Nah, it's not that. Not feeling depressed or anything really. Just some kinda realization, that I can't put into words yet. I guess my lack of identification with my ego is creating an overwhelming sense of callousness and disregard. It's not dysphoric though.

I guess I'm just confused.

*wallows*

I have nothing to fight over here. My ego isn't hurt or anything since I don't identify with it.

The main problem with dirty sexual jokes in the Shoutbox is that they are quite often not as funny or as dirty as we would have hoped for. — Bitter Crank

Hey, as long as I'm not the one being fucked over.

OK, so since it's been brought up. I started the animal jokes as a means to foster companionship and openness. Since, some people found it 'immature' or 'childish' even though it seemingly was is more fun and entertaining than the repetitive sex jokes, then I can withhold from engaging in such 'immature' and 'childish' means of communication, since being an adult around here seems to entail that one at least occasionally make the dangly part reference.

I mean, even in Speakers Corner of Hyde Park it's requested that nobody insult the queen.

Yeah, yeah. We do it because we can. And, the fact that other members have requested in this thread and in the Shoutbox that you refrain from such jokes and you ignore those requests, well I don't know. I guess you are invested in making these quality jokes after all?

Nah, man he's mentally bulletproof. Sagelike qualities.

I wonder what @unenlightened has to say about this, as he was a seasoned tripper. I bet he still trips sometimes when everyone is not watching. :lol:

I couldn't handle the experience. In some ways it was an inverted experience for me. Namely, that stability and sanity became more important for me. I became more drawn towards order and conformity...

Haha.

Do you guys still take the Hippocratic Oath in Germany, I assume?

Thanks Doctor.

I'm just going to leave it to you guys to consider whether doubt is possible given the epistemological certainty presented in a solipsistic world.

Thank you Posty for raising this issue and thank you Baden for declining to act as a censor. — Marcus de Brun

That's a misconstrue of the situation. The point was that immorality and indecent talk was being encouraged, for the sake of one-upmanship and some idiotic ego games.

Would you want to fly with drunk pilots flying your plane had you witnessed them taking a drink in front of everyone before the flight?

To be quite blunt, it was one of those 'because we can' situations.

I think it's perfectly possible to ask yourself from within your own dream whether you are dreaming or not. Some people can in fact do just that (lucid dreamers). — Fafner

Not had you eternally been in a dream, and had no sense of doubt due to everything in the world being the same as your level of knowledge about it.

Ok, I'll repost what I already said on the issue in epistemological terms with a dreaming analogy representing 'solipsism':

If we inhabit a dream, for example, then there's no room for doubt because all your beliefs originate from yourself. I don't think that makes sense. What I'm getting at is that doubt can only exist if there is a lack in knowledge. In a dream everything is perfectly clear, there's no room for/to doubt the existence of the dream world itself because there is no room for doubt itself.

But again, if the skeptic is only a local and not a global one [...] — Fafner

Yes, but those limits can only be apparent to a person who can doubt or have a lack in knowledge. Therefore your hands are real, and the evil demon is... lying?

Once again, the skeptic can restrict the scope of his skeptical claim and exclude the possibility of doubting one's doubt. — Fafner

But, that's cheating. For that removes any chance of certainty, but since knowledge is possible, then that excludes the possibility of that assertion.

Are you certain of that? Or is that just your way of defining solipsism? — Janus

Yes, I'm quite certain that you cannot doubt in a solipsistic world since you are only aware of what you can know and there is no room for not knowing (doubt) since that is something beyond your known world.

Doesn't it only, more modestly, presuppose that you don't know that solipsism is the case? — Janus

The point is that epistemologically, you wouldn't even be able to entertain that thought in a solipsistic world, where everything is certain and there's no room for doubt.

It seems to me that even if this inference is correct, it still would not refute skepticism because the skeptic need not argue for strict solipsism (in your sense) for his argument to be disastrous for knowledge. — Fafner

Yes; but, I cannot doubt the fact that I am doubting. Therefore, if we take the evil demon path of assuming that everything can be doubted and nothing can be certain, then there's no room for doubt in the process of doubting itself. Hence, solipsism is false because you are doubting and are not certain, and doubt presupposes certainty. Thus, you doubting whether your hands are real means that you aren't living in a solipsistic world.

