Comments

  • The key to being genuine
    Well, putting it that way ,
    I wouldn't agree that I Wouldn't expect it ,,,
    lets say the introvert really wasn't sure of where they stood in relation to the world , was keenly aware about their own nature being umm , transient ,, umm which I personally feel it is ,,
    but I figure not many on this site will be coming from that angle themselves. Its a more eastern idea. Which I think holds merit.
    On the other hand the idea that we are- who we are seen to BE , Could be seen in western eyes just as easily. Fer instance , youre good or bad by the judgement of your god if you have one.

    Or Freud might say that you couldn't be certain of your sincerity since your deeper identity is hidden in mysterious depths only revealed to you in dreams and freudian slips,, therefore someone else's view of you is as legit as it gets.

    I'm sure there's more, I liked the way someone put it on one of the other threads ,, that your identity is like an onion , and peeling away the layers of it you find nothing at the core.

    Vaguely aware other people exist.. hmm, that's extreme all right. They would certainly be operating from a different paradigm , but Im not sure that it would be very alien if they took some time to explain.

    Obviously people aren't identical , sometimes its difficult for me to let go of some of my presumptions , but I still persist that at the core there is much common ground. Maybe not in how we go about satisfying our social network, but that we prefer security over fear, that we have stupid fears , that we like recognition affirmation respect and so forth.

    I like quiet pursuits , and totally cant fathom why someone would enjoy screaming at a football game in a crowd and pay money to do that when I could quietly watch a game on TV in the comfort of my own home, even as a kid..
    But I went overseas once , and on the plane back , there was a palpable difference as I crossed back over to the states, the other passengers became animated and restless, they bustled over their bags and clogged the aisles with fat asses.
    I found myself surprisingly charmed by it. I am from New York , and , over time I've realized that there's an amount I miss of the hubbub , the bold speech and eclectic personalities. Those are My People, I just don't want big doses. :)

    On the painting, water color is a tough medium you just cant go back and revise much , fine boundaries in pen clearly demarcated, are not the forte' of watercolor.
    Gouache might work for you, skip the pen, use the paint as you're supposed to ,,
    but anyway , the subject matter is personal and abstract , and its a shame you don't still have it.
    But if her head is a light bulb , she should probably get out a bit more and give herself a break from the brain , her earthy humanness is being swallowed up by intellectual pursuits,
    she may feel its sustaining her, but its still a bit ethereal of an existence. I'd tell her to get laid ;) Anyway , that's what I would read in it from the data provided.
  • The key to being genuine

    Is the painting grim ? or lively? cant answer as is. I need to know the style or an example similar , to venture my wild guess properly.
    Is it like that famous screaming ghost face thing you see on posters?

    Nah, I'm more an introvert, just not timidly so, intellectually , .. I'd argue with Einstein.
    Expectation , is a word choice I'm picking in place of a possible synonym 'preconceived notion'.
    And yes I do think its natural , and reasonably valid to consider others to be much like us at heart.
  • The key to being genuine
    No its not obvious , its incredibly subtle. Im thinking the hand motion is a summation of all your beliefs, even the ones subconscious. Your 'sincerity' is an assessment of whether your portrayal fits or does not fit some expectations someone has. One thing is fact , how it boils down for you , and the other is opinion regarding fit to imagination.

    Sorry I didnt respond earlier , Im not sure how one can easily keep track of responses in several threads. With over a thousand , how do you do it?
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    I could go by evidence, if you prefer; wasn't intending to presumptuously impose my own moral standards.jorndoe
    Congratulations, you just freed Jorndoe from philosophical self contempt about not taking action about everything wrong in the world. :) That should be a great weight off your shoulders, (it was unfair to you to begin with.)
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    I was going for the simplest coherent belief, compatible with our own moral actions.jorndoe

    What is this pre-occupation I keep sensing with simplest coherent belief ?
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    Maybe I do agree, to a degree, with the opening post, umm its certainly more my style to act rather than leave someone to nasty fate. Like BitterCrank said, I don't like people shoving me at what they think I should do. IMO Behavior and sentiments, arising from the human condition ,, without a coded set of morals probably leads more often to the most sociable stance , or at least a very reasonable flexible stance,, comparatively speaking ,, to people doing things because they are being compelled by rigid code. Your stance obligates everyone to always act, always judge.

