"It is impossible to represent the truth functions of symbolic logic in an analog computer, because the analog computer cannot say 'not-A' — StreetlightX

Right - on my analog watch 3:30 (which is not really 3:30, because there are no identities) is not "not 3:31" - thus spoke the metaphysician.

What,if any,is the purpose/goal a human would strive towards,in living his/her life? — hunterkf5732

Developing virtue and character - that's the only thing worth striving for. Of course that requires you engage in a multitude of other actions and behaviours.

Title says it all. — darthbarracuda

Virtue is my ethical foundation. Virtue is the one and only thing that can never be lost, nothing can take it away from you (unless of course you give it). Any other thing such as pleasure is impermanent, and a wise man will never stake his happiness on that which is perishable. Put your dough where crows cannot reach my friend...

I don't see how you could disagree with the modern Indian practices of "slavery'' in view of the above quote.

Lots of these people working as "slaves'' would have far worse lives if given independence and released out into the general Indian public,where they would immediately be recognized as poor and weak and subsequently preyed upon by other powerful,less decent people than their former employers. — hunterkf5732

I don't disagree with it in the sense of I want to abolish it tomorrow. I disagree with it in the sense that I think we should gradually move towards a society in which these people can achieve more independence, probably by ensuring their children have access to good education. I'm not condemning their life to be intolerable, and them needing immediate salvation as a revolutionary would. (and the reason you cite, that they will have a worse life otherwise, is precisely the reason why I am not a revolutionary - I understand the contingencies and limitations of history).

Furthermore,it seems unreasonable to even call this slavery, since this sort of situation where these people are given decent wages and accommodation is radically different from what slavery refers to generally. — hunterkf5732

When Plato and Aristotle used the word, they frequently referred to this type of slavery, hence why I used the word. People like to import modern connotations into the past, and this doesn't work very well. There is no progression in history, different historical periods are radically different and have totally different conceptions of social and economic organisation, and any broad look will just miss these differences which in the end are essential to understand the period and its thinkers.

Not true. Conditions for the slaves in the Roman mines were famously brutal. — jamalrob

I was talking about slavery as understood by the Ancients - referring mainly to Aristotle and Plato. Yes of course there were cases where slavery was exceptionally brutal - I'm saying though that this wasn't the case for most slaves. During the Industrial Revolution conditions were extremely brutal for most slaves as they were exploited in the name of maximising production; of course even then there were exceptions; some slaves working for noble families on their estates were treated decently, and provided with decent, although not exceptional living conditions, and not demanded inhuman amounts of effort.

Aristotle and Plato, by the way, have never encouraged abuse of people, whether they were slaves or otherwise. Slavery still exists in modern days in a sense alike to the slavery existing for the Ancients in India. Many rich Indians have slaves (they call them servants) - they are bound for a very long term generally to live and work on their estates, and their children are raised and educated on their estates as well. They are provided adequate nutrition and means of living, and are treated with decency. They can leave if they wish, but they're not likely to find employment and means of sustenance with the same ease in other places. I don't agree with such a practice because it highly limits capacity for independence and development, but I can nevertheless notice how much less abusive it is in comparison to industrial age slavery, and how some Ancients, like Plato and Aristotle, could think that such an arrangement was profitable even for the slaves.

I will add though, that if we develop the thinking of both Aristotle and Plato and elucidate and correct their system so that it is internally coherent, then they would indeed be against all forms of slavery or economic servitude.

What name would you give that vice? Edit: Perhaps justice is the virtue that is at issue? Hard to see one man owning another as being fair or just. — anonymous66

Ancient slavery was a completely different phenomenon from industrial age slavery which is the idea all of us have in our minds when we think of slavery. The slavery where the slave is brutalised and completely dehumanised is not Ancient slavery, but industrial age slavery. A sleight of hand is committed when the two phenomena are associated together, which is the same sleight of hand committed when Victorian age female oppression is associated with practices dating in Ancient Rome. The two ages are different. Plato, Aristotle, and the other virtue ethicists would find industrial age slavery to be ABHORRENT.

