity is not a myth. However, my examples intended to show that a person's role in continuity is greatly lacking. As you pointed out, if you take any one of the causes out of the equation and the affect will not take place. This means our judgment, or "will" if one prefers, is only one small aspect to create what actually occurs. Our involvement in any action is only a drop in the bucket.

The point I was trying to make in the 'Woman Speeding' example was that the human mind cannot tackle the amount cause and effect sequences to ever purposefully do anything. When we see the woman we can say, "it was her choice to speed and receive the punishment,"

Niniva

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That just saying, "the universe is chaotic and humans merely write a metanarrative," is a massive understatement to how chaotic the universe really is.

You do realize of course that this statement is a bold and blatant contradiction just by being written right? How can you formulate a sentence....and understand it....if the universe is just chaos?

You can't. So I could type this sentence:

"houl klell als kn n nklaskn ln n nk lkhlh klj jlkn nkl lkhlhl"

And according to your philosophy it has exactly as much meaning as your sentence I have quoted above. The universe may have SOME chaos, but to claim it is complete chaos?

I submit that not only could we understand the universe in this way, but that this is the only way we can understand it. The very fact that we can both look at the same evidence and come up with wildly different conclusions, I think, proves that we are both constructing our own metanarratives through the far too much data we are confronted with everyday. Though you think you and I share the same understanding of my sentence, we obviously don't considering I agree with it and you do not. What I wrote made perfect sense to me, I felt, but since you see it as "a bold and blatant contradiction" than perhaps to you it made about as much sense as "houl klell als kn n nklaskn ln n nk lkhlh klj jlkn nkl lkhlhl."

This is the point that I was futilely trying to make in my previous posts in terms of subjectivity. I was not trying to say that the universe is only a product of the mind (I'm not a solipsist after all). What I was attempting to convey is that what the universe presented to us in its pure raw form is meaningless and chaotic. When one gets down to the brass tax of particle physics and theory, there is not real difference between you and the chair you sit in. It is a human product to simplify things into categories that are practical, as well as also being entirely wrong. But instead of being driven insane by the unfiltered complexity of it all, we weave our own personal, individual(, subjective?) metanarratives. And metanarratives are only stories after all.

Niniva

If causality is not true then neither is any science, mathematics, or logical formula....and I don't think you want to go that far.

Not yet, but give me some time to think about it lol  

[whynaut]

Arson Hiroha

Hmm, well if you like we could make another topic for this, so we could continue to discuss it without taking up too much space here. The reason I wandered into questioning your philosophy is because your reasons for pursueing it aren't quite clear. Congratulations, there are no rules that really -physically- impose upon you. Now what, you decide to go on a killing spree since there are no rules truly preventing it?

It does not matter if a rule is physical, by all means, it still holds sway. You would say that a man like Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin killed millions of people. However, could you picture Hitler wandering around Auschwitz with a pistol and kill 6 million of the Jewish people? No, it is their power of ideal that made them so horrific. It is psychological, and to the point that they were able to virtually control other people. The reverse is also true with leaders who do things that prevent deaths (notice, I never said good or evil in these statements). They can only do so with the power of persuasion, otherwise they're just a man with a loudspeaker.

As far as the ultimate test for your theory goes, I challenge you. Go out and kill your own family. All laws are psychological in nature, and so is love, right? So naturally, if you want to be truly logical, by your standards, you should have no qualms with killing them or anyone else. Yet unless you are actually quite insane, I highly doubt you will do so after this post. I'll put it bluntly, you have values. If they shift as easily as you say, then why do you keep them the way they are? Why not just go ahead and kill your mother and father? There must be some reasons that people choose their values... Some have to be better than others, at least in the sense of survival. Otherwise, have fun killing your family, your girlfriend, your dog, whatever. It's all just arbitrary judgements on values. Have fun.

