Of course I agree.

In my mind the collectivist rhetoric only serves to disguise the authoritarian impulse. What’s feigned to be done for the whole is always done for one portion of it at the expense of another. That the anti-individualist creed is a veritable rogue’s gallery of tinpot dictators and authoritarians from all brands of ideologies makes this evident. Even though it is fallacious of me to dismiss the anti-individualist argument because of the company they keep, I no less pity them for having to stand on the sunken shoulders of these types of giants. — NOS4A2

I couldn't agree more. After all, who's ideas is the collective promoting? If you have to push your ideas onto another individual, then you're not allowing the individual to think for themselves. Another individual must make the effort to show another how their ideas are good for others and not just for themselves. Most of the collectivists don't seem to care about making that case. They just want you to submit to their will.

That doesn’t make sense because an autocrat can be a responsible autocrat that acts cooperatively with society for the benefit of all, or more likely act irresponsibly and take advantage of their position for personal gain, perhaps even going so far as to deliberately impoverish the citizenry to better secure their autocracy.

To me it seems that the basic whole point, as you say, is that the individualist wants to compete and the collectivist wants to cooperate. Some think that competition is the natural way and others think that, because we have the capacity of reason, there may be a better way. — praxis

That's strange that you don't see the autocrat as someone that competed to get to the top of society. Individualism doesn't necessarily include the idea of competition. Individuals are free to work with others if they so choose, and can often accomplish a great deal in groups, but at the end of they day they are all still individuals that retain their own thoughts and the freedom to choose to participate in a group or not. Sports teams are groups that also compete against other groups, so I don't why you would think that competition is soley the characteristic of individualists.

Collectivists seem intent on limiting individual thought and imposing the thought of one individual on the rest. I think of an ant colony, or Star Trek's Borg when I think of collectivism, and both of those compete with other species for resources on Earth or in the galaxy.

i get all that, but look at what takes place (institutionally) in the absence of a higher moral structure. Communism (as predicted by many) ended-up being a massive catastrophe for many reasons, but perhaps the most important was the fact that the Communists believe that their own intellect was better suited to "figure it out" than would be a religious moral basis.

You don't have to be religious or political to understand the need to have such guidance in place, just as you do not have to have your own children to understand that the parents need to be in authority.

Religion and Politics simply give man a chance...what he does with the opportunity is another matter altogether. Without these foundations, we know the outcome is assuredly poor. — synthesis

Communism didn't fail because there was a lack of religion. It failed because of an over-abundance of government control that inhibited individuality and incentive and progress - where there are a select few that think their intellect is superior and better suited to figure it out for everyone.

Who is to say that one knows better than the other how to live the other's life?

I can see your point about parents and children, but newborns an children up to about 5 or 6 depend on and look to their parents for answers and are scared when they are without their parents. As they get older, then begin to assume that they know better than their parents. As a parent, I didn't use a heavy hand when they acted selfilshly, rather I simply acted like anyone else in society would act when they misbehaved. When they learn that their actions have consequences on others and others will defend their own rights, like my house, computer, internet service, etc. and take that away when they seem to abuse and take advantage of what others own, then they learn to better control their actions. When a neighbor borrows your lawnmower and never returns it or breaks it, you expect to be reimbursed, or never loan them anything again. It's about learning that you aren't the only individual in existence and you have to learn to navigate the social dynamic, and respect others as well as expect the same respect for yourself.

There is no reason to be a-religious any more than there is to be a-political. Religion is has been around as long as it has for good reason. The same goes for the political nature of social man.

The most important aspect of religion is that it can provide a moral beacon, as man, left to his own devices, will often choose the low road. — synthesis

That isn't true. I see plenty of religious people doing immoral things. The reason is because Big Brother as a god's punishment or consequences for actions are not immediate or exaclty knowable. The punishment and consequences from Big Brother as government is more substantive and knowable. Politics evolved from religion as a more efficient means of controlling the population for authoritarians ruling. So-called democracies that have popped up in more recent times are still controlled by an elite ruling class that divides it citizens against each other using a new type of religion - political parties.