Well, if doubt can only exist when there is lack of certainty, and if one can doubt whether solipsism is an actuality, then at most it follows that solipsism is not certain. — Fafner

Well, not quite. Because since the world and the self are the same thing in solipsism, then there can be no room for doubting the world since the self must exist.

But I can't see how that proves anything about the existence of my hands. — Fafner

Well, the mere fact that you can doubt, presupposes that solipsism isn't the case, therefore they are real.

Hope I'm getting through...

concerning your question, I'm not sure what you mean by "epistemological solipsism", could you elaborate? — Fafner

So, let me elaborate at the chance of sounding nonsensical. Doubt can only exist when there is lack of certainty. Solipsism is a certain belief. Therefore if one can doubt then solipsism is not an actuality, therefore your hands are real if you can doubt whether they are real...

Does that make sense?

Hi @Fafner, just wanted to say that it's awesome to see you.

Have you considered epistemological solipsism as a solution to the problem of asertaining certainty in the above cases presented by you?

Sleep tight.

Oh, puh-leeze don't flip the issue and say that your doing this because of us. Make your silly jokes that are in reality deeply demeaning to women and our common sensibilities. I guess that's just how things are and I should shut up and fall in line.

Admit it, you too enjoy the dirty jokes and don't want Hanover to stop. Ive seen you two playing one upmanship on that front to no end.

Why is that?

Well, it was indecent.

I don't think it's that as he spoke of extreme cases. — Baden

Well, what he said exposes his belief that death can be a release from life given gratuitous suffering and the impossibility of relief from said suffering. Isn't that bona fide fatalism?

I'm not sure I understand your point here. — Pseudonym

It was just a banal statement, irrelevant to the point of this thread really. My point is that if certain fundamental truths cannot be ascertained by philosophy, then what are your options about finding out about hinge propositions (or, I think, 'brute facts') if that's what the domain of science pertains to?

Indeed the delusion of externality, and rationality is the most dangerous of all, as Bitter Crank describes. — unenlightened

There's a lot to talk about this. It can even be argued that, evolutionary, we're at a disposition to take things on 'authority' and trust in order provided by that authority. To apply lofty and worthwhile ideals, some force and external factor is required to maintain and enforce it (I'm talking about education). Plato talked about this, in terms of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I don't subscribe to the fatalism of Jung and Freud, and believe in things like what William James had to say about the will to believe, or Dewey, which I should come around to reading one of these days.

I don't really think there are hinge propositions, but I adopted the vocabulary because it was appropriate. Hinge propositions, as used in philosophy, are a gloss of certainty on a statement of incommensurability. — fdrake

By definition, that fulfills the criteria of solipsism. Don't you agree?

Well, he just lost the game...

It's a vacuous and trite statement. Meaningless and nonsensical. As if one were a solipsist.

The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology." — Marcus de Brun

What does this even mean?

The only hinge proposition that I've encountered throughout my time doing philosophy is solipsism. What do you chaps think about that hinge proposition?

So, philosophers are full of shit when they talk about hinge propositions?

I don't know. I blame the idolatry of the self and taking your-self too seriously. Since the self is the common denominator for all things perceived/felt/understood.

Does it really boil down to such a truism because it really seems true and undeniable on face value...

These, I think are among the casualties of the psy-ops we call 'advertising', along with the anorexics, shopaholics, gambling addicts, and so on. Fear, jealousy, hatred, are easy to invoke and manipulate and powerful motivators; tied to sexual frustration and negative identity - you're only worth what you can spend. — unenlightened

Can one criticize the botched, perverted, and sadly mass produced/manufactured Jungian collective unconscious, at all? How does one reason with this insanity?

I'm not sure one can reason with it so much as attempt to show that another logic is possible - beginning, perhaps, by trying to show that sexuality is situated beyond a economic circuit of mere supply and demand; people are not 'goods': they have autonomy which must be engaged with and appealed to - even at - especially at - the risk of rejection. 'Goods' don't reject you, for a start. — StreetlightX

I'm still trying to reason through where the incel has gone wrong in his beliefs. Namely, the assumption (grounded on what) that people are all hedonists or all subscribe to some rational self interested based theory of human behavior.