Also, who ever mentioned chaos? I never said anything about order being important, I only said that we would die much more quickly. Society isn't just a common tennet in a man's values, but it's also a survival one. If you wish to prove me wrong, wrestle a bear to the ground with your bare hands once a day for the rest of your life and I'll believe you. Also, if I was really feeling skeptical, I could have you make a newborn child do the same thing, or a 7 year old so we can have an example with some sort of "values".

Basically, you say that rules aren't physically imposing, and yet you choose to follow them for some reason. Why?

I know a reason just popped into your mind, but it likely goes against your arguement. If it's simply for survival, if not any other reason, then my point is made.

When I mentioned the myth of chaos being evil, it was directed to your comment of why we don't go around killing people then if there are no rules. My answer to that is, "why should we be killing people?" Is the only thing that prevents one another from killing each other our morals or "rules"? Is 'murderer' the default setting of humanity until god/deity/universe programs in our moral code?

There are many reasons why I have not nor will ever plan to kill my family beyond my morals. For one thing, I feel good when I am around them. There are also a billion other reasons ranging from the emotional to the financial. In any case, their continued existence, to me, outweighs winning a bet with you.

Heck, even it is even my own personal "rule" to find murder abhorrent. What I am unwilling to submit, however, is that there is an absolute "rule" hovering above our heads that prevents us from committing an act of murder. It then follows that if there is nothing really stopping us breaking rules, I feel, it disproves rules' existence.

Not to mention that the foundation for the particular "rule" about murder is flawed. It states that people are better off alive than dead. I am a fairly big Star Trek fan, I'll admit, but one thing that always bugged me was the Spock logic that, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" which he used to sacrifice his own life to save a bunch of other people's lives. I always thought, "Why?" When one gets into the nitty gritty of logic, why do we need to live at all? I know this sounds like I am being macabre, but I am serious. Is there a list somewhere that I missed that ranks "life" at the top of importance?

I know this is not true of everyone. Some cultures see killing or suicide as honorable. Studies have shown that "death" is not even everyone's number 1 fear; it's public speaking. Does this mean that there is an intrinsic rule, like that supposedly of murder, that people should not speak in public?

Your example of Hitler and the other dictators killing millions though raises a good point. They were able to invent rules and then, through some kind of mechanism, were able to convince others that these rules existed. So it would seem as though they have some sort of power. On the other hand though, at any point a person could have (and I am sure did) say "No." People could have denied Hitler's rules by seeing that they had no real substance. If, as you say, rules are psychological rather than physical, than it would go to follow that breaking them too would simply be matter of the mind.

But enough of murder for one day. No doubt you may have noticed my remark that I have my own personal "rules" or values. If there are no intrinsic value to rules then why follow them? Now don't get me wrong, it was this question that used to keep me awake at night. Eventually, with the help of a few philosophers like Foucault, I came across the conclusion that everyone must write some type of rules for themselves because, to put it simply, there is no other way to live. No matter what you do or don't do, you are already living by some sort of rule. What I can do though is not be bound by any of my rules. By knowing they are not real, I can change them if need be. Unlike a lot of people, I would never need to be at conflict with my rules. Or if someone imposed rules onto me that I did not like, I could move to someone whose rules were more in tune with my own.

But, of course, I am not saying I can do all of this now. Learning is easy when compared to Unlearning. One has to take all the "rules" they have learned and systematically unlearn they exist. It is not easy, but like I said before, it only takes will and practice.

PS. I really am sorry if my posts come off a bit catty lately. As another personal "rule" I do not like to even try to convert people to my way of thinking in the real world through debating. On the computer, on the other hand, I consider it my own personal space to vent about things. So the angst in my post may really be directed at the guy at my school selling Jesus at the top of his lungs and not necessarily at you. So again, I do apologize if any thing I write offends.  

[Arson Hiroha]

Quote:

When I mentioned the myth of chaos being evil, it was directed to your comment of why we don't go around killing people then if there are no rules. My answer to that is, "why should we be killing people?" Is the only thing that prevents one another from killing each other our morals or "rules"? Is 'murderer' the default setting of humanity until god/deity/universe programs in our moral code?

