'The Ego and His Own' opening paragraph

[Guest]

I couldn't help following your ("hawkins" vs "guest") dialogue, and now, I myself would like to comment, question, clarify and analyze one or two things. So here we go:

Guest wrote: ... and there is no seeking "the truth"

Of course there is a seeking of "the truth". However, that doesn't mean that you'll find it.

Guest wrote: ... The concepts of "truth", "freedom", "humanity" and "justice" are fictions.

This is very interesting because the difference between the common definition of "ideal" ("satisfying one's conception of what is perfect; most suitable") and "fiction" ("a belief or statement that is false, but that is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so") is- as you can see- very subtle. The only difference I could see though-but that's my personal perspective- is that ideals are things you strive to achieve. So I cannot agree with you. Yet.

A question to Guest: You talk about women and democrats as slaves. Do you mean that anyone who is subordinate to an authority is a slave or that anyone who is by nature subordinate to an authority is a slave?

You (both of you) talk a lot about truth. Wouldn't you agree though, that there is a difference between "the truth" of birds flying in the sky the day JFK was killed and "the truth" that when MLK Jr. was shot there was a universal sorrow? Just as "guest" said, the expression "universal" is extremely powerful, and in many ways impossible to use other than to express your own opinion on how important something is. To say that there is a "universal sorrow" would not be, correct or "true".
The truth of birds flying in the sky is concrete (as long as you determine that the material world is real), while a feeling is very abstract. It's hard to find a "one truth" in a feeling, since it's so hard even to say what a feeling is and why it's there at all. I guess to find a truth, you must discover all the reasons that lead to it. And that is, according to me, impossible.
Are all truths important at all? Can you find a truth in valuing that (the importance of a truth) as well?

Hawkins wrote: ... what is free about any individual is the "WILL". This is the first thing that allows us to be free. The capacity to think. The capacity to be rational. The capacity to choose the life we want to live. The capacity to transform ourselves. The capacity to realize how profound our moment to moment experiences can be, the capacity to change all future experiences and outcomes. All this is possible because of the WILL, the eternal consiousness that lies within us.

This is not a bad thought at all. But this would imply that all other living beings on this earth are not free? How is that possible? Would you agree to reformulate and summarize what you just said to "freedom is to be able to do all that we by nature have been given the opportunities to do"?

I'd also like to make you notice that this definition of the expression "free"

To be free is to make a conscious effort to be free

is not really a definition of it at all.

Guest wrote: There is no humanity -- only individuals. The concept of humanity is a religion -- it's Christianity without Jesus Christ, similar to humanism. It is just a scam to make you feel like you are indebted to those around you (and those no longer living and yet to live) when in fact there is no rational reason for you to care about anyone but yourself (or anything that does not increase your pleasure, so having a significant other can be justified only if doing so does not limit your power).

Helping people gives you both pleasure and power, right? I think you realize that most people we refer to as powerful are that partly because of all the people that support him/her. However, there's a difference between having strength and having power. Today, possibly because of democracy (the "majority model" system) these two rarely meet. If you don't understand my point, please ask.

Hawkins wrote: No one will follow your philosophy because they realize that the human condition is not about suffering and being miserable.

What "guest" is talking about is not about suffering and being miserable. What he says might not be how you would want things to be like, but some things are actually inevitably true. This is not sad, quite the opposite. You have to realize some things that simply are, before you start thinking of how to develop and improve it ---> acceptance before action. Don't let your actions be driven by feelings, at least not feelings that you haven't analyzed as far as possible first.

Hawkins wrote: it is people like you who are impediments to progress since you are not concerned with the right things but yourself.

This is funny, 'cause it actually fits in with the original topic!

Guest wrote: ... THIS IN NO WAY OBLIGATES ANYONE TO HELP OTHERS!

But some do. So you either have to make them ask themselves why the do that, or just accepting it and keep on striving for gaining power and see what good will come out of all of it.

Guest wrote: Plato, yeah, MAYBE IF I WAS STILL A CHILD WHO LIKED TO READ FLOWERY BOOKS WITH REAL SUBSTANCE.

Didn't you say that children are too young to be concerned with nonsense? Actually.. Since you seem to be against many things in our modern society and many of your opinions seem to be in accordance with the ones you had in ancient greece, maybe it would be interesting for you to read up on this (again)?