But I think value for authority is the norm in human life generally. So it's only in the context of an oddly liberal society that it comes off as dangerous. — The Great Whatever

Good point ;)

They've tended to agree on these values for very straightforward evolutionary reasons. It's in men's reproductive interest not to be cuckolded. Those that were would tend to nurture the genes of more cunning rivals and fail to pass their own on. Hence the evolved tendency in men to value faithfulness and fear promiscuity in their female mates. The virgin / slut dichotomy is built in to the male psyche. As for women, it should be obvious that promiscuity in men is a threat to their and their offspring's monopoly on men's resources. You don't need any transcendental magic to explain this stuff. — Baden

I perfectly agree that there also exists a biological basis for sexual practices. I probably disagree with you a little over the nuts and bolts of it, but it's somewhat as you put it. However - that is not what I was talking about. Man has both a biological and a spiritual side. The spiritual will reconcile and fulfill man's biological nature as well as his spiritual. But the spiritual is different. Man and women have a different biological nature when it comes to sexual preferences: man is by nature polygamous, as this maximises his chances of developing as many offspring as possible. No aspect of his biology can restrict his reproduction - he can always, if the females are available, reproduce. Due to the fact that a woman cannot go from man to man and give birth - because she requires sustenance and protection during pregnancy, which lasts for a significant time, and poses significant risks - she by nature will be monogamous. Out of this biological difference between men and women, there can arise many conflicts - that I agree. This is assessment is justified by: (1) the stronger emphasis on sexual purity for women across all the world's cultures, (2) the fact that women are more frequently the victims of cheating, (3) the existence of large social groups (Middle East) where polygamy for men is acceptable, (4) the lower number of unfaithful women in comparison to men.

However - from a spiritual point of view, it is not reproduction that matters, and that drives practices, but rather intimacy and love. From love's point of view monogamy is demanded for both men and women, and is necessary for the fulfilment of their spiritual nature. Today's problems do not stem from biology - indeed it is precisely a wilful, spiritual betrayal of biology that is the cause. Young women do not reproduce - the average age of marriage and child-bearing is getting higher and higher, 27+. The age of reproduction used to be much much lower, down to as low as 21. There isn't a reproductory rush towards rich males to ensure sustenance of offspring. There is a rush towards rich males to ensure what progressive's love - lots of parties, lots of drinking, lots of drugs, lots of "fun", lots of promiscuity, lots of holidays in exotic places. That's what these women do until they're 27, they're not concerned about reproduction (it would in fact be a much better thing if they were concerned with reproduction) That's why the rush is towards the rich. Take away the drinking, drugs, and fun - say by looking at a rich religious man, and you'll see a lot less, if any, of those young girls rushing to him. They're only rushing to the new, progressive rich, not to the old, aristocratic wealth, which still remains largely socially conservative, and which remains anathema to these progressive women. So this is all a SPIRITUAL disorder, which needs to be understood in spiritual terms, not in biological terms. Biological terms fail to see the source of the problem, which has very little to do with reproduction, and much more to do with wilful spiritual rebellion and lack of piety.

Yes if you're not interested in the transcendental, like you seem not to be, indeed, then my claim (or that of other people for that matter) is irrelevant to you :)

Again it does not matter that these are actions, what matters is people claim these things are based on transcendental truths. — m-theory

Yes, so what? You're not speaking to "people" - you're speaking to me. So why does it matter what they say? That's clearly nonsensical given the definition we both accepted, as I've explained.

Once again even people that are truly open towards the transcendental disagree about what is true and what is not. — m-theory

No actually they don't disagree. There is no major world religion which claims that sexual partners should be promiscuous or otherwise be unfaithful to one another for example. None. So why do you think different cultures, different religions, in different time frames have always agreed upon this? Chance? No - it's because these values have been perceived to be true for human beings - or at least for MOST human beings.

And yes, of course there have been exceptions. But there have also been exceptions in geographical maps which are wrong. That doesn't mean no map is correct. Most geographical maps state the same thing, this is corroborating evidence towards the conclusion that they are accurate descriptions of reality. If we disbelieve them, no problem, we can go out there and check for ourselves. Same here.

And honour killing your daughter is NOT transcendental - neither is following the teachings of Prophet Mohammed. These are actions, which may be initiated upon VALUES, which are indeed transcendental. The actions definitely aren't. Killing your daughter is located in this world, most definitely - it's a physical event. So of course it's not transcendental.