Religions may well disappear of their own accord some day. But in the meantime the road to peace seems to be to separate them and keep them apart. That was the solution with the partition of India and it worked quite well. So, separation seems to be a sound principle on which to build a practicable road to peace. The same principle is applied in marital conflict, boxing matches and military conflict. — Apollodorus

So who is the designated referee that will send in their own troops to evict people from their homes in an effort to make peace?

What I find interesting is that there are populations that are willing to abandon their homes for economic hardship or being oppressed and migrate to another country, but when religion comes into play, people are willing to stay and continue to expose themselves to economic hardships and oppression. This is partly because practicing religion includes in part practicing being a victim.

Right, that's what I'm saying. You don't consider the concept of marriage whatsoever or the state's role in defining it in that case, you are just given two sides to choose created from two separate political platforms and taught that one person within the debate will come out as the victor. — thewonder

Agreed. But what i'm also saying is that this is an example of how the system of higher education is failing us and exacerbates the division and prevents compromise. Indoctrinatingg young adults to see the world as only black and white is part of the problem.

Religion appears to be a major factor in the current tensions. — Apollodorus

There can be no peace without justice. — Apollodorus

If religion is the major factor, then there can only be peace without religion. Religion, like politics, is just another way to divide us and see each as different, as more or less of a human being.

The recent conflict started when Israelis tried to evict Palestinians from their homes, which the Arabs did to the Jews several decades ago just after Israel became a state. Your solutions are all about evicting people from where they live, or re-arranging borders, which just going to cause more problems.

The only solutions are to wait until one side annihilates the other or we wait several generations until religion is abandonded and relegated to myth like all the other religions before it.

Sure, an individual in a weak socioeconomic position is entirely free to fuck-off and die, for instance. — praxis

Or free to make something better for themselves. Anyone trying to prevent that isn't a freedom-loving individualist, rather a freedom-is-only-for-me authoritarian. So your complaints are never about a fault in the idea of individualism, rather about the faults of the idea of authoritarianism. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

Do you think Streetlight is a happy person? — Joshs

I don't think StreetlightX is person. It's a clearly an internet bot as it never really understands what it's talking about.

Yet, Western Europe isn't as racially diverse as Israel or America, so my point stands.

As for Israel vs. the Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs are the same race. Religion is the cause for the violence, not racism. But that is what we expect: racists are focused on race, even when race isn't a factor.

You have to wonder why people risk their lives to come to America and not Australia or France.

China is insanely racist. Like Israel, it too runs concentration camps. — StreetlightX

Maybe you both need to educate yourselves before speaking about things you don't know. According to this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/%3foutputType=amp

Israel is on the more diverse end than China.

And look at Western Europe and Australia compared to the U.S. Looking at this map one would think that the Americans on this forum should be educating Australians and Western Europeans on diversity rather than the other way around.

Ohhhhh, I thought the whole point was freedom or personal liberty. Boy did I have it all wrong — praxis

Not all wrong - half wrong. Freedom and personal liberty for not just one individual, but all individuals. Seems like a pretty simple concept to grasp to me.

Indeed I do. Which is why when countries exclude members of their population - or engage in ethnic cleansing to 'purify' that population - they do not 'run themselves'. They are made to run along exclusionary lines which make them - wait for it - racist. — StreetlightX

By this definition, the more diverse a country's population, the less racist it is. So China must be the most racist country by a multitude of factors above any other country. Someone should tweet LeBron James to let him know.

I was referring to the basic structure of an organized debate at the university level. I wasn't actually talking about the Democratic or Republican party. — thewonder

Ok, so it seems that, at the university level, people are taught that every issue is black and white. That is the problem. In a sense,, that is a form if group-think - that there are only two sides to every issue. It limits our possibilities for finding solutions. We need to think out-of-the-box.

For instance, with the issue of gay marriage people think that the government should ban it or allow it. The problem is that the govt. shouldn't be in the business of defining marriage in the first place. Like religion, it shouldn't be making laws that either prohibit or respect any idea of marriage. So there aren't only two sides to every issue despite what the propagandists at the universities would like everyone to believe.

Once you accept that mind is informational, then the question "How does matter relate to mind?" can be reformulated as two:

1. How does matter relate to information?
2. How does information relate to mind?

These questions are associative: answer both, and you answer "How does matter relate to mind?" — hypericin

Matter is information. Better yet, matter is the form information takes.

