So, why so much disagreement about various issues? Is this just moral relativism stated another way? — Posty McPostface

Have you ever looked into artificial neural networks? I'll use them as a metaphor. Different 'souls' are trained on different datasets (experiences.) We adapt to the world as it has shown itself to us. But the world shows itself differently to different people. By the time we learn to question what we think, we're already starting from very different perspectives. In a way, the idea that questioning what we think is virtuous is a technology for bringing us together. One understanding of being reasonable would associate it with openness and curiosity.

But philosophy is always (OK, often) rebellious in some sense. It's easier to hide behind a flag or a bumper sticker with a warm mob. What is it that lures or drives some humans to think 'away' from their 'initial' mob or initial community more than others ? Probably lots of things. Some philosophers have said 'irritability.' Others have talked about really facing one's mortality. I think there's a connection to religion, where Truth serves as a substitute for God. A larger more universal (or more noble or more beautiful) and ultimately future community is identified with. 'Some are born posthumously. '

If that's true, then philosophers can agree on certain things. Why the disagreement? — Posty McPostface

Again, "Of course, some folks will say that I'm way off base in the above, but that's just the idea, isn't it?"

What about sincerity? — Posty McPostface

Sure, I think that's in the mix too. Basically the point of a friendship is largely that one can finally be sincere in a world of prudent faking. And by faking, I don't mean lying necessarily. I mean keeping one's counsel, swallowing one's objections for various reasons. A large reason is that they would not be understood in the right spirit, so that the desired relief would not result from the failed attempt at disclosure.

But philosophy is all rebellious in some sense. It's easier to hide behind a flag or a bumper sticker with a warm mob. What is it that lures or drives some humans to think 'away' from their 'initial' mob or initial community more than others ? Probably lots of things. Some philosophers have said 'irritability.' Others have talked about really facing one's mortality. I think there's a connection to religion, where Truth serves as a substitute for God. — macrosoft

What do you mean by that?

Again, "Of course, some folks will say that I'm way off base in the above, but that's just the idea, isn't it?" — Terrapin Station

Yes, that's a general idea. But, the truth is such a vague concept. Can we ever do away with it?

Sure, I think that's in the mix too. Basically the point of a friendship is largely that one can finally be sincere in a world of prudent faking. And by faking, I don't mean lying necessarily. I mean keeping one's counsel, swallowing one's objections for various reasons. A large reason is that they would not be understood in the right spirit, so that the desired relief would not result from the failed attempt at disclosure. — macrosoft

The epistemic closure comes to my mind. Can it ever be attained?

What do you mean by that? — Posty McPostface

For instance, I was raised in a 'red' state with a 'red' perspective on the world. But over the years I moved more and more away from that, which means that I became less and less intelligible to the people I first knew as a child. Now I know mostly 'blue' people. But I still feel a distance from them and a desire to not live in a bubble. I feel drawn to the 'crack' where complexity gets in. There's a self-mutilation in openess and self-criticism, but it's also the source of intense joy, a real sense of transcendence. It's like going beyond the wall to enjoy the open space where one can unfold oneself, nevermind the whitewalkers. And maybe every philosopher (in Nietzsche's sense and mine too really) is a bit of a whitewalker --at the very least a wildling who feels cooped-up in finished systems --and a little grossed out by a room full of people who know that they are right and the others are wrong.

The epistemic closure comes to my mind. Can it ever be attained? — Posty McPostface

I doubt it, but we don't really need it in its general form. What humans really crave and indeed find at least for stretches is certainty enough about their positions in life. Like trusting a spouse or a friend. Like feeling at home in one's career (until maybe you or it changes.) Or feeling at home in one's fundamental grasp of the world (that things make sense and are justified.) Basically closure is more of a feeling and way of acting than a theoretical entity. Yeah, we can theorize about it in the abstract, but that usually means we already experience it where it counts. That's why we can simply play with concepts, because life isn't currently tearing us to pieces and we aren't suffering real doubt (identity crisis.)

I doubt it, but we don't really need it in its general form. What humans really crave and indeed find at least for stretches is certainty enough about their positions in life. Like trusting a spouse or a friend. Like feeling at home in one's career (until maybe you or it changes.) Or feeling at home in one's fundamental grasp of the world (that things make sense and are justified.) Basically closure is more or a feeling and acting than a theoretical entity. Yeah, we can theorize about it in the abstract, but that usually means we already experience it where it counts. That's why we can simply play with concepts, because life isn't currently tearing us to pieces and we aren't suffering real doubt (identity crisis.) — macrosoft

More pieces of wisdom. Thanks, I'll ponder over it.

In the meantime tell me if you agree with Schopenhauer?

In the meantime tell me if you agree with Schopenhauer? — Posty McPostface

About irritability, yes. But I can only speak from experience. This was also written about in Steppenwolf, a great novel. I'd say that there is a certain violence in spirituality. 'Our God is a consuming fire.' Metaphors, passwords, secret handshakes.

