As I've mentioned before (ad nauseum?), the only way out of this is to ditch the idea of philosophy as a method of seeking 'truth', and come to terms with it's role as therapy. Instead of opponents in a debate, you have complimentary options, rational people will choose one of the options which makes most sense (in the classic use of the term), irrational people might choose some crazy world-view which is completely incoherent, but as Mark Twain (probably) said, one can hardly expect to use rational argument to disabuse someone of a notion that was never rationally arrived at in the first place. — Pseudonym

I've grown to understand that pragmatism is what your reffering to when it comes down to assessing the utility of various beliefs. No?

I've had the thought that organized religion or organized society in general, is at least somewhat at odds with 'depatterning'. Nixon said that Timothy Leary was the most dangerous man in America. He wasn't, but unfortunately for him, he was treated as such for the rest of his life. — praxis

I feel as though, "organized" is being used here ambiguously or pejoratively. I wonder what does Buddhism think about the chaos, disorder, and irrationality present in the world, and how to remedy it? Through more order?

But instead of questioning the logic in the first place, the logic equating the accumulation of luxury goods with sexual fulfillment, the logic of desire as a lack of something, he concludes that his problem is simply that he doesn’t have enough money. — StreetlightX

Well, that's quite literally insanity... Self fellating garbage as you would say.

However, what interests me is how can this logic, outlined in your post, be reasoned with? It seems like a no win situation.

As I also mentionned, I rather think that they are not men-children, as it is often said, but rather adults who have simply followed the logic of commodification to its nihilistic end. — Akanthinos

This is a valuable insight. Care to expand on that?

I don't know. I might be professing my own ignorance about Buddhist thought; but, it seems to me that it is all about perfect control through sheer awareness. Drugs and the resulting induced psychotic states seem like an anathema to this goal of Buddhist philosophy.

What about chaos? I always felt that the desire to alter ones mind and hallucinate meant dissolving the percieved order/chain of progression of events/"reason"/boundaries in the universe...

Just some random rambling.

So, it's dichotomies all the way down. One cancels the other and so on?

What happens if you take both pills at once? Isn't that the ultimate expression of human freedom?

Oh your safe now.

*pig goes back to wallowing*

You've hit the 666 post number count. Quickly post something to remove that scary number!

*pig grows worried*

Whatever works. Plug and chug as they say.

I feel as though I've brought up a very important ethical dilemma. How does one assure that every moral action fulfills it's merit in every contextual instance? Or perhaps this line of reasoning is flawed in trying to assume absolute standards? It seems like an optimization problem...

Yes, so to speak the less moving parts the more durable a mechanical good. Analogously the less desire to entertain, the greater chance for tranquility and stable equilibria.

Though now that I think about it, that kind of idiotizes the whole issue.

What the solipsist means, and is correct in thinking, is that the world and life are one, that man is the microcosm, that I am my world. These equations... express a doctrine which I shall call Transcendental Solipsism. They involve a belief in the transcendental ideality of time. ... Wittgenstein thought that his transcendental idealist doctrines, though profoundly important, are literally inexpressible.

— Hacker, Insight and Illusion, op cit., n. 3, pp. 99-100.

So, to follow up on some thoughts. I think the issue becomes one of the effectiveness of differing coping strategies. Hence, pragmatism?

Buddhism has always seemed to me to be the most practical, concrete of philosophies. — T Clark

Practical in what sense?

The context is a part of the action. Actions don't exist in a vacuum. That stealing is wrong is a generalization; if you steal to feed a homeless family the action is not just stealing but stealing to feed a homeless family, which may be interpreted to be morally right. — BlueBanana

While for all intents in purposes, this answers the question posited in the OP, there is one glaring question that remains. Namely, why is there a discrepancy between moral actions that are 'wrong' and contextually right ones?

Why the gap, and if so, shouldn't the singular focus be on making sure that all moral actions fulfill a if and only if conditional to their contextual merit?

Pigs are pragmatic.

Ignorance of the fact that we lack an objective measure of the utility of differing coping mechanisms is what I find distressing. What coping skills does philosophical pessimism have to teach us?

I'm sorry, I'm trying to think of examples but can't come up.with anything. Seems well have to play by ear.

Addendum: Is God the only true solipsist in the world?

These two statements seem contradictory. So. I remain confused. — Janus

So, one of the strange things you might say is that epistemologically, the only certain belief that one can hold about knowledge, is that one can be certain only of one's own experiences/sensory data/mental representations. So, that's solipsism in a nutshell. I don't understand why many philosophers shun the idea. It really shows the limitations and truth of the representational theory of mind.

Anyway, if one knew everything there was to know about the world, there wouldn't be anything to doubt anymore, again presuming certainty and solipsism at the same time. So, as long as one's knowledge about the world is incomplete, then there's room for doubt. Therefore, if one were to perpetually live in a dream, then one would never come to realize it from within it due to the solipsistic nature of the dream.

Well, the first question was as to how we could know, not about the possibly solipsistic implications of omniscience; which seems entirely unrelated. — Janus

So, how can we know? Through doubting. I hope that's simple enough. Now, the point I was trying to make with the whole solipsism thing, might be better understood with some analogy. So, let's assume that you're dreaming. You inhabit a solipsistic world. So, analogously to the matrix world, there's no way for you to tell if your dream is reality or not, because you and the dream are the same thing.