I think the problem lies more in the idea of substances - that matter and mind are different substances, hence the problem of dualism and how they interact. But then, what is a substance? To resolve the problem, we think of them as the same substance - information.

The brain is not an information processing body, any more than the stomach is. The brain is biological, it works by electrochemical and other biological mechanisms. When you've explained the biological mechanisms, that's it, there isn't anything left for "information" to do. — Daemon

Information informs. What else is there for information to do?

Even within organized debates at the university level, we are taught that there are two parties who engage in debate upon a single issue, which has only two sides, and that one of them will come out as the victor. — thewonder

This is wrong. The two parties often adopt the positions of the other party when they are in power precisely because they want the win for their party and not for the other party. Just look at the fight over the Supreme Court.

There's a certain irony to being relatively a-political, to me, in that I came to be so after being very politically engaged, aside from that what people often say of it seems like a more genuine Politics. — thewonder

Exactly. This is how I became an atheist, too. Only after really learning what religion/politics is (group-think), do you come to abhor them.

So what, then, is the problem with individualism? — NOS4A2

Nothing, as long your individualism doesn't trample on another's right to be an individual. In this sense, you cease being pro-individualism the moment you think your individuality trumps someone else's. The whole point of individualism is realizing that you are not the only individual, else you cease being pro-individual and begin being authoritarian.

It's really that simple. All the other complaints in this thread aren't about individualism, but about authoritarianism - when an individual ceases to recognize the individuality of others and impose their way of life on others, or when an individual thinks that they are the only individual.

The problem is that people in this thread that are complaining about individualism are actually complaining about people that believe that individualism entails only believing that you are the only individual. Individualism doesn't only entail that you are an individual, but others are too. Authoritarianism is the idea that you are the most important individual, not individualism.

I should add that my client and I don't avoid talking about politics because we think differently. We actively seek each others opinion on issues in an effort to understand the other's positions, not in an effort to beat each other over the head with our own positions. The characteristic of an intelligent person is one that actively seeks opposing views, rather than avoid them or automatically characterize them as "racist" or "sexist", in order to better understand and to be intellectually honest with the facts.

Most people, it seems are not only engaged in Politics but quite so. Becoming a-political in the sense that you are actually in opposition to politics as such and not merely in so far that you have kind of personal aversion to being engaged within them, which may be more reasonable, would leave you both without friends and allies. — thewonder

It hasn't always been this way. Within the past couple of decades politics has been infiltrating every aspect of our lives, such as late-night TV, Oscar awards, and sports.

My sense of being a-political is simply the idea of abolishing group politics, ie political parties. Most people have only one or two issues that they really care about and vote for the political party that they believe will represent their ideas on their one or two issues. So they end up voting against their positions on other issues. Many others don't bother educating themselves on any of the issues and simply vote the way their family and friends vote, or just look for the Ds and Rs on the ballot.

To those in government, it has become more of a religious endevour to get wins for your party and that means demonizing the other party and making out your party to be the righteous party. In this type of political environment, facts are obscured and hypocrisy is prevalent. Those constituents caught up in this religious movement see other humans that don't think like them as demonic and themselves and those that agree with them as righteous. It divides the culture into uncompromising factions. George Washington predicted this would happen, hence his outspoken aversion to political parties.

Being social and being political are completely distinct events. As an example, I have a client whose IT I service and there are some times where one of the owners and I talk about politics. He is a registered Democrat and I am a non-affiliated LIbertarian. We don't agree on many things, but we respect each other and still service their IT for over 20 years. Thinking differently politically doesn't necessarily get in the way of our other social interactions, nor is it even part of every one of our social interactions. I don't see how them calling me about a computer problem and me resolving it has anything to do with politics, or that we are practicing politics in any way. If you agree that atheism isn't a religion, then I don't see how one could also believe that a-political is still a political party. In the sense I am using the term, it is the abscence of political parties, just as athiesm is the absence of religion.