You seemed to miss the point.

Claiming something is transcendentally true does not make it true.

For example some claim that we must follow the teaching of the prophet Mohammad is a transcendental truth.

Would you agree that it is a transcendental truth?

If you don't agree then you are saying that some people are wrong about what is transcendental truth. — m-theory

A statement is not trasncendental, no. What the statement refers to may be transcendental. Following a way isn't one of those things. Values, meanings, significance - those things are transcendental. And of course, merely claiming something is transcendentally true doesn't make it so, neither did my proof criterion claim it does make it so. Have you failed to read that it should be possible for any person, if they truly want and are open towards it, to have the same experience and hence find the same value as someone else? - Validate it through their own experience?

But experiences vary and we do not all agree.

There are different religions for this reason.

Take for example that Muslim transcendental truth of honor killing ones daughter.
Do you agree with that?

Many Muslims report that they experience the truth of this tradition from a transcendental source.

So no I don't agree with your criterion.

Shared agreement does not equal proof. — m-theory

No - actually they don't. There's social traditions - such as women have to wear the hijab - and then there's VALUES - such as women have to dress DECENTLY. The values are present in all the world's main religions,the same values. The social traditions may be different. Sexual purity and virginity are important values in all religions again - what is to be done in cases of impurity is a social custom and is different. So I think you need to sharpen your understanding of what values are, and differentiate them from social traditions which are founded upon those values. Yes, I think it is wrong to honor kill your daughter - because sexual purity isn't the only value out there, and the moral landscape is hierarchical - some values are more important than others. Social traditions may be critiqued, but only once values are understood.

I have already made it clear that there is no transcendental proof.

You can claim whatever you want and say it is transcendentally true.
That does not make it true in any way except that you believe it. — m-theory

Well sir, if you hold it axiomatically that there is no proof that can be offered, then you have been quite disingenuous in asking me to offer you one no? Because you would outright deny it, by this very axiom. So sir, if you will ever be interested and open to experience of the transcendental, and interested to expand your knowledge about it, then you will have to be willing to discern, given the nature of the transcendental, what would constitute as proof. Until you develop interest in this, it will not be beneficial to you to axiomatically claim there is no proof. Proof is something we decide upon given the essence of the subject, and you have agreed on the essence.

No what you are arguing for is a shared agreement about beliefs of the transcendental.
Not transcendental truth.

But experiences vary and we do not all agree.

There are different religions for this reason.

Take for example that Muslim transcendental truth of honor killing ones daughter.
Do you agree with that?

Many Muslims report that they experience the truth of this tradition from a transcendental source.

So no I don't agree with your criterion.

Shared agreement does not equal proof. — m-theory

Sir, I take it then that you have a better idea of what proof of the transcendent should consist in. So please go ahead and outline it for me, and please explain how it's suitable to the definition towards which we have both expressed our agreements! :)

Agustino, light of my way, love of my heart, where have you been? — Bitter Crank

On the other forum :P (does that count as a form of promiscuity?)

Ok perfect, so it seems you agree with the definition then. Fine! So if we know what the transcendental is, what would count as adequate proof given its essence? Would we ask for scientific experiments to be run? Would we count repeatability as strong a factor as we do in the physical sciences? Will we still nevertheless expect there to be a way for each person - granting only that they desire and are willing to persevere sufficiently in their attempts - to nevertheless replicate an experience? Would we expect multiple sources of evidence to be corroborated together, and outnumber those who state the opposite?

I think sir, that granting the essence we cannot expect scientific experiments to be run - it would be unreasonable, as we already accepted that the instruments of science are inadequate for this job. I also think that granting that there is no help from physical instruments, and man must rely only on his own experience, we cannot expect repeatability to be systematised. There will be no system to reproduce a given experience. Nevertheless, we do expect, if the transcendental is what we said it is, that people would be able to arrive at the same experiences described by others if they so desire and are willing to do what it takes and strive for the experience - this is to say, we would expect the experience to be common, if indeed the transcendental is what we said it is. And finally we would expect the transcendental landscape to be corroborated by multiple sources which outnumber those who state the opposite is the case, just like we expect the geographical landscape to be corroborated by multiple sources which outnumber those who state otherwise. Do you agree sir? If so, then what shall we say about the transcendental truth that you know? Can it be proved according to this criteria? :)

Indeed. But this is very important, because worldviews are the glasses through which we see, perceive, feel and navigate our own experience and the world. A worldview which is not in agreement with our basic human essence is going to be ruinous to our well-being, and we will not be able to perceive it unless we change the glasses :) . So it's important for people to realise the tremendous effect worldviews have. Maybe if they do, they will be interested to experiment with changing glasses, just out of that nagging curiosity which progressives always display :).

