• AmadeusD
    2.5k
    ↪AmadeusD I'd rather be a flowing mass than a stiff rigid form. Does that compute? You're predominantly Apollonian in nature. It's a Law vs Chaos issue you're peering into a Forest full of dark trees, while me looking at you is like peering at an orderly anthill. Which is easy to understand, predictable, even. You're Yin, You're Law, You're Order, to a fault. Without balance.Vaskane

    I'd rather not be involved in your self-indulgence :)
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    That's exactly it you only indulge your objectified self. We already established this a few times mate. :smile:Vaskane

    Let me make myself very clear: I do not care.
    I don't care how many stolen iterations of other people's quotes you can fit into a sophistical wall of text. I do not care that you cannot understand a basic insight into grasping meaning. I do not care that you think of yourself as an arbiter.... I just don't care.

    I wont be responding further.
  • Christoffer
    2k
    What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty? Considering that individuals may occasionally engage in falsehoods, how do we conceptualize the mindset of honesty? Is 'honest' a noun or a verb? Can one still be deemed an honest person if they occasionally engage in deception?YiRu Li

    I don't look at the world in a binary way, everything is a form of gradient, statistical, or a matter of probability. You cannot be only honest or only not honest. Instead, the morality around subjects like honesty has to do with the amount of honesty you live by and in which situations you are not honest. If you are honest in all situations but those in which such honesty would hurt others or put you in danger, then that would in my book make you an honest person.
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    Good luck with Nietzsche mate.Vaskane

    A uniquely bad thinker. This may be our difference, lol.
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    ↪AmadeusD Because you're terrible at deciphering meaning, doesn't mean Nietzsche is a bad thinker. Just means you're incapable, currently, of thinking in certain ways that others can.Vaskane

    I don’t care.
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    Except the OP should pay close attention because this is you lying to yourself. Like I said, we've an inclination to deception, it is after all why your will keeps dragging you back here.Vaskane

    Actually it’s the notifications.

    I can’t mute you.
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    D I didn't know notifications controlled your fingers. Huh, I wonder if that's been an excuse in court before. "I couldn't help myself your honor, the notifications made me do it! I swear!" :rofl:Vaskane

    Again, prefer interacting with adults.

    Take care mate :)
  • boagie
    385


    The mindset of morality is social awareness, the formation of societies is directed to the common survival and well-being of the individual. Morality applied to an individual in isolation makes no sense, but self-interest is served in the relations of the common expanded concept of the self. Societies among other things, are survival mechanisms. One is born into a social contract, and part of that contract is to serve not only one's own well-being but the well-being of the collective of like selves.
  • YiRu Li
    121
    Are there mindsets that can help an individual or a society easier to choose honesty?
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    why does it seem like these are a series of homework questions?
  • YiRu Li
    121
    My friend indeed complains Eastern philosophy sounds like self-help, or maybe homework. :sweat: You can tell me how to think about this in western way. Thanks!
  • Bella fekete
    135
    -YiRu Li

    May I interject here a bit?

    The Eastern way i IS the Western Way, way way back. Big Brother has always been watching us, and we lost that along the way, and now that same way He is recreated artificially.

    Proof: China was technologically very foreward looking and now the West is simulating IT
  • Christoffer
    2k
    Are there mindsets that can help an individual or a society easier to choose honesty?YiRu Li

    In my view, a soft Kantian ethical framework functions best. The categorical imperatives in my opinion are naive in their absolutism and centered around only the individual's responsibility, but a softer line in which you combine the first imperative on being honest and tell the truth with the epistemic responsibility of making sure each situation does not lead to harm should guide most people. Basically, always tell the truth, but always focus on being knowledgable enough to know that said truth does not in itself harm.

    My friend indeed complains Eastern philosophy sounds like self-help, or maybe homework. :sweat: You can tell me how to think about this in western way. Thanks!YiRu Li

    It might be because western philosophy is more rooted in the analytical while eastern focuses more on the experiences, the phenomenological, at least that's my take on it.

    The one takeaway I've got from eastern philosophy that in western philosophy seems to go missing is the power of a holistic perspective. Most sciences focus on specific areas and rarely combine everything into a holistic overview. It's mostly when such a holistic viewpoint is applied that we get breakthroughs, but it seems to get lost in the scientific and western philosophical day to day practices. Einstein's general relativity is a good example of a theory that has a holistic perspective that includes most physics up to that date.

    In looking at what practical use philosophy has, I'm certain that western philosophy has a better approach on many subjects, but including the holistic approach of eastern philosophy elevates it.

    Actually, I think we should ditch the whole eastern vs western concept, since it's mostly just a historical perspective on how different cultures thought about hard questions. Instead, the actual status of philosophy has merged so many approaches from so many corners of the world that the only true method is the one that takes the best approaches from all, ditch the crap, and combining it in a modern framework.