There are many reasons why I have not nor will ever plan to kill my family beyond my morals. For one thing, I feel good when I am around them. There are also a billion other reasons ranging from the emotional to the financial. In any case, their continued existence, to me, outweighs winning a bet with you.

Heck, even it is even my own personal "rule" to find murder abhorrent. What I am unwilling to submit, however, is that there is an absolute "rule" hovering above our heads that prevents us from committing an act of murder. It then follows that if there is nothing really stopping us breaking rules, I feel, it disproves rules' existence.

Not to mention that the foundation for the particular "rule" about murder is flawed. It states that people are better off alive than dead. I am a fairly big Star Trek fan, I'll admit, but one thing that always bugged me was the Spock logic that, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" which he used to sacrifice his own life to save a bunch of other people's lives. I always thought, "Why?" When one gets into the nitty gritty of logic, why do we need to live at all? I know this sounds like I am being macabre, but I am serious. Is there a list somewhere that I missed that ranks "life" at the top of importance?

I know this is not true of everyone. Some cultures see killing or suicide as honorable. Studies have shown that "death" is not even everyone's number 1 fear; it's public speaking. Does this mean that there is an intrinsic rule, like that supposedly of murder, that people should not speak in public?

Your example of Hitler and the other dictators killing millions though raises a good point. They were able to invent rules and then, through some kind of mechanism, were able to convince others that these rules existed. So it would seem as though they have some sort of power. On the other hand though, at any point a person could have (and I am sure did) say "No." People could have denied Hitler's rules by seeing that they had no real substance. If, as you say, rules are psychological rather than physical, than it would go to follow that breaking them too would simply be matter of the mind.

But enough of murder for one day. No doubt you may have noticed my remark that I have my own personal "rules" or values. If there are no intrinsic value to rules then why follow them? Now don't get me wrong, it was this question that used to keep me awake at night. Eventually, with the help of a few philosophers like Foucault, I came across the conclusion that everyone must write some type of rules for themselves because, to put it simply, there is no other way to live. No matter what you do or don't do, you are already living by some sort of rule. What I can do though is not be bound by any of my rules. By knowing they are not real, I can change them if need be. Unlike a lot of people, I would never need to be at conflict with my rules. Or if someone imposed rules onto me that I did not like, I could move to someone whose rules were more in tune with my own.

But, of course, I am not saying I can do all of this now. Learning is easy when compared to Unlearning. One has to take all the "rules" they have learned and systematically unlearn they exist. It is not easy, but like I said before, it only takes will and practice.

PS. I really am sorry if my posts come off a bit catty lately. As another personal "rule" I do not like to even try to convert people to my way of thinking in the real world through debating. On the computer, on the other hand, I consider it my own personal space to vent about things. So the angst in my post may really be directed at the guy at my school selling Jesus at the top of his lungs and not necessarily at you. So again, I do apologize if any thing I write offends.

You say that there is nothing stopping us from breaking the rule's enforcement, but at least in some individuals, there is. Your family makes you feel good, that's enough for me. It has nothing to do with murder being a "default code"; in fact, I am argueing the exact opposite. Humanity, as for the majority of society, typically doesn't commit murder because they fear reprisal, view it immoral, or many other things. Anyway, the bottom line is that they don't murder because it's easier to survive that way. It's how the human race has survived through the times to evolve to where we are.

Additionally, I am saying that any rationale you give for not killing your family is a moral code, simply because you have guaranteed me that you will not break it. You don't want to call it morality, but in essence, that's exactly what it is.

As for one's choice to live, to many it's different. Animals simply don't see death as an alternative, which is the mindset we began in I'm sure. Now, with minds as complex as that of a human, not only do most of us maintain this "evolutionary" programming but we also find different reasons for living. For example, mine is that I will willingly throw away my life as long as it makes a major difference in the current state of our world. In other words, I will not die for an unjust cause or no cause at all, that is my reason. Don't bother contesting that, though, because everyone else likely has one entirely different. You have one too, or else you would be dead. However, it may be to simply answer questions like these.