The term, "liberal" is thrown about and incorrectly used most of the time, especially on the left side. They call themselves liberals, but they have become more and more authoritarian socialist in the last 20-30 years. The right has become more authoritarian theocrats in the last 20-30 years. Astonishingly, authoritarianism has become the the dominating aspect of American politics, as everyone is out to tell you how to live your life and to put you into some arbitrary box based on the color of your skin or you genetalia. Libertarians are the true liberals and in America, liberalism is declining.

I see libertarianism as more of an a-poitical movement in the sense that it adopts the idea that you don't know what is best for others, only for yourself, so telling others how to live their lives is fundamentally a-liberal or authoritarian, and that freedom is a double-edged sword. Everyone is just as free as you are and can do what they want as long as it doesn't trample on the freedoms of others. Once you begin to tell others how to live, and put people into boxes to further your own, or your political parties goals, you abandon your liberal principles and adopt an authoritarian stance. Yet these people continue call themseles "liberals" and "progressives". It's not progressive to demonize another group and tell others how to live their lives, or put people into categorical boxes based on race and sex. Humans have been doing that since we evolved. What is progressive would be to actually be liberal in the sense that you abandon the idea that you know what is best for others and that we abolish political parties.

LIke the fundamentally religious, the fundamentally political individual needs to confirm the validity of their ideas by forcing people to believe what they believe. They group together and any one that believes differently is an outsider. They find safety in numbers, as if the logical fallacy of pleading to popularity is somehow the evidence they need to confirm their ideas. Progress has never been made in participating in group-think.

If the left desires equality of outcome and you're against it that means that you desire inequality of outcome. — praxis

Equality of outcome is a lack of diversity. You can't have both equality and diversity. To achieve equality of outcomes, we'd all have to be genetically engineered and raised by the State.

Almost every political affiliation is, at best, a cult. — thewonder

Exactly. So it's like asking if one can be actively a-theist. We can. When one observes the negative effects of religion / political affiliations / group-think, one actively tries to engage with others in an effort to show these negative effect to others.

Even should one succeed, how are they to cope with the inescapable isolation to follow? — thewonder

What inescapable isolation? That doesn't seem to follow? You're not implyng that even atheism is a religion, or that a-political is a political affiliation, are you? We can be social without being political/religious can't we? Is there a difference between being social and being political?

Perhaps it looks like that because you yourself have extreme views? — Benkei

So the idea to abolish political parties (extremism) is extremist? Perhaps it looks like that to people who fight racism with racism.

So, it's not a game but there are goalposts. I see. — emancipate

See what - the truth?

Without the other numbers, what use would it be to say that there is 1 of something? Again, we're only talking about comparisons when we use math. Its merely part of the description of something and all descriptions aren't mathematical, so reality can't be fundamentally mathematical.

Both. Were there not 10 chickens before humans were around to count them? — Marchesk

There were a quantity of chickens before humans were around to count them. What we call that is arbitrary. Aliens could use a different scribble to refer to the quantity, or use a totally different number-system for all we know.

Can numbers exist on their own without being attributed to things? Can things exist without being counted, or having numbers attributed to them?

Sure, but the measurement always gives us a numerical value of some kind, and we decide on the units. — Marchesk

When comparing an apple to an orange, are all the words that we use to compare them numerical? Is color numerical, what about taste or smell?

The issue is in mathematical physics, that discoveries are made BECAUSE of the maths, not made first by observation, and then described mathematically. A case in point was Dirac's discovery of anti-matter. According to the equations he developed or discovered that described electrons, there ought to be positive counterparts to the negatively-charged electrons. At the time no such things were known but lo and behold some years later they were discovered 1. There are many other such examples in the history of physics, which is why Eugene Wigner felt compelled to write the essay On the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. — Wayfarer

I guess the question is, when is a discovery made - when it is observed in the math, or when it is observed in nature? Either way, it was observed.

A number is a symbol denoting a count. And the count is nowhere but in the mind of the counter, it is a purely intellectual act. Yet all who can count will agree that 19=19 so it is not the property of a single observer. — Wayfarer

But why does 19 = 19? Is it because 19 is the same scribble as 19?

Does an object weigh 19 pounds or 8.6 kg?
— Harry Hindu

Those are just different units for the same value. — Marchesk

The value of what - another number - something mathematical, or feature of some object?