    There is value to the way non-western philosophy approaches different topics that breaks free from the chains that western philosophy has in its rigid logical nature. But at the same time, western philosophy is better at universalizing concepts on solid grounds forming logical and empirical foundations. So in my opinion, using non-western traditions in exploring ideas sometimes works better and then take those concepts down to earth with western traditions to evaluate their validity as universal concepts.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    I wouldn't want to change how you think! You seem very curious, which is only a fantastic quality to have
  • Christoffer
    2k
    You seem very curious, which is only a fantastic quality to haveflannel jesus

    This is also lacking today, especially online. Being curious into other people's perspective before arguing against them would solve many problems in the world today.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    you only think that because you're biased and probably evil
  • Christoffer
    2k
    you only think that because you're biased and probably evilflannel jesus

    :lol:
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    glad the joke wasn't lost on you haha, there's always a risk it's going to be taken seriously when I say something like that
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    ↪Christoffer you only think that because you're biased and probably evilflannel jesus

    Definitely Hitler
  • Bella fekete
    135
    “ glad the joke wasn't lost on you haha, there's always a risk it's going to be taken seriously when I say something like ”


    -flanell jesus



    .no kidding aside, when an apparently private exchange becomes public domain and the distinction between humor and poetic license follows indigenously , then a pause may become a throw back to the uncertainty of those distinctions.
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    I don't look at the world in a binary way, everything is a form of gradient, statistical, or a matter of probability. You cannot be only honest or only not honest.Christoffer

    :up:
  • YiRu Li
    121
    It looks like the situations or mindsets behind honesty are more than what I thought. Here is Confucius' case. Unequal treaty?

    In the late Spring and Autumn period, Confucius, accompanied by many students, traveled around lecturing. One day, they had to pass through Pugu, on their way to the state of Wei. At that time, the Wei state official, Duke Gong of Shu, had occupied Pugu. The people of Pugu detained Confucius and his followers. After some negotiations and discussions, the people of Pugu made a request to Confucius: "If you promise not to go to the state of Wei, we will allow you to leave." Faced with the adamant stance of the people of Pugu, Confucius had no choice but to agree and made a covenant with them not to go to the state of Wei. However, once Confucius passed through the city gate, he directly headed towards the state of Wei. Confucius's disciple Zigong asked, "Can covenants be violated?" Confucius replied, "Covenants made under coercion are not even heard by the gods! The most trustworthy person is not bound by agreements made under duress. Otherwise, that would be foolish."
  • boagie
    385


    Of course, one's word given under coercion is inhibiting one's will, it is an offense against the individual. When people talk about moral facts, they are missing a vital point, facts are circumstances and/or events present or passed. Morality is based on the identification of one's self with the self in others, this even extends at times to other creatures other than humans. We identify in a creature as a like self, a like self that like us, has the capacity for suffering and joy. This is an abstract concept in a world where life lives upon the lives of other creatures. Being aware of this makes it a hard reality for a compassionate individual.

    Self-interest is the seed out of which identification with others fosters the compassion that is the glue of society. Honesty is a default position self to self, one generally lies to deceive or just to maintain one's comfort level among one's peers, it is a warping of reality, however but in some degree it might be a necessity to social cohesion. We are a pattern of species with little variation, where variation is increased you have a differing of species in which the essence is in common, or as the Upanishads states, the self in one is the self in all. The starting point I would say to be honest is our common carbon-based biology, and our common essence across the board.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Perhaps some light could be shed if the question is reversed.

    What characterises the mindset associated with dishonesty? My first impulse is to notice that the mindset must typically include a notion that some advantage will accrue, either personally or tribally.

    Consider the deceptive body of a stick insect. It (metaphorically) declares to the world and particularly to its predators "Ignore me, I am a stick." The Blind Watchmaker learns to lie, and simultaneously in the evolution of the predator, tries to learn how to detect a lie. Such is communication between species, in which morality plays no role. Nevertheless, the advantage of deception is obvious.

    Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

    Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie.
  • L'éléphant
    1.5k
    Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically.unenlightened
    This is the key to the narrative regarding honesty (or dishonesty).

    In my previous post, I maintained that honesty is a situational behavior, not a permanent trait. And that works with the fidelity of a given society or population.

    Trustworthiness (fidelity) is, to me, the word more appropriate with a trait. (I can argue for this if anyone challenges it).
  • Bella fekete
    135
    “ Perhaps some light could be shed if the question is reversed.”


    -unenlightened


    A very insightful critique, raising indelible? Questions about the reversibility of the traits hard wired to mindsets which tend to appear fixed within both the unfortunate little monkey, whose effort to wolf down the delicious piece of food , he was able to glean from the ground up, and jump at the chance, has also been hardwired , as the alternate could be life threatening.

    As it is in reality, such unfortunates are usually wage a war of attrition before expiring, and both sides of such emerging(ensuing) battle share in this primordial struggle, a dog eat dog, monkey eat monkey kind of correlate, where they axiomatically, develop a kind of mutual regard foe each other.

    Unfortunately for both, the little monkey’s vile becomes a tool by which emerging properties, traits are oft mistaken for inadequate realization of the primary relation, and ironically the little monkey, some of whom can emerge from a long line of such types, develop a kind of private communication by which they can unnoticed , jump to the delicious morsel and feast hastily before being discovered.

    And so he thinks, while the crowd below, angrily trying to follow suit, generally fail, because the requisite height becomes unreachable due to a slight edge of compensatory agility, which those still grounded, we’re unable to match.

    Both are hardwired to accept to various degrees this state of participation, bound by a lack of progressive realization toward their long term significance developing awareness toward a realization that their cooperation within their community should include longer termed transitory movements that could end the standoff by repeated attempts to hasten to get to the treat on top.
  • baker
    5.6k
    People also like 'standing up to the man' etc.. and these misguided emotions often land people in prison.AmadeusD

    So what are you really saying? Might makes right?
  • baker
    5.6k
    If that’s your vibe /.../AmadeusD
    I'm high functioning on the spectrum.Vaskane
  • Bella fekete
    135
    “ So what are you really saying? Might makes right?”


    -Baker



    yes and recollection lost, is the emergence of evil.
  • Bella fekete
    135
    “ Trustworthiness is, to me, the word more appropriate with a trait. (I can argue for this if anyone challenges it).”

    L’elepanr


    genes over memes, let’s configure it.
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