Also, indeed, psychology would make breaking rules a matter of mind. However, human psychology is put together in very organized, and often uniform ways, or else the word "psychology" wouldn't exist. We also wouldn't have words, most likely. People would constantly break rules of any sort and humans would die off, simply because they have nothing to act on, even instincts. In pure anarchy, even instincts are still law. If minds weren't uniform, we wouldn't even have that.

Hitler, Stalin, Caesar, any leader that you name, good or bad, knew which of these rules to play on. For example, Hitler played on national pride, indignation towards Britain and France for the war reparations, and fear of the Communists. He knew which buttons to push, and he pressed them. In many ways, people are very predictable. It's only occasionally that you get those outliers who shift the tide, for better or worse (like Hitler or Caesar themselves). Any politician uses these rules to an extreme, both candidates for president in the U.S. are using them right now. Barack Obama likes to use spectacles, and have you noticed that every picture of him is from a downward angle, with him looking up, but serious? He's an expert at playing on human psychology.

Hmm, and I'm glad you added in that last paragraph before the P.S. . I was about to say that if rules can be changed by will, then why do we keep them? Psychology is one basis, and another is personal experience/genetics. All human minds have basic things programmed into them, many of which can be played upon by politicians and those seeking to sway you easily.

The examples are endless, but I'll give you one that sounds very basic before you explain it: people love it when you mirror their ideas. If you relate to them, they find a mirror image of themselves, they're enveloped in a sort of narcissism where everything you say is as if it came from their lips. For example, have you noticed how politicians always pretend to be the "common man"? They'll roll up their sleeves, adopt a fake southern accent, liken themselves to cowboys (I'ma lookin atchou', Reagan and Bush), and a multitude of other things. You can tell how fabricated these things are; Bush was a rich son of an oil dynasty and a former president, and Reagan was a Hollywood actor, far from factories or the wild west. Yet we liked them because they mirrored us. Say that I send someone a survey about all of their favorite bands, movies, and personal philosophies, then talk to them a week later and mention that I like these things. They will immediately like me, as long as they think I'm sincere.

Thus, you've noticed that I like the symbolism of the mask (which, symbollically, I am not wearing right now). In one instance, the mask is simply a mirror on my face. I mirror the interests you have, I mirror your hopes, I mirror the traits that you desire in me. I become your ideal, and most of all, you see me as part of you.

That's one of only 48 laws concerning human psychology, and you can already see how much influence only that one has. If they weren't built in, then tricks like that simply wouldn't work. However, not only have you seen leaders use it on the American, European, and German people, but I'm sure that thinking back, you can come up with times that it has been used on you.

P.S. That's alright, I don't take debates personally. As long as we stay on the points and the subject doesn't drift, it's alright to me. 3nodding  

[whynaut]

I have been getting jabbed by the left of science for so long, and now I finally get uppercut with the right of psychology. stressed It is not a vein of thought that I have much experience arguing, but nevertheless we shall just have to press on.

There was something that initially irked me with your argument, and I could not place it until now. I am not 100% sure I know what you are arguing for?

A)Are arguing for a set of immutable inherent rules to the universe? Like, not killing or something. This is not implying that you are saying that anyone necessarily knows them yet, but that through various means of Science, Psychology, and/or Philosophy we may discover them someday.

or B) Are you arguing that rules are different for for everyone, but that rules (no matter what they are) have a substantial power over people that is more than ethereal? Like, metaphorically speaking, the size and dimensions of the prison may change but the metal bars are always just as strong.

