Comments

  • Respectful Dialog
    This thread consist in impotent virtue signalling. — Banno

    The idea that virtue signalling is a negative would be valid if it were hypocritical. If it is presented and upheld as a model then it isn't virtue signalling, it is simply...virtue. Which I guess speaks to the the intentions of would-be detractors.
  • Respectful Dialog
    An intense debate is more fun, and I love conflict. — Judaka

    Debating inherently entails an element of sophistry in that the presentation is understood to be part of the argument, and that one should be able to argue either side of an issue equally effectively. And I don't question that this has a real effect. But it does tend to lend a lot of weight to the loudest voice. I agree there is an element of debate here, but I think this digital forum lends itself more to the exaggeration and abuse of the negative features of debating while realizing none of the benefit, which is the direct interchange of ideas a personal level. So maybe debating is not in all ways an ideal model of interaction (other than in an actual debate).
  • A re-think on the permanent status of 'Banned'?
    ↪neomac
    Not sure what a 'progressive banning' would look like :chin:     — Amity

    How about losing the ability to create new discussions as phase one. Then limiting number of daily posts to 1 as phase two. Lots of simple but fun ways that could be done. Good way to illustrate the difference between a right and a privilege.
  • Cavemen and Libertarians
    We have always experienced 'authority,' even in tiny groups. — universeness

    :up:
  • Respectful Dialog
    So yeah, obligation to treat others with respect is a fundamental part of philosophical discussion, otherwise the topic being discussed will never transform into new knowledge, it will just be a debate with fists that only solidifies the different opinions further into deep cognitive bias. — Christoffer

    :100:
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    :up:

    And assuming the goal is truly productive, sharing of ideas, collaborative effort, the new depersonalized modalities may actually be limiting progress rather than enhancing it. Which is why I think focusing on the idea of civil dialogue is a legitimate topos, and not a snoozer.
  • Respectful Dialog
    Well, one may ask me. Isn't this just a good argument to keep respectful when faced with this subtler trolling. — Bylaw

    Yes. In fact, what you are describing possibly indicates an unexcavated difference in fundamental assumptions, the apples and oranges situation. I'd question your use of 'subtle trolling' as I think the definitive characteristic of trolling is that it is intentional and premeditated. Whereas abuse can also take place when both parties are attempting to reason in good faith.

    A big factor here is the problem of real-time digital interaction. Human beings have reasoned together cooperatively for millennia. There is a gravity conferred by the real presence of another human being that imposes an overall tenor of mutual respect on a verbal conversation. In digital communications, some people assume a tone they wouldn't dream of doing in person.
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Pantagruel :smirk: — 180 Proof
    :up:
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Pantagruel :yawn: — 180 Proof

    ...dogmatic slumber?
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Paine
    Well, there is discussion and there is dispute. When the dispute becomes fundamental enough, that's where it gets nasty. Christianity had a stranglehold on culture for centuries and didn't do it any favours. But when your talking civil rights and politics, that goes beyond mere polemic because it is directly tied with practical, fundamental differences in lifestyles that materially affect other people. So arguing about whether ostensive definitions are real, or how many angels fit on the head of a pin, isn't in the same category as arguing about whether there should be racial equality, or equitable redistribution of material wealth and opportunity. When a dispute degenerates into mutual disrespect, I'm sure both parties feel that they are being reasonable. I totally respect the ultra-wealthy as human beings, but they need to be taxed out of 90% of their shit and have their privileged influence permanently revoked.
  • Respectful Dialog
    My personal experience has been only learning the virtues of the dispassionate after losing my cool over and over again. The lessons keep coming. — Paine

    I hear that. My experience too, although more shooting off my mouth.

    It may be germane to point out how the matter of contentious arguments were the bread and butter of Classical Greek culture. One of the central themes in the Republic is how the rude and abusive challenge by Thrasymachus was transformed into the well-reasoned debate of later chapters. A number of Plato's dialogues were brawls peppered liberally with personal insult. That element was recognized as part of the "dialectic" even when criticized as inferior. — Paine

    Great point. I was wondering when the spirited debate point was going to be addressed in earnest. It can be interesting to try and figure out where to draw that line. As I said, I think the more there is a genuine mutual respect, the more 'spirited' things can become, productively.

