• tim wood
    9.3k
    It is confusing to set that comment against another one you made:
    "But is all such belief pathological? Is some - any - of it a good or in the service of a good?
    Valentinus
    By pathological, I mean only that the belief collides destructively with the world, or even prior to that has its own destructive internal tensions and contradictions that will destroy it. By "good" I meant categorically good. Blood-letting as a medical practice was held to be a good and intended to be good; of course it wasn't and the lucky survived (apparently George Washington wasn't lucky in this regard).

    Another way of asking the "bottom line" question would be if an algorithm for figuring out which advice or rules were correct would be possible. "Correct" would mean consistent with the world and without inner inconsistency. And "possible" would refer to an algorithm that worked as a practical matter for practical concerns. Probably technically impossible, per Turing and Godel, but not thereby impossible for practical considerations.

    Psychology of personality through most and maybe all of even the 20th century, I consider too flawed to take as rule, or even sometimes as advisory. Doesn't mean I dismiss it, just that I'd read the label for every application.

    Is this responsive to your post?
  • jellyfish
    128
    Perhaps. To my way of thinking, he recognizes that all he'll know is bounded by what he can know.tim wood

    Right. And this is one way to read that the real is rational and the rational real. What isn't intelligible to us (isn't mediated by human concept and feeling) might as well not be at all. It exists only as a negation (which is to say perhaps as mere confusion.)

    Therefore, whatever God he has, is his own. That makes him God. Makes each his or her own God. Most of us divinities understand that our imperfect Godhood is just a short distance of approaching, and the goal unattainable, except in terms of the approaching - us modest gods, anyway.tim wood

    I agree, but I would emphasize how radically social we are. So for me it's more like: whatever Gods we have, are our own. To be alone with a new god is to be a madman or a prophet.

    I also agree with your sense of being only on the way (still becoming and not being God.) The modern project of building a just and rational world looks like a modification of Hegel and Feuerbach to me. The very idea of 'moral progress' understands community as an evolving organism on the way to an even better community (or perhaps decaying, if one is conservative.) To establish right and wrong with human reason is implicitly godlike, as we acknowledge no bondage to anything extra-human. 'Reason' in all of its ambiguity is the Holy Ghost, and since it's open to criticism by its very nature, it's unstable. Is 'it' leading us somewhere good? I see a clashing plurality of humanisms.

    And if we ever get there, which I think intrinsically impossible, if humanity ever gets there, then they will be God.tim wood

    I think it's impossible too. And images of the end of history seem to leave us without any grand mission. For Kojeve (an ironic and playful philosopher) we'd just become animals again, no longer driven to fight and work. Orgy porgy.

    That leaves sci-fi questions such as, is humanity the best vehicle for getting to God?tim wood

    That is a fun question. Our experience of reason allows us to see 'ourselves' in those octopus creatures in Arrival. We're not strictly identified with anything but our language and our human feelings. IMO, those are limits on conceptions of the divine. 'It' has to think and feel like we do --or be a mere explanatory device if we're talking about a philosopher's god.
  • Tzeentch
    3.8k
    Beliefs as beliefs, not at all. Beliefs as knowledge, that's a problem.tim wood

    Both are problematic.

    Beliefs merely conceal ignorance? No. Beliefs can be the road to knowledge of things that cannot otherwise be known.tim wood

    I suppose a more fitting term in such a case would be hypothesis or supposition and to the degree one is aware of their own ignorance one isn't concealing it, but fair enough.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    And this is one way to read that the real is rational and the rational realjellyfish

    Oh hi hoo.

    It is confusing....Valentinus

    I think it's confusing because Tim is arguing with himself.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    I can’t say I understand what exactly you’re are saying or what exactly you’re asking. You’ve had replies though ... are they hitting close to the mark purposefully or by accident? If the later rephrasing your post may help.

    GL
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    To state what is said earlier better:

    People are prone to failure. Time has a huge impact on how many mistakes a person mistakes. It appears you agreed with this. The christian and the non christian will do wrong to some measure in accordance with how long they are on this earth.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    I am keenly interested in the psychological register, both in the ways it fits in with some philosophical points of view while being rejected altogether by others. I am not sure how to see your point of view against that backdrop.

    Whether one takes any model as a rule or not, the need to understand how persons develop is an old thing and not just the darling of a certain time.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    I can’t say I understand what exactly you’re are saying or what exactly you’re asking. You’ve had replies though ... are they hitting close to the mark purposefully or by accident? If the latter rephrasing your post may help.I like sushi

    Fair question. Maybe this: Given competing imperatives to action, in general, is there any way to determine the right and distinguish it from the wrong?

    It seems to me the only way is to examine both sides and look for which side fails to be at least internally consistent, and if they both pass that test there is a test that can run alongside as to which is inconsistent with the world. If both are both internally and externally consistent, is there any other, further test? I think consistency is the right test because if inconsistent, then the imperative - whatever it is - could reverse and call for an opposite action.

    I'm leaving this sort of bare-bones so that it may be addressed from more standpoints. But I do have a silly example that may be illustrative. Suppose I want to have ice cream for dinner every night, for so long as I want to, my argument being that a person should eat what they like whenever they want to, if they can. The counter-argument, of course, being that food isn't only about what tastes good, and on the assumption that food should "do" good as well as taste good, and that too much ice cream will do bad, then I shouldn't eat too much ice cream.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    ok. This is the typical tactic on this site used by just about everybody including myself. Playing dumb.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    If a person converted to the correct religion, and then only had 10 days to live, i would argue you would be quite impressed with that religion's particular set of beliefs. Thus you would be impressed with religion or a set of beliefs.
    — christian2017
    I suppose when you wrote these two sentences, you had something in mind that made sense, which sense you thought you were expressing. Unfortunately that sense didn't make it to your text. I have no idea what you mean or what your point is, here. Try again?

    The longer people live the more likely they will make minor mistakes and major mistakes. Some people are called d-bags when they make minor mistakes. Some people see minor mistakes as major mistakes.

    Is that more clear?
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    The longer people live the more likely they will make minor mistakes and major mistakes.christian2017
    I disagree.

    Some people are called d-bags when they make minor mistakes. Some people see minor mistakes as major mistakes.christian2017
    There's no accounting for what some people will say or do, or what happens to some people.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Most folk learn as they grow older. With what do you disagree? Or was thought involved?
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    i disagreed with the original way you stated it. I think some people don't know how to define ethical behavior.
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