Anyway, I won't get hung up on that, and if that doesn't make sense I'll just think over it some more and polish up the idea.

The statement after that was about the intrinsic relationship between doubt and belief, and your response said nothing at all about belief. — Janus

Well, belief has to be about something, if we don't live in a solipsistic world. 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.

The second question was about how we can be sure of our answers, and your response spoke only of the possibility of answers. Do you mean the possibility of answers of which we could be certain, and if so how would that reconcile with the "as long as you can still doubt"? Because it seems that if answers were certain, then there would be no possibility of doubt, so I'm quite confused as to what you want to say here. — Janus

Are you talking about certainty?

*whispers warily* I have never been ambitious. I'd suggest that heretics from the Middle Ages would have endured less hostility than your correspondent on occasions when I've been unable to resist the temptation to infuriate a stentorian mob! — allan wallace

Oh how can I relate. I don't know how much I've obsessed in the past over this great "shortcoming". All this talk about potential and stuff, makes the head explode.

Hmm, let me know what's confusing you about what I said or how it doesn't relate to the questions? I'll try and be more clear.

Indeed, who knows such things? And that was the question. — Janus

I think it goes deeper than that, if you're willing to entertain some thoughts. Let's say you were omniscient. Wouldn't that create that paradox that you we're solipsistic at the same time, since there's nothing more to know?

Perhaps we cannot question the process of doubt; but to doubt anything requires believing something else, and not merely believing that you are doubting, either. — Janus

Yes, and that something else is always a gap in knowledge or a solution to the above solipsistic situation, the process of doubting itself, if you will.

How do any "answers" elevate themselves above the sea of doubt and belief? That is the question of all questions. — Janus

Well, as long as you can doubt, then there's the chance of an answer.

What does this mean? — Janus

I hope I clarified it with the above...

Who knows such things? You can't doubt the process of doubting itself, so as long as your able to doubt or are willing to consider the possibility that it's a sham, then there's the chance that through that volition will arise an answer to those doubts. If it's all impossible then the whole issue becomes moot, but that's an epistempic gap that can only arise had you been omniscient or continually doubting.

Don't you have to go to a higher dimension to match curves to functions?

Well, if we assume that this love or friendship is solipsistic in nature, given the realization that it's all a sham, then would you feel comfortable living in such a perfect prison?

Yeah, being in control is overrated. It entails responsibility over one's life, and actually thinking. What a drag.

*just wallows*

I'm reading the article, and find it very interesting how the director projects his own view of philosophy onto the cinema screen. But, I find some statements made (thus far in my reading, somewhat uncomfortable). I've never been a fan of horror movies, by the way...

If there’s a horror in confronting the inevitability of death — and we all carry our little mini-horror film around with us in the shape of our own deaths — wouldn’t eternal life be an even greater horror?

Oh, yeah. There’s no way out, that’s one of the problems. No one really wants to live forever, not really. But on a theoretical level, by apposition, you don’t want to die, so you really are saying you want to live forever — even though you know that’s not really going to work. Now, I’ve had moments where the inevitability of death is an absolute strength — it’s an escape, it’s a freedom. And certainly people who find themselves in a hideous situation, like the concentration camps, there’s a point where death is truly a release. So, the idea that death is merciful, that’s not only a schematic concept to me, I can feel it as an emotional reality as well.

At the beginning of Naked Lunch is the quote “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” Although I don’t think it was originally conceived by Hassan I. Sabbah as an existentialist statement, in a way it is. It’s saying: Because death is inevitable, we are free to invent our own reality. We are part of a culture, we are part of an ethical and moral system, but all we have to do is take one step outside it and we see that none of that is absolute. Nothing is true. It’s not an absolute. It’s only a human construct, very definitely able to change and susceptible to change and rethinking. And you can then be free. Free to be unethical, immoral, out of society and agent for some other power, never belonging. Ultimately, if you are an existentialist and you don’t believe in God and the judgment after death, then you can do anything you want: You can kill, you can do whatever society considers the most taboo thing.

What do you think about the underlined text? Is this some sort of fatalism being projected on the plight of helpless people? I find that one can only feel such a feeling in face of the meaninglessness of their suffering, which is demeaning to say the least.

And, this is why people should desire what they enjoy and nothing less. If circumstances prevent that from happening, then changing such circumstances is the only way out. If the circumstances cannot be changed, then you learn to cope with it.

*Goes back to wallowing.*

No it's not. It's mind blowingly deep. There is no way out of the Descartes evil genius thought experiment if you admit there really is an evil genius. — Hanover

It leads to solipsism, though.

Does a pig suffer?

Has Peter Singer come up in this thread? I don't think the ethicality can be more eloquently stated than what he has already presented on the issue.

Agreed.

Reason says satisfaction is better than pain.
Love says pain is better than emptiness. — Baden

When it comes to the real world, things aren't as clear-cut.

could you stop yourself loving it for this reason? — Baden

In principle I could though the idea is repugnant; but, would I be able to love myself with that conscious decision/deliberation?

Yeah, there's no free lunch as you seem to get the gist.

Yes, the baby itself can be the source of my satisfaction, though.