Guest wrote: Yeah, WHAT PROGRESS? Have you and a group of assholes now decided upon the "progress" of "HUMANITY"? If so, I am HONORED to be an impediment to your bullshit!

This is correct, Hawkins, you must give your definition of progress to avoid misunderstandings.

Guest wrote: Only if he actually has a brain. Thinking on your own just doesn't cut it, dude.

I think he meant "just thinking, doesn't cut it", not to think together with someone else...

Hawkins wrote: These are all scientific as well so you cannot blame transcendentalism for this one. Also the point to my last post was to prove two things,one that you already mentioned and another that you had no idea about: the first being that we cannot know the answers to every question and the second being that despite our ignorance on certain things, there are answers to those questions, even the one's we will never know.

So you ignore the idea of scientific answers only being models, and not definite answers? And maybe there aren't any answer to those questions we'll never find the answers too? How do you know that there are answers for them if you haven't found them?

Hawkins wrote: The essence of existentialism is the fact that we are capable of creating our own lives, developing our own values, we are FREE to do whatever we want

Here the expression "free" must once again be questioned. We can do whatever we want, but are we really "free" to do everything we can do? This comes back later:

Hawkins wrote: Right now I'm on the computer wasting my time with another individual. I could have chosen to go eat, hang out with friends, etc.The fact that I have the freedom to choose what I want to do constitutes as freedom.

You can indeed do what you want to do out of the things you are allowed to do (and those things have been decided by several authorities). If you do not understand, please ask.

[Aranfan]

I, for one, don't stab people because I don't like stabbing people. Seeing happy children makes me happy, so I endeavor to make they happy, purely for my own satisfaction.

What is progress? Good change? Who shall decide which changes are good and which are bad? Why should I accept their authority to tell me that they know better than I do what is good for me?

There is no humanity, only unique individuals. To place the welfare of the abstraction of the species, of which I am but imperfect approximations, above my own welfare is an oppression. It says that I should not, must not, place my own well being above the well being of the species, as represented by others, that if my particular goods and desires conflict with that of the species then I should and must sacrifice mine for theirs. To place the interests of "all" above the interests of "each", leaves "each" with nothing, and everything to "all". Yet this is precisely backwards. The common good is common because many different particular individuals share it. To those who do not share it, it is not a good at all. If it is claimed to be in the interests of the working class that I should die, it does not follow that it is in my interests to die even though I am a worker.

[Wheelsinyourhead]

I always interpreted that paragraph in Ego & His Own as a sort of exasperation. "What is NOT supposed to be my concern!"

For example the question you asked on this post. My perception of it was completely different than yours and Bob's perception is perhaps different than both of ours. But this does not make us equally correct or equally wrong. There is an answer to the question that you asked and the fact that I am free to put in my own interpretation due to my perception of how i saw the question does not make me correct at all. The same goes for you and anyone else who responded to it. But some people would be more correct than others and others will be more incorrect than others

This bit of Hawkins21's argument does irk me a bit. How do you determine what is 'more correct'? Surely if we don't know the 'truth' then all answers are indeed equally incorrect or correct (since we have no 'truth' to compare to). It reminds me somewhat of the old X-files thing "the truth is out there".

I disagree with the idea that there is truth out there. I understand that humanity doesn't have models for a lot of what goes on yet, but that for me doesn't imply that once we do we will understand The Truth, and certainly not for something as subjective as a book, and especially not for a book as relativistic as The Ego & His Own!

But then I suppose assuming the truth IS out there is another relativistic perspective

This has been a fascinating discussion.

[hawkins21]

I'll respond to guest first and then in another post respond to the others. At least I can finally say that I am invigorated to have a mature conversation. Moving on.