    I've come across people who are very confused by , or disagreeing with, the idea that amoral behavior doesn't mean immoral.Practically speaking ,, It just means that one is acting out of their own genuine impulses , not necessarily the dictates of a larger society. I don't know anyone at all who actually 'turns the other cheek' or really thinks actual pacifism is desirable. I think we are told that we are supposed to judge everybody and all situations , decide someone as wrong , someone else as right , and then step in to play a hero with force included. But I think its recognizable to everyone that ..
    Not stepping in , you haven't been enemy to anyone. Stepping in , now you're involved in sht that doesn't concern you.

    If you're Christian,,( I'm not)
    Does God step in and force your hand to do everything his way ? or is he sitting up in the clouds keeping his hands off so that man can exercise free will.. and the Devil , does he just leave everyone alone ? or does he interfere to try to sway people.

    What does Morpheus have to be surprised about :) that a self righteous goody-two shoes opinion was challenged ? ;)
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    What does Morpheus have to do with it :)
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    Stosh, sure, they may hav'a had it comin'. :)
    Uncomfortably close to victim blaming though.
    The scenario wasn't really intended as one of those.
    (Presumably you're not claiming the scenario is unrealistic, entirely hypothetical, "never happened"?)
    It's a fairly basic (relative) comparison among capable and knowing neighbors, and what we think "doing the right thing"™ is (as a default).
    Or what some of us think at least.
    jorndoe

    Notice that I have "victim" in quotation marks, that's to alert that I think, that the writer has predetermined who is right and wrong. Its not a neutral stance , nor should one presume they always know whats 'right'.
    Certainly people think they know what the "right" thing is. But Rightness is a judgement , an opinion.
    Yeah it does seem to skirt blaming a victim , that's why I spelled out the examples of where victim-hood is easily seen to be a matter of perspective.
    All it actually says is , a 'person harms another person ...by exercising free will , or something else'.

    Why the subjective nature of rightness is important here is that the Op has determined who is right and who is wrong , and has declared the person on the right as morally justified righter of wrongs, and the guy on the left as contemptible. End of story ,
    Though there are times when you might want people to do as you determine is right,, I don't think you can correctly hold people responsible for things they didn't do, because the things they didn't do are imaginary. If you did there'd be no assertive proof that can be challenged in court ,,, there's no way to defend against imaginary accusations, you cant prove intent , or motive , or means.
    I'm thinking generally speaking ,, If a person did a deed ,later deemed to have been illegal ,THEY are the guilty party, not all of society or bystanders ,, and thats just the standard this society has because we collectively don't want to take responsibility for what everyone else is choosing to do.
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    Then go do it. Your ethics , your obligations , your actions.
    See how that doesn't intrude on anyone else's rights or beliefs?
    See how nobody tries to interfere ?
  • The problem of absent moral actors
    What if the "victim" deserved it ? I'm thinking almost all people have some sort of equation by which they deem a violent reaction is indeed warranted. Courts cops military vigilantes , and wronged husbands to name a few. I even think I could press your buttons enough to get a reaction. In that case , the person who acted , thwarted justice by at least someones standards.
    Though our courts deem one legally responsible to indeed take action in certain circumstances , Im thinking that Terrapin is actually more correct from a moral code standpoint.. Not that I really expect him to take that road any more than anyone else.
    I'm thinking you're a bit too convinced about what the correct actions are, to have the scenario be anything more than an exhibition that your opinions fit with many peoples.,, but dont feel bad ,I see it that Burke and Mill are both laboring under some mistaken concepts.
  • Exam question
    he idea of the question is simply to devellop the hypothesis that our situation exclusively descends from logical causes and then to consider whether such a putative reality might in principle entail any differences which would be irreconcilable with a situation the nature of which was characterised by the morality of a Devine Will.Robert Lockhart
    You'd at least have to define what the 'divine will' was.
  • Exam question
    Calling humans a 'logical entity' is probably an oxymoron. ;)
  • Meaning of life
    For contrast, If the universe did exercise will, then I figure we would see inexplicable suspensions of the physical laws. Ex: The universe wants men in space, we might see a suspension of gravity and we'd all float off.
    Since the laws appear to be constant , one can assume the universe is not exercising any will. One might still figure the universe to 'want' some thing to happen, but If we have free will and dont know what that thing is, we couldn't fulfill it, even if we wanted to.
  • Meaning of life
    What do people mean when they say: "what is the meaning of life?" or "life has no meaning."