Because I, of course, refute both of these concepts. I just want to see how to approach the problem. Without knowing more, I can still say this: a hundred human minds can all look at the same thing and each see something entirely different. Human minds are not uniform in this sense. To use your "law" of mirroring, let us take one boy and let that boy be viewed by viewed by the 100 people. Irregardless of the boy's traits and personality, some people will be feel this mirroring and some will not. Even some people who share the boys traits will not see, or refuse to see, the mirror and reject him. Others, who have nothing in common with the boy, may invent traits to add on to him in order invent that mirroring bond between them.

Not only this, but the law of mirroring itself does not work for all people all the time. I know that I have met people who I feel match my interests so well that I grow threatened of them; afraid that they might make a better me than I do.

It is my belief that if a rule does not work all the time, than it is not a rule. This "rule" is actually just a story we invent to interconnect ideas that inherently have no connection. It is like looking up at the 9500 randomly placed stars in the sky and connecting the dots to make constellations and discounting the stars that don't fit our picture.  

[Arson Hiroha]

I suppose you can say I'm argueing for B, but I'd prefer to word it myself. I'm argueing that everyone has a book of psychological rules that are universal in some ways, and unique in others.

Think of it kindof as a massive rulebook, with different rules overriding each other. If you break one rule while using another, the rulebreaking stands out. For example with what you're describing, they followed that rule but broke another rule at the same time: People hate it when you're better than them at something they take pride in. If we're both the best football players in the world and I defeat you, you'll nearly want me dead.

However, you could also think of it as programming in a computer. In the cases of the insane and the criminal, you could see it as the mental programming going awry. Not only do I say that these psychological "rules" are nearly universal, except with the insane and others, but they are evolutionary. For example, we don't kill humans, but cooperate instead. This results for a higher survival rate for everyone involved, and thus it is encouraged by evolution.

However, there are other qualities that are rare and vary greatly. We all have this basic system, but through experience and different genetics, we get different data put in. An insane man may be seen as someone who can't process data properly, while a great leader is someone who not only knows these rules, consciously or subconciously, but manipulates them to get the desired result.

As for why you don't like my arguement, it's probably because in explaining it to you, I'm breaking numerous psychological rules. For example, the very fact that I'm not using emotion in my arguements, and that I seem more powerful (or more arrogant) than others by seeming knowledgeable of these rules. By describing them, I come across a pragmatic manipulator.

If you're interested in my other dilemma about the dualities in me, between politician and policy maker, goals and method, warrior and tactician, this is the logistical unemotional side that manipulates you to no end. However, I'd have to say that it's my righteous side that's describing it to you, because if I was speaking as a manipulator I would never tell you these things. It would be some kind of uplifting speach. (Also, it ties in to the quote in my sig directly)

In essence, I am describing to you the power of lies. While doing so, I am made weaker in this situation for doing it truthfully.  

[whynaut]

My own problem with a psychological look at the universe is a very basic one. It is the classification of who is insane and who is not. Personally, I do not think that there is a difference between these two peoples. For example, in your argument you mentioned that the insane man is the person who has problems with "the rules" and the great leader is a person who is adept at using "the rules." Consider a man who has an intimidating presence, he believes that human life is expendable for the victory, and that it is his divine right to rule. Put this man in the place of a Medieval King and he is a great leader; put this man in the place of New York mechanic and he is a psychopath. Same actions, same intent, same mind set; yet one man is a leader and the other is insane.

If one looks through out history, like one of my favorite philosophers Foucault, one can easily see that the madman in one century can be the visionary of another and vice versa. I feel this further proves the random nature of the universe that the same person can fail or thrive depending on their time and position. That it is not the man that can decide his place in the universe, but that the universe (or culture) decides if a man is insane or great or evil or good by his placement in that culture and not that man himself.

You say that killing each other is evolutionary no-no and that makes it a "rule". However on an Earth 100 years from now that is so populated no one can extend their arms, killing might become the evolutionary imperative in order to survive.

The current psychology "rules" are only convenient now and in a paradigm shift (to which there are several historical precedents) those "rules" may become bunk in the randomly changing human culture.

And to be fair, you can never truly any idea what I am thinking. That's my point.