Although I do like your response I believe that you may have misconstrued what we perhaps may have said. Guest was stating that we cannot find truth through objectivity, which is I believe half true. This is what I mean. For example, if you were to meditate and I was to ask you what your experiences through meditation were there is no possible way for me as an objective observer to know your true experiences, for me to be able to comprehend your experiences or for me to really know what you experienced at all. The best I can do is go off of what you said and make an analysis off of that. My analysis may have some truth to it while at the same time not. There are truths to be told about the experiences that you had meditating. But this does not mean that I will fully understand meditation or that I will even find all the answers I want. The same goes for love. Love is an subjective experience towards another object(in the none arbitrary sense). I cannot say that a person who is romantically in love with two people is actually experiencing love and not lust. There are answers/truths to any claims that are made about love, despite the subjectivity involved. All because one may never find the answers to the questions that are seeked does not mean that there are no answers to be found that would eventually deem something to be true or false. There may also be multiple answers and not just one. There may be no answers but the nature of questions have an answer, despite the ignorance of humans. There are answers to any question that is asked, it is a matter of finding it and how we get there, along with other factors that I have not mentioned or dont know about.

Now you mentioned that there is a difference between the birds flying during jfk assassination and mlk jr's assassination leading to a universal sense of sorrow. Now before I continue since it seems that no one understood what I was driving at allow me to explain. The purpose of those questions was to show that there are answers to those questions despite the fact that we may never know the answer or even find the answer. I do not see how anyone could deny that there are not answers to those questions. Secondly I was not being literal when I mentioned a universal sense of sorrow. What was referring to was the riots that were going on after MLK was assassinated and just about everyone who followed MLK was in a state of sorrow. So in a sense, the majority of the U.S. was experience sorrow and then the riots broke out. Were there people who were happy that MLK was shot, hell yeah. George Lincoln Roswell was one of them and I’m sure there were other neo-nazi’s as well that were happy but the questions I asked, despite the difference and complexity of the two were to prove that there are answers to such questions despite the ignorance of any individual. So if you are using the word “Universal” in its lateral sense then I would have to agree with you in saying that such a claim was not true but that in itself is an answer to the question and statement that was asked. But you also had to look at the context that it was used in and realized what I was saying but then again that may have been the failure on my part. Hopefully this makes much more sense. There are steps to finding truth but it does not necessarily have to be as complex as you are making it and therefore not fully impossible. For example if the Sun was to turn into the red giant due to its core expanding after a long fought battle between gravity and the gases that consume the star is there a very high possibility that the Earth would be destroyed during this expansion and increase in size? Or take this one for example, For the bigger stars in the Universe, once they start to produce Iron is there any chance of survival? Such questions have steps to it, such questions may take 200 years to answer but such questions have answers that may eventually lead to truth…By the way the answers to first question is yes the second no. Doubt this do your research. Now if one was to ask what is dark matter, what does it look like, where is it at, or what are the origins of consciousness? there are answers to such questions despite the fact that we do not know them right now and may never know the answer(s). You asked are all truths important, I would say yes(if it has to do with metaphysics especially) but despite my answer(lets assume I said no) this would not take away from the fact that there maybe truths. But he is where I will sound like I am contradicting myself. Since the world is forever changing it is hard to survey it from an objective standpoint and what we may have thought was true or may have believed to be true may indeed be false in 50 yrs. I know its sounds like a contradiction but I think it is more of a paradox(which is not the same thing as contradiction) So to basically sum things up I never mentioned that there is only one answer or that we will find all the answers, that would be absurd. And since we are playing a language game define real or reality for me?

Before I answer you next question about free(or freedom) how is it that I implicated that everyone else is not free? I went over it like three times and still did not notice it. I started off by saying “ANY” individual. If you are referring to animals I would have to say, from an existentialist perspective that other living organisms are not free being that most of them have biological drives that in a sense cause them to act a certain way. Can we know this with 100% confidence. Absolutely not but at the same time lets not play dumb here. Human beings has a very high capacity of cognition and rationality that most, if not all animals have (which may explain why humans are the only species that kill there own [if you exclude chimps but there is usually a biological purpose to what they are doing and not a choice of their own].

As far as me trying to define the word “free” I was not trying to define it at all. It was actually a statement that I was making, not a definition. But to be free and to be aware of it is actually a conscious decision that is made after much introspection. (which explains why many slaves escaped while others did not, it was a conscious choice that was made, an awareness that one realized that they are indeed a free individual who is able to establish their own values). If this does not fly with you think about hierarchies. To accept and be controlled by hierarchies is a conscious decision made by an individual, it is not a social decision. It may be a social construct but it is purely an individual choice.