19 = 8.6

or

19 pounds = 8.6 kiolograms?

It's not the numbers that are equal, but the weight, right? When we talk about weight, are we talking about measurements, or something else? Aren't measurements OF something? Isn't a measurement simply a comparison of objects and their features?

Yes, math is done in abstraction all the time. It's not like there are prime chickens. — Marchesk

Right, so unless you are saying abstractions exist independent of minds, then math doesn't exist independent of minds. But don't think that doesn't mean that abstractions aren't real, or that they don't have causal power. My point is to watch where you are pointing with your words. When talking about ten chickens, are you talking about a number or chickens?

I am saying that what I said is partially true. :wink: — emancipate

Which part? What does it even mean to be partially true? Doesn't it mean the same as partially false? What does it mean to be true or false?

Ah we are such good sophists. Going round and round and getting nowhere. I'm stepping off now. Good game. — emancipate

I didn't see it as a game. But you obviously did because you kept moving the goal posts. When one sees language as a game and the other doesn't, where else would you expect a conversation to go?

Statements not about feelings are statements about things. — Mww

Feelings are things. Ideas are things. Feelings and ideas are a causal part of the world, just like everything else we make statements about.

Feelings don’t matter in statements not about feelings but about things. — Mww

...which was the point I was making about the distinction between objective and subjective statements - when you confuse talking about things that are not your feelings with talking about your feelings. When you tell me the apple is red, are you talking about the apple or your feeling?

Statements not about feelings doesn't mean feelings aren’t about anything.
Feelings are always about something. If feelings aren’t about anything, statements with feeling as predicates are worthless tautologies, re: beauty is a feeling. — Mww

That is the answer to my question:
Excellent, then we agree that words are about feelings and other things, as well as feelings are about other feelings and other things. You can have feelings about the way others feel, just as you can have feelings about your favorite sports team losing, or the injury to your toe after stubbing it. Now, can we agree that confusing words that are about your feelings with things that are not your feelings is a category error and what makes a statement subjective rather than objective?

Because every statement ever made is first constructed by a subject, and because a subject has feelings, then any implied empirical statement is really a statement about feelings, hence a category error? — Mww

Making a statement is a behavior. All behaviors make statements (leave effects). Effects make statements about their causes. Your behavior (the statement that you make) is indicative of your ideas and feelings. I can gather what you think from what you state, just as I can gather what a dog feels from it's yelp and what tree rings state about the age of a tree. We apply the same type of reasoning in determining what words mean as we do in determining what tree rings mean.

No. Our understanding of reading words is about words that exist, and that from an assertorial judgement on a given cognition on empirical grounds; feeling is only an aesthetic judgement that is not given from any cognition, but on a priori ground alone. Understanding is an affect on experience; feeling is an affect on personality (technically, subjectivity) because of an experience.

Do try to separate feelings from cognitions, psychology from philosophy. — Mww

I'm not understanding. You see scribbles on the screen. Is your visual experience the same thing as the scribbles on the screen? If not then your visual experience is about the scribbles on the screen. Understanding only comes after you have a visual experience that is OF, or ABOUT the thing you are looking at. Understanding is then OF, or ABOUT, your visual experience, while your visual experience is OF, or ABOUT the very thing light is reflecting off of that you then see. One might say that what you see is more about the light than the object it reflects off of. So then in talking about what we see, are we talking about light or the object that the light reflects off of?

Feeling is a tactile sensation. Seeing is a visual sensation. Hearing is an auditory sensation. Smelling is an olfactory sensation, and tasting is a gustatory sensation. We know the world through our sensations. One sensation can verify what the other is informing us of. They are all the same in that they inform us of some state-of-affairs, whether it be the state of our bodies and brains, or the state of the weather. What we talk about are our sensations. We have good reason to believe that our sensations are about the world, so that are words are about the world, not just our sensations.

I wasn't making an objective assertion about reality when speaking of my faculties of perception.

*Any time you try to make a case for what reality is, and how it is, then you are making an objective statement. — emancipate

Yet you failed to do so and don't even realize it. So you weren't making the case for how your faculties of perception are regardless of what I think your faculties of perception are? Or are you saying that your faculties of perception are not part of reality (real)?