Yes indeed. I see that you do not want to share your knowledge of the transcendental or of what a transcendental proof would look like. So I will proceed with a definition of transcendental to advance our discussion.

I propose sir, that transcendental is anything that cannot be investigated with physical instruments (meaning instruments of physical sciences - microscopes, etc); anything that knowledge of the structure of the physical world as investigated by physical instruments would not reveal. Is this in accordance with your understanding of transcendental sir?

Interesting. So then you will clearly be able to show me how you have gained that knowledge, will you not? Moreover, since you have transcendental knowledge regarding transcendental proofs, I take it you already know what they are. So please outline me what a transcendental proof would consist in, and also what the object of transcendental knowledge is. Since you have gained this transcendental knowledge, this should be easy for you!

Well if you will know whether something is transcendentally true or not my friend, then clearly you must have an idea what the transcendental is. Otherwise how will you recognise it?

Will you trust me? If you won't, then please provide me with a vague notion of what the transcendental means for you. Define it. Then I may be able to point you to an experience of the transcendental.

You are the one that claims to know transcendentally.
Not me. — m-theory

Well sir, if you do not know what "the transcendental" refers to, how will you recognise it when I say it to you?

What does "the transcendental" mean? What does this word refer to?

By definition you will not be able to show empirical evidence in support of your claim.
So you tell me what sort of proof that will leave? — m-theory

Well sir, I am asking you this question. What would you be willing to consider as proof? I've already explained what proof looks like in physics, and you seem to agree. So before I bring about a proof of a transcendental experience for you, please let me know what such a proof would look like. What would it take to convince you? Because without knowing this, we're like blind men looking for a black cat in a dark house :)

Yes sir, I can see that already. But I'm not quite sure what would count as proof for you. Because you see, as Aristotle has taught us, proof is different according to the different subjects that we study, and it would be an error to consider proof in biology, what is considered proof in physics. For example, in physics we consider a certain experience, namely measuring the mean-square distance of a polen particle suspended in water undergoing Brownian Motion under a microscope over a fixed time interval and then finding this to be equivalent with what we predict based on the assumption of elastic collisions, transfer of momentum, and conservation of kinetic energy (which are a priori accepted as true) in a theoretical frame-work based on the assumption that water is formed of small ball-like particles called atoms as proof for the existence of atoms. So before anything is done, we must determine what counts as proof. So please, let me know what would count as proof of a transcendental experience sir. If we are interested to advance a certain science, then we must choose the methods which advance it, and not those which keep us stuck.

To show you a proof sir, first you must elucidate for me what such a proof would consist in, so that I can deliver to you what you're asking for.

Claiming you know something from a transcendental experience does not prove anything. — m-theory

This is just another statement sir. Where is the proof?

So? How is that proof for or against?

lol
I have beliefs but you have knowledge.

Except you can't prove your knowledge. — m-theory

But you sir, I suppose you can prove that nobody "sees" (ie, experiences) the transcendental...

Except nobody can see the transcendental.
We are all color blind.
Even those in our traditions. — m-theory

That is your belief sir and you may hold it if you wish - I know it to be otherwise, and I hold it to be self-evidently true, as if it weren't, I wouldn't even be able to talk of values (as no such idea could form in my head without the necessary underlying experience). But if this doesn't convince you, fair enough, I can do no better! :)

Yes, and the color-blind I suppose should also say the same about the existence of colors they cannot see, that they don't exist, and their sight is perfectly fine, everyone else is wrong. But they don't, because they're smart enough to open a text-book and read about the subject. Perhaps you too should have a look at your tradition and see, maybe you'll learn something. It's not all about what a man can see with his tiny mind. We have the intelligence of the species on our side through tradition. Our tiny minds are nothing without the help of tradition.