As far as my statement about Guest mentioning that the human condition is miserable and I forgot what the other word I mentioned, that maybe correct. I do recognize the way things are but I also mentioned how things ought to be. This means that I have to recognize the way things are. Things are the way they are but that does not mean that things have to stay the way things are. I think there may have been some confusion on this but I do recognize the way things are, despite how forlorn they are, or how happy people may be. The world is forever changing as I stated before so I know for sure things will not remain the way they are.

I also want to state that I am not saying that one should not be concerned for themselves. I’m saying that one cannot be concerned for themselves as if their thoughts, actions, intentions, etc do not impact other people. I care for my well-being more than I would for anyone else but I also realize how impact my decisions and actions and thoughts could be towards other people. This is what I’m trying to say.

Now on to this topic of progress. This is not to sound sarcastic anything but are you guys kidding me? To answer the question let me sum it up but I’m sure this would be questioned as well. How about any current condition in the human condition? In case the human condition needs to be defined it has to deal with any experience human beings experience or go through (intellectual, environmental, educational, work, politics, government, social, cultural, racial, economic, war, media/information, reformation, and the list goes on and on). Our current experiences, despite where one is at can be improved. This is not saying that utopia will come about this but the fact that we have protest, budget cuts, rallies and many more things that I cannot think of right now is evidence that progress needs to be made and by progress I mean improving the well-being of conscious creatures and decrease suffering(as much as possible and to the limits of humans)..will there be bad things happening of course but if one less person is killed than last year that’s a step in the right direction.

As far as science answering truths I did not completely ignore it. I am aware of how science works and that any theory that is mentioned now may be changed or irrelevant in 10 yrs. But at the same time science is not wrong all the time. We know a lot more about human beings, animals, the apparatus of consciousness, the universe etc because of science. Do I expect to science to answer the question of “what is the best political regime that will bring about well-being?” I would have to say no[ with the exception of if well-being is measured at the state of the brain] but other than that I think the question is philosophical one more so than a scientific one. Do I expect science to answer questions as to how many children should I have in order to be finically stable? Do I expect science to answer the question of how I ought to love? Of course not. But the questions that science do ask and have answers to them rather or not they answers are found.

I understand that many factors plays into our choices. Like me deciding to go eat or to go upstairs and lay down. There are many events that have lead to the decision that I have but that does not take away from the fact that I have the liberty and capacity to make any decision that I want. For example, I can decide not to go to class on Monday. There will be many factors that play a role(I may be sick, lazy, etc) but despite these feelings I will always have the freedom to choose what I want to do.

[hawkins21]

Aranfan:

Very valid points and I was not speaking in the arbitrary sense. Once again I sort of harbor the same views as you and have indeed raised the same questions so what you and Guest are saying is not really new to me. The answers to your questions are fairly easy though.

Lets start with what changes are good and what changes are bad: Let me give you two examples.

Example A: Lets that there is a community of individuals that live somewhere in Canada. The norm of this community is “that any first born child that is a girl must get their throats once they reach puberty”. If the girl is the second child she is safe but if she is the first born that means that demons consumer her. So you asked what is progress. Progress in this sense would be to maximize the well-being of all individuals within this community. Well-being is important because it involves consciousness(brain), which involves one experiencing pleasure and pain, happiness and joy, etc. You mentioned what would be a good choice and what would be a bad choice towards this progress. The good choice would be to stop doing such things and recognize that the young girls did not choose to be born, that they should not be punished for something that they did not do, and that they are free to experience life as well because it is there natural right as a human being(this is not implying god). A bad choice would be if the community started killing all girls in general once they had their first period or just killed any first born child. Reason will be a good dictator as well. The community should come together and come up with a consensus in accordance to what is reasonable, just, moral, etc. So with the case of the U.S. it would be the masses because it would not be as arbitrary as the government.

If this account seems too unrealistic take two realistic ones. In Africa it was thought that twins were demons and were consumed by evil spirits. So they were killed. In Africa(as far as I know) this does not occur anymore. So I suppose people realized that it was an unjust thing to do. So that in itself is a good conscious decision. Now here is a bad way from trying to bring about progress, i.e. improving one’s condition( one of the reason why slaughter twins stopped was because Christian missionaries came and arbitrarily imposed Christianity onto the indigenous tribes in Africa. Although it did stop such things it was forcefully done and many Africans were killed.