    There are some nihilists who claim that life has no (objective) meaning, but what does a world look like where life does have (objective) meaning? They describe the absence of something that is not clear to me.

    I think that statements like "life is meaningless" are unintelligible (and nonsensical) without describing the opposite in a coherent way. It is a statement claiming that this world lacks something (i.e. meaning), but they do not describe that something in an understandable coherent way.

    I am not merely looking for a semantic discussion, but also metaphysical and perhaps even psychological aspects of this discussion.
    Emptyheady

    If I said life has no objective meaning , the point I am expressing is that there is no overarching thing which is relying on us to fulfill some plan, which that thing would be advantaged by. The universe is neutral to us and our endeavors.

    We humans are the source of what we deem has meaning ( subjective), because we are not neutral regarding our own existence , we can have the role of that overarching thing. Non-neutrality is the source of meaning.

    Sometimes depressed people may say they feel like life has no meaning , and I imagine their sentiment is that they feel no connection to a social group , religion , or plan , from which they can derive a satisfaction that they have a value, and it rubs against their insecurities.
    They have not fully taken on the role of attributing the meaning in their lives to themselves, or, having done so , feel that they have failed.
    So they are sad because they feel like they need value , attributed by someone or something else, and they haven't found it.
    IMO
  • The key to being genuine
    ↪Stosh it could be. Where I come from it's part of commonplace greetings...usually between people meeting for the first time. Genuine means real...as opposed to fake. A greeting that lacks warmth is in some way false or fake. Just going through the motions...ya know?Mongrel
    Well, I know what you're saying, in common parlance there is the idea that things might be real or unreal. But you get into a quagmire ,which has already been touched on.,one either extends their hand or doesn't, you cant really do that , but not do that , at the same time. The entirety of a persons character includes all the considerations which played a part in extending ones hand, and the summary decision was to do it .
    What an observer attributes that to, is independent of the motivations of the extending party. You could accuse me of falsely extending my hand , but .. I did do it. You could say you think ,I pretended to stick my hand out to beguile you , but the beguilement is Yours ,due to Your expectation of what extending my hand means. If you knew that I was just doing it as a formality , then you wouldn't be beguiled.

    What I am badly getting at , is that any uncertainty or falsity is really dependent on what Your expectations-imagination products are.
    My genuineness, if it exists, is independent of your opinions , Right?
    Even If I know just how you are going to read my actions , you still do the reading of them, and are fooled or not fooled based on Your understanding.
    See? there are two things here 1) my 'genuineness' and 2) there is your perception of my action.

    Regularly in this society , we attribute our own mental formulations as having fact, rooted in something else's traits. For some things its common to understand that this isn't correct, we might say beauty is in the eye of the beholder,or understand that someone doesn't like mustard etc,, it's counterproductive to assume that everyone wants mustard , or that everyone must like the same art. A person making such a wrong assumption would find themselves rapidly re-informed. Likewise , one would be foolish to presume that every handshake extended really indicated that one would be trustworthy, and if you just took my handshake as the formality of an introduction , you wouldn't take my genuineness to be on the line,,
    Fact, - I completed the required social convention.
    Opinion,- it was or was not , indicating attitudes which you imagine are more central to my character.
  • Can you start philosophy without disproving scepticism?
    IF, Skepticism requires unassailable provable justification to support a claim as fact....This skepticism is a process which doesn't allow its own exercise, logically speaking , though, it's 'supposed to be' a logical process.
    What we call proof , is an assertion of fact. They are requiring an assertion of fact to support that something else is fact .,, a circular requirement.
    I'm thinking that skepticism requires one to entertain that there may or may not be demons screwing with us. I don't see that as helpful.