My claim is rather simple - just like we have a sense to see chairs in the world, we have a sense to see values, which are transcendental. Some of us do this more clearly than the others (just like some have better vision, while others require glasses), but all of us live our spiritual lives bounded and governed by the existence of these same values, whether we recognise them or not. Hence our happiness depends on and is determined by those eternal values, and if we struggle to see what they are, then that's what tradition is for... tradition is equivalent to the glasses, which help fix our vision.

I guess you have never heard of the is/ought problem?

It is very much not a fact that "values are values." — m-theory

The is/ought distinction is founded on a category error. Values don't exist in the sense of the way a chair exists, somewhere to be found and touched in the real world. They are transcendental, above and beyond the world. A mere analysis of the physics of the world will not yield you any values. And yet, that is not to say values don't exist. Only that they don't exist in the same way as atoms do. To expect the same kind of being with regards to values as in regards to atoms is to misunderstand the nature/essence of each.

Values are values. Not my values and your values. Me and you, we can assume things to be values, we don't decide what they are.

I am against the alt-right as well. It's produced by progressives.

But the real threat to progressivism isn't these idiotic totalitarian Alt-Right neo-fascists. — Agustino

Just a bunch of racists who meet each other on-line?

How is that supposed to be of significance in the up-coming US election? — Mongrel

Progressives - like all leftist groups having a tendency towards totalitarianism and decadence - must always create this "Other" who is a false image of the real threat - their own projection, which is aimed at nothing but maintaining their ignorance. That's what the Alt-Right is. Of course, they will paint this other exactly according to their own worldview - in this case - sexually frustrated, white, minority, etc. But this is nothing other than a big red-herring to mobilise the stupid masses and drive them against people who actually hold a very different world-view, and thus perceive and interact with the world through a different set of glasses.



You will find very little information online or in Western Academia about the real enemy of progressives. Everything becomes a fog that is just a projection, a vilification which seeks to eliminate alternatives, and force those who disagree - through a self-fulfilling mechanism - to become the enemy whom the progressives order them to become. Then they can be marginalised, mentally destroyed, and brought to submission - once they agree to play the progressive's game, starting from progressive principles, of course they will end up with progressive conclusions, seeing themselves as monsters. Psychology and psychiatry have already been corrupted to serve these ends. Men and women for example - are told continuously by the controlling liberal elite that unless they wear their sexuality proudly in public, they are not fulfilling their potential. They are told that unless they have others sexually attracted to them, something is wrong. Their whole set of values is constructed and imposed - BY FORCE - very important! - on them. It is hilarious, an absolute joke, when you see a married woman refusing to get an operation because she fears MEN will no longer be sexually attracted to her. This goes to show that this has been ingrained as a priority in her brain. There is no question of morality - her whole worldview is corrupt. And she cannot find out because wherever she turns, there the progressive ideologue is whispering in her ear.

This liberal cancer is a betrayal of real Western culture and civilisation - freedom has never, until the last 200 years, been understood as the ability to do whatever you want. On the contrary - the real Western idea of freedom was the man who held all his impulses in check - the free man was identical to the good man, and to the man free from the bondage of desire - NOT the one who yielded to whatever desires were found inside of him. Starting around the time of the French Revolution this originally ARISTOCRATIC understanding of freedom started to be corrupted, and a disgusting idea of freedom - the idea of freedom held by the spiritually weakest pace Nietzsche triumphed. What was worst in civilisation started to become acceptable. Little by little - to the point where today, even what is good is judged by the standards of evil: such that a desire for love, is judged to be a desire for sex. Such that love is found to be compatible with this disgusting idea of servitude to one's own ego and one's own desires. Such that society dissolves in an ocean of small separate islands. The real problem with things that progressives are obsessed with, like feminazism, equality, sex, etc. is that they destroy society, and as man is a social animal, it makes it impossible for any degree of happiness to be achieved. How do they destroy society? By destroying the MORAL and CULTURAL bonds between people. For example - a married couple is held together by the moral bond that exists between the two. What is beautiful in love is not just sex or what results from it. In fact - even for the progressive, it's not the pleasure of orgasm that drives him towards promiscuity (otherwise they would just be compulsive masturbators :) ). But rather - it is an evil and pernicious spiritual desire which is found in their heart - the desire for power and domination over the other (notice also how sex has become a matter of "social status" for them). That's why they want others to be attracted to them, and so forth. A person with a natural constitution, untouched by this progressive madness, has little interest in such matters. Yes - they do desire love - but they don't desire generalised sexual attraction towards their person. They just desire ONE person to be sexually attracted to them.