In Sparta if a child was born deformed they would be left in the wilderness to die or they would have been burnt alive (Plato wanted to practice this as well). This came about because it was thought that the deformed would not be progressive to society (which make sense because they were an oligarchy).. To their standards it was in their best interest to do such things but at the same time why should I hold my tongue and say such practices were not moral at all? Yes I can consider the time period and the reasons but this does not mean that their actions were right. The child did not wise to be deformed, why should they get punished and if I was to deem such actions as immoral why should it be labeled as arbitrary?

Once again I understand the points that you are trying to make and everyone are individuals but once again since we are social beings(that can choose not to be social) our actions, thoughts, etc affects other people. So despite the fact that you want to say that there is no humanity, no society, no culture, etc the fact that your are surrounded by other people, despite your individuality makes you interconnected to them. I am an individual who has the capacity to do what I want. You mentioned the working class. If they wanted you to die that is a individual decision made by every individual in that class. The fact that they all agreed to kill you is still a conscious decision made by them. But since they are doing this together they are one. Just like ants. There are individual ants but when they get back to the colony they are in a sense family, they are one. The same with humans. You are your own person. But when you add your mom, dad, brother, sister, grandparents, cousins, etc you guys are a unit, you guys are family connected together by blood(or legal marriage)..

[hawkins21]

Wheelsinyourhead: I am sure my views irk many people and perhaps I maybe wrong in what I say. I am very open to that. But back to you question, it is actually pretty simple.

I’ll give you two examples:

1. Lets say that there are only two people in the world (we will say Jill and Joey who happen to both be 21) and we have to give accounts of how these two can maximize their well-being (in accordance to reason) and with their best effort decrease their suffering.

So we ask three people: Person A, Person B and Person C.

Person A states: They should smash each others heads with rocks

Person B states: They should be two individuals who are only concerned for themselves and very rarely help one another

Person C states: They should try helping one another, be reciprocal when it comes to goods and try their best to have the most healthy relationship that they possibly can . If they have children they should take turns raising them while the other does the labor…….

Since the question was about maximizing well-being (with accordance to reason) Person A response was wrong. Person B was better than person A’s but not quite correct, but is on the right path. Person C, in talking about well-being account would be the correct answer. More so correct than person A and B, whereas person B’s account was more so correct than Person A.

Does that make sense.

Another example would be in a classroom. A teacher ask a question to the class and a couple of students reply. One students answer is outright wrong and the teacher points that out. The second students answer gets the reply of “not exactly what I was looking for but you are on the right path. And finally the third student response is the correct one.


Good questions everyone.

[Wheelsinyourhead]

Thanks for the quick response, plenty to think about.

I do get the impression though that we are working on entirely different models, so our hopes of reaching an accord is slim at best

I do understand your examples quite well, but I don't necessarily agree with your conclusions. For me, there isn't a right answer to that question. "Maximizing well being" for me is a subjective perspective that depends on the psychology and desires of the individuals involved. While your example is based around the objective correctness of Person C's answer, I personally can understand why a person would choose A or B. Not because I agree with them or think they are 'correct' myself, but because I appreciate the basic subjectivity in how people think.

Think of it this way, if Person B believes that interests are best served individually, how would coercing him or her into Person C's way of doing things maximize Person B's well being? This sort of coercion is the nature of authority.

This is also the issue in the second example. In this instance, the teacher is the authority. While this may seem reasonable in part in that context (to some!) it does not translate well into other aspects of human existence. A teacher informing a pupil that 2 + 2 = 5 is an incorrect answer in a classroom is an entirely different proposition to philosophical life, desire, ethics, etc.

One of the reasons for that in philosophical life there is no 'teacher', and no proven right answer, unless you are a theist or believe in objective truth outside of you. Since I don't believe in such an influence, I consider my opinions equally valid and invalid to every other opinion. Including yours

[hawkins21]