If that's true, then it should be possible to do physics without numbers. — Marchesk

Would it be possible to do meaningful math without the numbers referring to things that are not mathematical? When Farmer Joe counts the chickens in the pen and there is one less than there was yesterday, is he counting numbers, or counting chickens? Are chickens math or organisms?

Anyway, the mass of an electron is the same value before our evolutionary ancestors could count. We understand that value numerically. — Marchesk

What is the mass of an electron? Wouldnt you be providing an arbitrary measurement? Does an object weigh 19 pounds or 8.6 kg?

How do you know anything except by some sort of observation? How do you know that you know anything? What reasons do you have to believe anything? How do you know that you're being rational as opposed to being irrational? The evidence you provide to answer these questions will all be observable.

I couldn't possibly know that because I deny that your 'absolute truth' has any meaning to anyone else, further more, I challenge you to demonstrate that it does have philosophical meaning. — magritte

Exactly. That has been my point. Your statements are of no use to anyone else for the same reasons. So why make statements at all?

Your attack on 'relativism' is an ad hominem attack against persons unnamed. Once you name them they will throttle your self-refutation argument based on their own language games. For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms such as absolute truth. — magritte

I have only "attacked" those that make such statements that essentially mean, "it is true that there are no truths". For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms, such as "no absolute truth". You don't seem to understand that your own arguments apply to your prior arguments where you attempt to assert what the term, relativism, is for everyone.

In that case, the prospects for a theory of morality are rather hopeless, if we have to wait for "nature" to deliver the verdict. (We'll possibly be dead by then.) — baker

No it isn't. Natural selection shows us that morality is a social construction.

And if they’re not, why would it matter? — Mww

Exactly. If feelings aren't about anything, then your words and your feelings wouldn't matter to anyone except yourself, so what would be the point in putting your feelings into words to tell others how you feel? There would be nothing anyone could do about how you feel because there would be no reason for how you feel.

How are we even communicating if our words don't exist apart from us after we type them for others to observe and read? I would be reading my own feelings, not your words and you reading your feelings, not my words. Our feeling of reading words is about words that exist on the screen, not our feelings, or we'd never get at what each other are saying.

I have multiple faculties of perception. I used the word 'all' to encompass them. As a quantifier. As an umbrella term. I think it is you who struggles with words. But this is pure sophistry, as is usual in philosophy discussions. — emancipate

What interest would I have in "all" of your faculties if perception? What use would it be for me if your faculties of perception are not similar to mine, and how would either of us know if they are or not, if all knowledge is subjective?

Beliefs are considered reliable when they are justified. One form of justification is observation.

Faith is belief despite the lack of justification. Faith glories in believing even when the facts lead elsewhere. — Banno

What observation backs your belief that 2+2=4?

Or your belief that you have a pain in your foot? — Banno

Then you have no justification, or reason, to believe that 2+2=4? Or that you have a pain in your foot? So, you're saying you have faith that 2+2=4 an that you have pains in your feet?

Just like the lack of a loving, omniscient God is justified by the observation of all the violence, hate and unintelligent design in the world, 2+2=4 is verified through observation. The very fact that you think, which is observable, is evidence that you exist. I think, therefore I am.

There is no absolute truth outside of absolutist dogma. To an antirealist, pluralist, or relativist 'absolute' truth is complete nonsense because it does not belong to any naturally sensible or logically rational language game. Before you can challenge any of these people, it is entirely up to you to say what in the world an absolute truth is. Remember that Truth is not a Platonic or platonic object but the value of a binary evaluation. Binary evaluations don't work across all plural contingent realisms, and especially not outside all realism. They may be logically inapplicable. — magritte

Is your post not an example if absolute truth? Are you not telling everyone that reads this that the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth? If not, then what are you actually saying? Should we believe what you wrote? Why or why not? Is what you said useful to others? Why or why not?

Because every statement ever made is first constructed by a subject, and because a subject has feelings, then any implied empirical statement is really a statement about feelings, hence a category error?

Too absurd to be true, so I’ll grant the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s not what you meant. — Mww

If statements are about feelings, then what are feelings about? Are you an anti-realist or solipsist?