    But , If I am Not a skeptic, I accept some things as axiomatically true in and of themselves , I don't have to entertain that other idea, because I can rely on my logic from axiomatic truth onward. (I think therefore I exist ,so something exists , if something exists, then everything that exists is factually true.) and so, I can require that someone must prove those demons exist, in a universe that does exist.

    The skeptics position, is then to try to prove me wrong , in a situation in which they can take nothing as factually true. So they are wrong, I can call them wrong , and all they can correctly do, is just sulk about it. :)
  • The key to being genuine
    I'm thinking the handshake indicates we aren't holding a weapon in that hand , nor making a threatening fist , there is physical contact , not too threatening , Its a start. It indicates there is at least a downgrade of hostile stances.
  • The key to being genuine
    Well I agree, and that is not what I said, but rather the inverse, that if one makes an effort to be be genuine one is automatically not. But the implicit thrust of my comment is that genuineness is a contradictory and thus inappropriate goal. Most of us are genuinely flawed, if not actively unpleasant and antisocial, and for such, being genuine is the last thing we should seek.unenlightened
    I spoke in the inverse to shed light on from that angle , since I think that in this case, the linkage of A to B is really the same as linking B to A.
    I'm thinking that making an effort to act in line with -that which one considers to be their 'genuine' sentiments is not falsehood. Its Not self defeating.
    I'll give an example ,
    A man feels he is a free spirit, yet acts conventionally because he doesn't want the negative ramifications he imagines would go along with living as a free-spirit.
    1) What makes him think that all the people he considers conventional are any less free-spirited than he is? We all make concessions to the social environment.
    2) To an outside observer, he isn't a free spirit. And for him to be regarded as such , he would have to yes, perhaps suffer in some ways the slings and arrows of living the life of a free spirit, its just that for now he suffers the slings and arrows of the conventional man instead.

    So, he would have to make an intentional decision to suffer a bit, to get to live the life he feels suits himself as he feels he genuinely is. Effort is required to fulfill his genuineness.

    If his current actions do not negate his genuineness, then what could he possibly do that was false?
    His actions are exactly the same as someone pretending to be conventional. Whats being done is the mental addition of a semantic twist.
    Its like the hucksters saying selling 'real faux diamonds' on the shopping channel.