Ok I get what you are saying

I do not deny that many factors are involved in the way one thinks and the way that one acts. I do believe that there are right and wrong answer(s) to the questions of well-being and as for this example I believe that there is more than one answer to this question. It was to show that some people can be right or righter or wrong and wronger to certain questions regarding well-being. We can both say that Person A is completely wrong in their account of how two people should maximize their well-being in accordance to reason. And like you I can understand why someone would pick option A and Option B but that does not mean that they are correct (maybe in another circumstance they would be correct but in the scenario I gave I would have to say no, in the most un- arbitrary way as possible). It is good to get different opinions since one can always learn something new from someone else but in terms of morality, I think there are right and wrong answers to certain moral questions. In layman’s terms what I am saying is that we can respect and understand what someone says and thinks but we do not have to tolerate what they say or do (more so their actions than their thoughts). The reason why I say we do not have to tolerate what others say is because when one is trying to map reality with their thoughts or beliefs then there is a potential danger their , especially if they are unreasonable and incoherent. (think of how the inhabitants of Christianity do this). And this is what I am saying when it comes to person A and somewhat about Person B. Once again I am not coming from an arbitrary position.

Now this is where thing are going to get interesting and I anticipated you mentioning coercion and the nature of authority. First things first, your sort of playing a zero-sum game but I’ll bite. Ok, I never implied that they can never serve in their own interest. This is the mistake that everyone has made about my responses. I never refuted the fact that we need to only be concerned with ourselves. I get the point everyone, including guest was trying to make but I believe that we should be concerned about these things, not because of some higher authority but because we are human beings who are interconnected. What I am trying to say is that we must recognize and choose to be concerned about freedom, justice, truth, humanity, etc because it is the right thing to do but nonetheless it is a choice of our own without the influence of authority. Now that I cleared things up lets begin. Now if Jill and what’s-his-name (lets say John) are dependent upon each other, which seems likely in this case (unless they are on different ends of the world, then option C would be the best route to go given their circumstance. Now there are times where option B may be the best route to go but honestly I think that would lead to more coercion than option C would given that we are by nature social animals and when we are around people, communicating with them we feel a lot better. But in no circumstance outside of self-defense would option A be good. It is not coercive to tell Person B that given this circumstance (dependence upon one another) that complete self indulgence and self interest is the best route to go when dependent upon one another but there may be other situations where it may be vital to one’s well-being, which is why I mentioned reciprocity. Secondly it seems like you are getting the wrong impression of well-being. For example if it is in Jill interest to smash John head with a rock or to steal his ipod in order to maximize her well-being this is not what I am talking about given that it is not reasonable.

I understand your concern with the second example regarding the teacher and I have a response to that as well. The first being that some authoritative relationships will be unavoidable and can be justified in this case the teacher/student relationship (as long as it is not oppressive. I’m coming from an anarchist perspective). If you doubt this then, at least in anarchism or any society at that we would need to do away with parental/child relationships. Secondly if a teacher is teaching the class that 2+2= 5 then that is really bad but in an anarchist society one would be obligated to tell the truth since that would be deemed oppressive. There is really no difference between math and philosophy except for the discourse involved and the perspectives that they are coming from. Philosophical issues are on a different scale than mathematical issues but that does not mean that no truths can be found taking a philosophical perspective as well. That is essentially the nature of philosophy.

Your last paragraph is interesting but maybe we are coming from different models. When I am talking about truths I do not believe that there is ONE right answer. Since human experience is vast and there are infinite number of circumstances it would be impossible to say we have to act this way or that way in this circumstance. But given every circumstance there are correct ways to act and incorrect ways to act. For example if I am in a situation where a guy has a gun to my head asking me for money there are many ways for one to act. An example of a good way would be to try to talk him out of it. Another one would be to recognize that I live for something outside of money and give him my money (this is assuming he does not plan to kill me if I obey his command) and many more ways. A bad thing to do would be to provoke him, insult him, talk about his mother or father, call him ugly, etc….or lets take another example. Lets say that my gf is upset at me and is just screaming at the top of her lungs. A bad thing to do would be to yell back or provoke her. So once again I am not implying that there is ONE correct way that we should live but that there are nonetheless right actions and wrong actions..if that make sense. So your right your views, my views, just about everyone views are vital but that does not mean that some should be given more credence than others (if you doubt this just look at how many people think I am wrong about the things I say)

[Wheelsinyourhead]

You speak of not giving certain views credence over others, but that is entirely the point I am making. Egoism for me (and I understand that this is just my interpretation, not a TRUTH) is based on the fundamental idea that if there is no objective truth, than ALL views are equal, whether they are rational, irrational or blatantly absurd. We all just apply value judgments in accordance with our own personal view of reality.