But if you change their mindset, such that in their brain, they perceive the world through the progressive categories, they will never understand why their marriages fail, they will never understand why they children are growing up crooked, they will never understand why they can't find love. The problem is themselves. How can you find love when you are interested in others being sexually attracted to you? One cannot serve both God and Mammon. One cannot want love - that which is an eternal and exclusivist feeling (hence why lovers feel "special" to one another) - and at the same time want sexual attraction which contains in itself the contradictory desire to love - love's undoing.

"Reproductive wealth gap" listen to this. As if love is some business dealing, and we must organise society such that we have an equitable distribution of the currency of sex . That will surely solve our problems, because the missing ingredient was certainly the asymmetrical distribution of sex. Trust me - if you organised, successfully, an equal distribution of sex then progressivism would end - because everyone would see through the deception, that it has never been sex that was the missing ingredient, but rather the fact that love has become impossible. Love is only possible in a society which preserves the cultural and moral bonds between people. Love requires loyalty, denial of self (which is never going to be congruent with desire for sexual attraction), courage, and faith. Love does not occur on Tinder. But of course - you keep creating the alter-egos, and the smoke and mirrors. Maybe you will keep fooling people. But the real threat to progressivism isn't these idiotic totalitarian Alt-Right neo-fascists. The real threat is those people who KNOW the historical traditions of the West, and who understand how progressives have stolen everyone's freedom, and imposed chains, by ideological force on everyone. Those people who know that progressives have stolen the possibility of happiness from the common man. Those people are the real threat, and let me tell you something about those people - you can't buy them out with sex, or with money, or with anything of this sort. Because what they are interested in, is not bought and sold like some dirty currency... what they are interested in cannot and will never be bought and sold because it is part of those perennial things - as T.S. Eliot called them. You can offer them all the sex you imagine - such people will refuse, because they know that your offer is actually your request for them to give up their faith, their morality, and their belief in love.

Emptiness, and feelings of meaninglessness - they are only possible in modernity, because only in modernity the perennial things have been dissolved. That's why the historical record does not have complaints of meaninglessness - life, in itself, untainted by progressive madness - is already so rich and meaningful. The progressives max out on drugs, sex and debauchery to run away from their own inner emptiness. The common man goes from party to party - but s/he will never find happiness - it will always elude him, because what happiness demands is rendered impossible by current Western society. This anger that you find building up in the unconsciousness of mankind is exactly the result of this: LOVE FRUSTRATION. Love for God, love for husband/wife, love. Real love, by the way, NOT the mockery of progressive love on Tinder, or the progressive mockery of traditional marriage and their deception of women that marriage is a misogynist institution from its conception, or their imposition on the young of a culture of "rap and drugs".

Again, this is laughably fallacious. They don't display a desire to become armchair philosophers either. — Sapientia

No - desire can exist even if they don't have the capacity for making it actual.

No-one is born with any sex. It's a category of language we use, we apply to someone with a body. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is such crass nonsense I won't even bother to address it. It just shows how insane progressivism has become.

It's laughable because it's a blatant category error. You can't compare the occurence of such a phenomenon to species insufficiently advanced for it to have arisen. If sharks and other creatures were to evolve to our level, and develop to where we are in history, then you could make such a comparison. — Sapientia

The more important fact is that such species do not display a desire to change their sex. They accept their nature as it is. Man is the only animal that sometimes tries to deny his nature.

Hilarious! You've got me there. I know from first hand experience, because, as part of a study, I've been observing the behaviour of sharks, and for years now, I've seen no sign of them attempting to get gender reassignment surgery. — Sapientia

Have you seen signs of them being unhappy with their gender? :D

I've not looked into it, but I trust you conducted your research impartially with no hidden agenda. — Sapientia

I've just researched it out of curiosity (so no agenda). I've decided against it before that though. People can decieve themselves that they are happy too, as Aristotle showed.