    If he is indeed a free spirit, unhappy in his conventional lifestyle, IMO , it would be wrong to call his act of freeing himself, as inappropriate. ( though all may not be a bed of roses in that case either, "Yer picks Yer poison" and lives with it )
    ....................
    Yes indeedy , we all have aspects of our personality which run counter to social harmony, me more than many,, but I don't know that I would say that we shouldn't , or should, be genuine about those things,,
    If you're saying one shouldn't attribute some special goodness to genuineness,,( if it even exists),, on That , I think we may concur.
  • The key to being genuine
    I love what I read of the eastern philosophies, yet , I am certainly one who, however characterized for it , easily disagree with Confucius where he makes boo-boos. Standing on the shoulders of giants really does let us see farther.. though I haven't studied the Analects much , Its my opinion off-the-cuff that he was most concerned with the formalities themselves lending structure to human interactions. Breathing life into the structure of a handshake can be seen as inhabiting the formality itself , rather than exhibiting ones own secret sentiments ,, with a tiny step outside our usual vantage.. precisely the/a difficult thing philosophers endeavor to do. With those guys , one is in a world of fungible conceptry, and historical .. folklore.
    Yes, though , agreed, ,in our society the structures of civility have been down-emphasized, maybe too far.
  • The key to being genuine
    I'm willing to make a serious contribution , I posted two other posts which gained no response ,so I wasn't going to write a thesis until I figured out what the general system was like.On some forums one must be patient on the order of days.
    I'm thinking I pointed out a real flaw in the idea that one is automatically genuine if they just make no effort to be genuine. I think we all have habits and the expressions of our socialization to overcome, before most would say a person was acting 'genuine'. That what we actually make a conscious effort to do is just as valid expression of who we are as is the stuff one does by rote , or which remains un-examined as to its appropriateness to our attitudes overall.
    For example , a person might reflexively hide a foible.
    A gut instinct to sock someone in the nose may often be construed as an example of a "real' self , as opposed to, the self which takes a bit more time to express, and which is to NOT a blind act of impulse , that with some reflection they may feel such an act would be morally wrong.
    It suggests that decisions and morality are not genuine aspects of a persons character compared to 'lizard brain' reflex,, which they are.
    I think one can indeed depend on people in many cases to behave predictably in a civilized manner without them experiencing some sort of cognitive dissonance because of it. And one may indeed be more disturbed about what they did without conscious reflection.
    I'm still considering what I would suggest is the essence, or parameters of a persons most genuine state, it does kind of depend on what one means by 'genuine', and if that's even an attribute that has meaning.
  • The key to being genuine
    I suppose this means that if someone habituates their affectations , they are genuine, and if someone overcomes their fears , its disingenuous.
  • Two concepts of 'Goodness'
    It is tempting to think of it as something like ‘that which should earn our highest approval’ (and conversely for ‘bad’). This definition narrowly skirts circularity, but at the risk of making unjustifiably exclusionary substantive claims (a sort of response-dependent ethics, or subjectivism) – thereby also failing to respect moral disagreement.Whelan

    I think this is a quick dismissal of a weakly worded position. It presumes that there is a goodness which is not circularly arrived at.
    If one doesn't believe that goodness is a real thing , but rather a attribute which we sometimes apply,, , then there should be no expectation that it would be dis-proven by showing a circularity of logic.
    If its a subjective idea, a sentiment etc , then there is no requirement for its derivation to be 'logical.'
    But anyway , our opinion of what is good , does have an origin, the human condition. It is from this vantage , that good and bad are judged. The 'human condition' of individuals is not identical , and judgements about what it is, that constitutes good , are not identical either.

    The idea that one is somehow forced to accept other persons ideas as having moral imperative equal to ones own, regarding ones own behavior , simply because the subjective basis is the same , is false.

    What I personally feel is wrong may just be my opinion, but I can and will, still judge you according to it, because I see my opinion as fitting my sense of justice. You can disagree all you like , but that isn't going to make me let you off the hook.

    Whole societies decree collectively in the same way, that which it considers to be the social norm, and act on that decree regardless of an individuals deviation- disagreement- from it.
    So this is certainly not an unfeasible perspective , it in fact, happens all the way up and down the social ladder. I am just showing this down at the level of the individual.

    What this understanding does , is inform an individual , me, that I am standing on my own feet morally , without certainty of any backup.
    I am not factually "RIGHT" in some factually provable way, but I am right as I see it , not borrowing or leaning on someone else's endorsement.
    Thinking one is factually right , is what happens when one believes that their sense of morality or goodness , is backed up by a higher power or truth , which cannot be defied.
  • How many bodies do I have?
    Hi,
    I'm thinking the effect is partially causation and partially correlation. There's six conceptions of Lambda , the actual state of Lambda, is none of them.
    If you , 'your own conceptualization of Lambda' raise your arm, it does indeed change that which will be presented for consideration by the other viewers, but each perspective will be different. Their idea of what has happened only roughly correlates to the new actual state of Lambda. For instance , they cant see infrared effects of your motion.
    I'm thinking your volition was indeed causal , its just not fixedly linked to the others perspectives.
    The material effects of your volition are mediated by your physical arm. You clearly don't control their minds directly. And so I wouldn't describe their impressions as other aspects of 'you', an individual self conceptualizing itself as Lambda.
    I don't find the existence of other minds as strange , as I do the fact that others view the world ,so differently from me . :)
    I do like the way you presented the consideration though.