I'd go on, but frankly, I'm bored of counter asserting your assertions. So lets move on.

Another question then, and something which will hopefully get us away from this entanglement. Where do your ideas of truth come from? Have you read Stirner? What conclusions did you reach?

[hawkins21]

Likewise, I think we’ll just end up having circular arguments but I will say this: If what you say is true then Christian doctrine can be placed on the same scale as rational inquiry. This I will say is absurd because I know that you Afran and guest (both of them) do not believer that the injunctions and the tenets of Christianity to be correct. All because one gives more credence to certain concepts than others does not mean that they are not equally valid. Truth and fallacy can be found in concepts. Even if there were not objective truth in the world there would be right and wrong answers still, no matter how valuable one would make certain concepts. Let’s take your position: I can, if I wanted to because there is not objective truth, say that I am the second coming of Christ. I can say that I am the reincarnated version of the Buddha or I can say that the earth is the center of the universe. All because my views can be placed on an equal scale of every other notion that exist does not make my views correct. They should not even be tolerated and if I was to say such things you guys would be the first one’s to try to prove me wrong (I would hope so). This is why I say there has to be truth (rather objective or subjective or both). Equality does not constitute as truth. I never said that concepts have no importance, I am just saying that there are right and wrong answers to just about every question brought up by mankind (philosophical, mathematical, scientific, anthropological, etc) and this is the reason why I say credence should be given to certain concepts than others, which is what you guys are doing with me right now. If that is not the case then you guys would say my views are equally valuable to striner, which is obviously not the case.

I’ve read little of him (I usually do not have time to read or I’ll read books that I find have more importance). But I cannot say that I am an expert nor will I say that I can give you a summery of what I read (its been like a year or so). Intriguing guy and I do understand what he is trying to say (after going over the post a couple of times). I do not agree with him though about not having to worry about truth, humanity, etc. And I do understand what he is saying (why should he be concerned with those things? Because society tells him so and if he is concerned about himself before these things then he is viewed as a bad person, someone who does not follow convention and is a deviant member of society). It is obvious that we should be concerned with ourselves first and foremost but since we are, as I stated before, interconnected with one another our thoughts and actions affect other people (doubt this think about how depression and misery can cause one to potentially harm others. If you still doubt this up: The Internet Killer. It was about a 15 or 16 yr old who shot his dad in the back of the head with a 12 gage shotgun because he was depressed. The reason why he was depressed is because he was not allowed to go on the internet and because his gf broke up with him. This comes to show how our state of mind is key to our actions and worldview. So as brilliant as Striner is it does not mean I have to agree with him. The same goes for Nietzsche. I love Nietzsche but at the same time I don’t have to agree with everything he says. The same goes for Plato, Aristotle, etc.

Now where do my notions of truth come from. This is obviously a question that can be traced back to Nietzsche’s’ Beyond Good and Evil. I remember reading the section where he said that everything that we know, claim to know and say is all intuitive and speculative and pretty much subjective. So I understand why it would seem that there is no objective truth in the world and in a sense he is right. But not everything is subjective. Empirical data is totally objective and there have been many things that have been found to be truthful (like the earth not being the center of the universe). Most of the date I receive is empirical but I also know that empiricism cannot answer everything such as “what experiences did you have in your mind while you were in prayer” or “what are you thinking as of right now”. Empirically I cannot fully understand one’s experience of the world (the best that can be done is what the other person says but the fact that everyone lies it cannot be take with credence). But when I read books about anything (weather its Nietzsche, Plato, a textbook, etc) I try to see if it metaphysically true and try to be as objective as possible but ultimately it will be how I perceive it but if everyone else has unarbirtrarly stated the same thing and are objective then I know I am on the right page. It is sort of like a paradox when you think about it. I hope that answers your question.

[Guest]

Even though I've read the entire "The Ego and His Own", to this day I still don't quite understand the opening paragraph. It looks to me like it contains a typo:

What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost, the Good Cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. "Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!"

If you remove the "not" from the first sentence, the whole paragraph makes perfect sense to me. Stirner is sarcastically saying

There you have it. I think that the "NOT" is supposed to be there. He is saying "WOW! It seems like I am being told that everything should be my concern....is there anything that is not?"

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