    Another influence for me on the subject is Nietzsche saying that one has to be careful about who one bothers to oppose because the effort is also a recognition of their importance. That suggests that there is a balancing point where expressions of contempt cancel the object of defeating an idea. — Paine

    As above, if your spirited debate is based on mutual respect, then this is the result.
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Tom Storm
    :up:

    goal, model, standard...it could be realized empirically in a number of ways....
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪Tom Storm
    Yes, the Lakoff I'm just reading has quite a bit to say about Kant's absolutism of morality and reason (specifically, that's it's just a by-product of fundamental cognitive metaphors therefore not truly absolute). However, just because an ideal may not exist in the sense of "pure reason" to me doesn't mean - or imply - that it cannot exist (and be approached) in terms of a goal.
  • Respectful Dialog
    But some people defend stances which are criminal — baker

    Yes, that would be de facto "uncivil" (certainly by Rawls' standard, which is public reasonableness).
  • Respectful Dialog
    That said, people come from different worldviews, cultures and sensitivities, what may be intended as a conversation in good faith may be perceived as unreasonable. Sometimes people become enraged by phrases or approaches which for them hold special resonance (in a bad way). And sometimes we are rude without intending to be. This can then provoke reactions and you know the rest... — Tom Storm

    Hmm. Yes, cultural relativism and all that, good point. And this unfortunately means that we could legitimately be immune to a reasonable argument if its basis is too far outside our familiar sphere. I just read something in Proust that speaks to this on the limits of the 'competence of genius':

    One may have had genius and yet not have believed in the future of railways or of flight, or, although a brilliant psychologist, in the infidelity of a mistress or a friend whose treachery persons far less gifted would have foreseen. (Within a Budding Grove)

    In this respect, our most cherished ideas are certainly like friends, to whose shortcomings we might be blissfully immune. Ideas and theories always exist in larger contexts, and it isn't always about what we perceive as internal consistency, is it?

    It's always a challenge to transcend personal relativism.
  • Respectful Dialog
    Operating under a pretence of civility when this is the case is not only dishonest and coddling, it is generally unproductive — DingoJones

    Maybe. But if one can operate under the pretense of civility then it must be possible to operate based upon genuine civility. I interpret this as saying, that is difficult.
  • Respectful Dialog
    In theory and intent, I agree. Alas, sometimes my temper gets away with me. I've gotten better over my years here. I give the forum credit for that. — T Clark
    :up:
    Agreed. Habits have to be exercised to be created. Growth is difficult.
  • Respectful Dialog
    Yes, but I also think this is a thing of the past, a mark of the social dinosaur. People outrude me all the time, so I always lose and they win — baker

    Really! I guess I am kind of a dinosaur at 58. What decade are you, if you don't mind me asking?
  • Respectful Dialog
    We have more power than we realize to produce something productive from it. — Joshs

    It's a laudable attitude to see it as a challenge. As long as it doesn't stay one-sided forever.
  • Respectful Dialog
    It’s about how enjoyable, productive, substantive, and welcoming a debate is. — Jamal
    @BC
    Too, I think the nature of the discussion is significant. Discussions can be more polemical, if people are on different sides of historically exclusive positions (e.g. idealism versus materialism); or they can be more collaborative, when trying to reason innovatively within a domain of basic consensus. I think the trick is to maintain an awareness of the collaborative nature of discussion, even while it is polemical.
  • Respectful Dialog
    ↪TheMadMan
    It's what I do. Once a dialogue stops being a dialogue, it's no longer "productive".
  • Life is just a bunch of distractions
    ↪believenothing
    If nothing survived our transitory being then there would be no progress. But there is progress, culture advances, knowledge grows. So in some way, we do participate in a collective enterprise that does endure. Which is meaningful.
  • Bannings
    he was unpleasant to nearly everyone — Jamal

    Nice epitaph.
  • Currently Reading
    Within a Budding Grove (À la recherche du temps perdu #2)
    by Marcel Proust
  • Defining "Real"
    ↪javi2541997
    Yes, the Proust. It's really, really good. I guess I envisioned it would be a bit of a chore, but quite the opposite. It carries you right along.
  • Defining "Real"
    We are the only ones capable of measuring the circumstances in time. — javi2541997

    As it happens I'm just reading one of the longest novels in the world, whose main themes are the ways in which memories extrude themselves into life, and the ways in which things actually become memorable.
  • Defining "Real"
    ↪javi2541997
    Granted. But even lower animals can learn, which is a form of temporal-awareness, I guess.
  • Defining "Real"
    Isn't a quality of "realness" that it's immutably real, though. I would say so. — neonspectraltoast

    What does "immutably real" mean? The essence of property (?) real is that it is itself a complete characterization. Things are not "more real" or "less real." Or "apparently real."

    For that matter, this would also be saying that mutability is not real, which is clearly false.
  • Defining "Real"
    So, I am not confident enough to say that the past is "real" — javi2541997
    The past was real, now it is past, a real past. We are in contact with the past constantly, as every moment incessantly falls into it. If the now has come to have special significance for us, it is due to the fact that we appear to be able to exercise a real influence on the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. So the "temporally inflated" now of a conscious being reflects a state of potential doing. If a large rock falls off a cliff face and then gets poised on the edge of another cliff, just barely balanced, that is a "now," a metastable state on the brink of altering to something else through human intervention.
  • Currently Reading
    2022 Summary. My favourite fictions this year were The Glass Bead Game and Jude the Obscure. For non-fiction, I really enjoyed The Dawn of Everything.

    • Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault
    • Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault
    • Foundations Of Cognitive Science by Michael I. Posner
    • The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) by Joe Haldeman
    • The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku
    • Conceptual Issues in Psychology by Elizabeth R. Valentine
    • Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
    • The Sociology of Knowledge by Werner Stark
    • The Mantle of Kendis-Dai (Starshield, #1) by Margaret Weis
    • The Quintessence of Socialism (Classic Reprint) by Albert Schaffle
    • Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber by Anthony Giddens
    • Foundation (Foundation, #1) by Isaac Asimov
    • Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2) by Isaac Asimov
    • Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
    • Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
    • Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov
    • Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov
    • Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov
    • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber
    • The Immortal Mind by Ervin Laszlo
    • A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
    • Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos by Peter E. Gordon
    • On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle
    • Political Liberalism by John Rawls
    • Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
    • Jonathan Wild by Henry Fielding
    • Lectures on Ideology and Utopia by Paul Ricoeur
    • Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf
    • The Intelligence of the Cosmos: Why Are We Here? by Ervin Laszlo
    • Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
    • Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
    • The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Classic Editions) by Ernst Cassirer
    • The Warden by Anthony Trollope
    • Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe by George Eliot
    • Critique of Instrumental Reason by Max Horkheimer
    • Knowledge and Human Interests by Jurgen Habermas
    • The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
    • Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy 1796-99 by Johann Gottlieb Fichte
    • Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, and Effects by Michael D. Jackson
    • Reconstruction in Philosophy by John Dewey
    • Understanding and Explanation: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective by Karl-Otto Apel
    • Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #1) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • The Illearth War (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #2) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • The Power That Preserves (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #3) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • The Wounded Land (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, #1) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • The One Tree (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, #2) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • White Gold Wielder (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, #3) by Stephen R. Donaldson
    • Introduction to Systems Theory by Niklas Luhmann
    • Oneself as Another by Paul Ricoeur
    • Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology by Edmund Husserl
  • Currently Reading
    Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought
    by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson

    I've seen this book mentioned a few times on TPF. Looks really good.
  • World/human population is 8 billion now. It keeps increasing. It doesn't even matter if I'm gone/die
    But in the grand scheme of things, the harsh truth is nothing really matters — niki wonoto

    Speak for yourself. Meaning and purpose are created through effort, not bestowed. Maybe you just need to try harder.
  • Currently Reading
    ↪Jamal
    Yes, I have been wanting to tackle this for some time. I'm transitioning to semi-retirement in the new year so I can make the time to do it justice. First impression, it is pleasantly readable.
  • Currently Reading
    Swann's Way
    (À la recherche du temps perdu #1)
    by Marcel Proust

    ISO...lost time. Thanks Amazon!
    Boxed Set
  • Do you feel like you're wasting your time being here?
    What is the pursuit of understanding in your opinion? To me it sounds very vague. — Shawn

    Broad, but not vague. For me, everyone on here shares a common love of thinking and expressing thought, albeit across a very broad spectrum of subjects. Hopefully there is enough diversity that everyone can find something to his taste. I'm leery to some extent of standards of quality, as Schopenhauer was, as they can easily lead to stultification. The mods seem to manage all that handily.
  • Currently Reading
    ↪Paine
    I really liked this book, especially the exploration of the wisdom and depths of the indigenous world-view.

    Cartesian Meditations
    by Edmund Husserl
  • Embedded Beliefs
    ↪Ludwig V
    There is a section in Neurocomputational Perspective where Paul Churchland speculates that, if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. The ultimate embedding of belief I guess you could say.
  • Do you feel like you're wasting your time being here?
    Do you think that the pursuit of understanding should be enjoyable or challenging?
  • Embedded Beliefs
    There is something very odd about the demand to give a description of having an experience which captures the difference between experiencing something and describing it. — Ludwig V

    Perhaps this relates to the extent that having a description of an experience can thereby alter that experience. In any field where technical competence can be enhanced through learning (i.e. art, music, etc.) that enhanced understanding definitely changes the nature of the lived experience (the experience of a symphony by an untrained listener versus a skilled musician, for example). Add to that the fact that descriptions inherently transcend the isolation of individual perspective towards an expanded, dialogic-interpersonal version of reality.
  • Embedded Beliefs
    We are not computers. Contra Chomsky, we are not computational, representational rationalists. Seeing something as something is recognizing that thing. Recognition is a creative act , not a representational comparison. To recognize a thing is to see it as both familiar and novel in some freshly relevant way. Belief is thus fecund rather than calculative. It is also affective. Things matter to us in affectively valuative ways. — Joshs

    I would go so far as to say "what we are" is very much at issue and up for grabs, in the sense that any interpretation of that oriented around basic facts can be ratified through agreement and understanding. And insofar as the generally accepted and historically transmitted consensus about "what we are" is realized, beliefs are constitutive of that thing (which is actualized in that way, which I see as a good general description of consciousness).
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