About irritability, yes. But I can only speak from experience. This was also written about in Steppenwolf, a great novel. I'd say that there is a certain violence in spirituality. 'Our God is a consuming fire.' Metaphors, passwords, secret handshakes. — macrosoft

Go on...

More pieces of wisdom — Posty McPostface

I hope they are pieces of wisdom. One man's meat is another man's poison. I'm often ambivalent about sharing. In some moods I find a great joy in it. In other moods, I want to get back on the other side of the wall and keep my own counsel. Like Francis Wolcott, 'I don't want you to...have seen me.'

I hope they are pieces of wisdom. One man's meat is another man's poison. I'm often ambivalent about sharing. In some moods I find a great joy in it. In other moods, I want to get back on the other side of the wall and keep my own counsel. Like Francis Wolcott, 'I don't want you to...have seen me.' — macrosoft

Indeed. Thanks for sharing though. We can never truly know the answers to some things; but, we can try.

The limits of my world are the limits of my language.

Go on... — Posty McPostface

Well other philosophers talk about living one's own death. I think of it as the continual incremental death of the small self. Now it's very easy for this all to become evangelic and systematic. That obscene possibility haunts it from its origins. Everything can become cheap.

Well other philosophers talk about living one's own death. I think of it as the continual incremental death of the small self. Now it's very easy for this all to become evangelic and systematic. That obscene possibility haunts it from its origins. Everything can become cheap. — macrosoft

Cheap in what way? Grows confused.

The limits of my world are the limits of my language. — Posty McPostface

Yeah, that's a very suggestive line. We might also say that the limits of my experience are the limits of what I can mean --and, more troubling, what I can understand. In my view, we have to be someone to understand them. But the human imagination is powerful. So the right words can allow us to be them sufficiently to have a breakthrough. Hence the massive importance of the poet. And I think the great philosophers are poets. They paint the intellectual version of the spiritual hero. Like, what did Kant love? What was his image of virtue, and how did that affect his image of precritical metaphysics? Did he find that kind of approach to be clever shallowness? I think Wittgenstein at least experienced a sense of clever shallowness and that he was irritable about it, irritable enough to revolutionize philosophy.

Cheap in what way? Grows confused. — Posty McPostface

The same sentence offers itself both to profound and shallow interpretations. And then people who have had profound experiences can 'forget' them without forgetting the words. So they repeat the same words and yet do not really remember. Or they are seduced into pleasing a crowd, seduced by their success into a kind of dogmatism. I think I see this in certain public intellectuals. Having so many people hang on their every word encourages them to pontificate and make too much of their idiosyncrasies.

Yeah, that's a very suggestive line. We might also say that the limits of my experience are the limits of what I can mean --and, more troubling, what I can understand. In my view, we have to be someone to understand them. But the human imagination is powerful. So the right words can allow us to be them sufficiently to have a breakthrough. Hence the massive importance of the poet. — macrosoft

Wittgenstein was a sort of mystical poet. Have you read any of his works? Start with the Tractatus, it's pure enjoyment.

Wittgenstein was a sort of mystical poet. Have you read any of his works? Start with the Tractatus, it's pure enjoyment. — Posty McPostface

I adore Wittgenstein. He's one of my very favorites, and I did have a kind of 'mystical' response to parts of that book. For me the great philosophers are like great music. They enrich existence. But 'enrich' is too tame a word. Great philosophers are like thunderstorms.

I adore Wittgenstein. He's one of my very favorites, and I did have a kind of mystical response to parts of that book. — macrosoft

:)

Yes, what are these limits and how do they dictate discourse? — Posty McPostface

I know you are a fan of Wittgenstein. What I mean is at least associated with the later Wittgenstein. In short, people assume that they can do 'math' with individual meanings. Look and see the spaces between the words of this sentence. Those spaces can be misleading. They do not indicate a genuine or conclusive gap between plural meanings. Or not as I see it. The fantasy of being able to do conclusive math with words is one of the driving motives (as I see it) of the analytic or atomic approach. If we can snap truths together with the right bricks (meanings), then we better obsess over these little bricks individually. We assume that we should start with the 'atoms' of meaning to build securely. So we need certain atoms to be especially reliable.

But what if meaning is mostly not like that? Everyone will grant context some importance, but (from my perspective) perhaps not enough. Holism starts with the forest to make sense of the trees. It starts with entire personalities and communities. It starts with the mysterious linguistic know-how that we already have. What's scary about it is that we work from a foundation that we don't understand. If we try to understand it, we rely on it as we try to test or justify it. It's a fundamental possession that we can't get behind. This is humiliating to a certain kind of theological project, which is to say the construction of a system of words that somehow justifies itself and answers all questions beyond reasonable doubt, implicitly obliterating the significance of time.

Another awesome post.

Thanks.