The Self

jamest · #1 by **jamest** » Dec 08, 2017 12:45 am

We've all heard the various mantras/theories about the self being an illusion, but I'm not sure how anyone can reasonably argue against that. I mean, even from a physicalist perspective the 'conscious self' is some complex product of the brain, produced (one assumes) via Natural Selection to eventually select for the singular/ordered focusing of a complex physical mechanism wrt the survival and perpetuation (via the genes thereof) of the physical organism as a whole. So, even from a physicalist perspective 'the self' is an illusory fabrication.

SoS gets a bit of stick here, especially for his notion of 'Physicalist Buddhism', but upon this realisation that a physicalist understands that their self-identity IS bollocks, I for one should apologise to him personally as I am guilty of having given him shit about it over the years. You were right, squire, it's not an entirely nonsensical notion. I apologise about that, sincerely.

In recent years, my thoughts about self-identity have alienated myself against nearly all religious people and most rational theists, even idealists such as LI. I'm not going to apologise for that though. If a theist cannot or refuses to understand and accept that their theism renders their identity as humans utterly null & void, then fuck it. If my only remaining option, rationally, is to discuss self-identity with physicalists, then so be it. There's no politics in me, no allegiances, no arses which I prefer to lick. The bottom-line here, for any rational person, is that the notion of self-identification as 'a singular human' is bullshit.

So, now, this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and create 'World Peace' without any mention of God or physicalism.

What you also need to consider is that it's not just the human self as a singular entity which is in question here. Read your history books. All of that slaying, storming of castles, butchering, raping, thieving, money-grabbing, power-struggling, border-creating, politics, shiteness-in-general; has been a consequence of this fubar belief in the aforementioned singular self as a 'real' being. Hence, our history, though not illusory (in the sense that these events were actually experienced), was [and continues to be] a product of the aforementioned illusory belief.

We, now, have a reason to stop bickering about God/matter/mind/brains/metaphysics! and just focus upon 'making the world a better place' in light of the understanding that 'the self as an individual being' is illusory bollocks (from either rational [metaphysical] perspective).

Why should we continue along the same path of destroying our World, its nature, ourselves, upon the basis of a fucking lie? We now have reason, here in the 21st century, free of any metaphysical dispute, to change the world completely!

Imo, to be able to say this in terms which render obsolete the metaphysical disagreements between theism/physicalism/science, is a fucking massive leap which may [eventually] lead to that aforementioned cordial coffee. This relative bickering amongst ourselves will never solve anything, but if we can ALL agree that 'the self' is an absolute cuntish notion, then there is still hope for us all as a whole.

The whole, if nothing else, is what matters.

Matthew Shute · #2 by **Matthew Shute** » Dec 08, 2017 1:39 am

jamest wrote:Read your history books. All of that slaying, storming of castles, butchering, raping, thieving, money-grabbing, power-struggling, border-creating, politics, shiteness-in-general; has been a consequence of this fubar belief in the aforementioned singular self as a 'real' being.

I don't know how you reduce it all to that, as a cause. Individualistic ideologies and relatively collectivist ones have managed to pile up the corpses, to be sure; but if we take the 20th century as our example, the most collectivist ideologies were typically also the most murderous. If a political leader or committee favours an ideology in which individual humans are always expendable for the "greater good", and for the many, don't be surprised when that same leader or committee seems willing to expend several (or perhaps several million) individual humans if he/it feels that doing so will move the collective closer to utopia.

: 20th Century Deaths by Ideology.png (32.62 KiB) Viewed 3661 times

Source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/v ... ury-death/

I might re-read Nineteen-Eighty Four. Do you remember the names of the fictional ideologies Orwell invented for his trio of tyrannies? He describes them as being practically identical, but they do have different names. Oceania had Ingsoc. Eurasia had Neo-Bolshevism. Eastasia had... you guessed it... Obliteration of the Self. Spoiler alert, but there's a part in the latter third of the book where Winston Smith's torturer, O'Brien, chides Smith about his naive understanding of solipsism, explaining to Smith that Ingsoc is more a sort of group-solipsism, or solipsism encompassing multiple perspectives.

jamest · #3 by **jamest** » Dec 08, 2017 1:59 am

Matthew Shute wrote:
jamest wrote:Read your history books. All of that slaying, storming of castles, butchering, raping, thieving, money-grabbing, power-struggling, border-creating, politics, shiteness-in-general; has been a consequence of this fubar belief in the aforementioned singular self as a 'real' being.

I don't know how you reduce it all to that, as a cause.

I explained that in the OP - the identifying notion of a 'singular human self' being bullshit. It even makes no sense from the physicalist perspective. However, if that's what you believe then that's going to be the basis motivation for how you interact with 'the world'. The consequence (cause) of 'you'.

I might re-read Nineteen-Eighty Four. Do you remember the names of the fictional ideologies Orwell invented for his trio of tyrannies? He describes them as being practically identical, but they do have different names. Oceania had Ingsoc. Eurasia had Neo-Bolshevism. Eastasia had... you guessed it... Obliteration of the Self. Spoiler alert, but there's a part in the latter third of book where Winston Smith's torturer, O'Brien, chides Smith about his naive understanding of solipsism, explaining to Smith that Ingsoc is more a sort of group-solipsism, or solipsism encompassing multiple perspectives.

I've never read it. You haven't inspired me to do so, above.

Cito di Pense · #4 by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 08, 2017 3:06 am

jamest wrote:I explained that in the OP - the identifying notion of a 'singular human self' being bullshit. It even makes no sense from the physicalist perspective. However, if that's what you believe then that's going to be the basis motivation for how you interact with 'the world'. The consequence (cause) of 'you'.

You didn't start with the vapidity of individualism. You started with utopianism to argue weakly that individualism is vapid in relation to the goal of utopia. Why don't you start from somewhere else and conclude utopianism? Can't you? I'd love to see a good knock-down argument that starts somewhere known and ends up with utopianism. There's nowhere to start when observed X is not the real X, or that the self is illusory, and you present that argument by having individualized conversations about it. If you don't believe the story yourself, then how am I to do so? It's just another one-size-fits-all ideology to be swallowed whole, and you still have to contend with the fact that it is only one of many experiences of all your potential clients of the robe-and-sandals thing.

Over and over again, when I confront your 'argument' to 'make the world a better place', the words of Alvin Lee and Ten Years After keep coming back to me. There's fifty years (more or less) to look back on that, now. Are those fifty years illusory, too? I mean, there's this part of Everything that we call jamest, and this part of Everything we call Alvin Lee. And there's Cito, busy juggling these other two stories to see how they jell. See where I'm going with this? There's also a great joke in the film Amélie about the guy who repairs photo booths in railway stations. We don't know it at the time, but his picture keeps turning up mysteriously at photo booths, and we first suspect he's an individual in crisis who just does not want to be forgotten. It's a story, among other things, about the ways we search for relation and cut ourselves off at the same time. I'm not writing all this because I want it to be forgotten in a week, even though I have to accept that it will be. More to the point, I'm just practicing confrontation with attitudes like yours. Why? Don't know. Maybe I am speaking directly to you, James, in the ancient style of a written correspondence.

I just have to assume there's a deep back-story to the narrator of the story you're telling, and it only functions at all because it is kept completely out of sight or revealed piecemeal in anecdotes. I don't need to know anything about this backstory. Though the number is dwindling, there are still a handful of other characters present in this cartoon that I would like the backstory on, including you, but I can live without getting that. If there wasn't already a good explanation for the different selves originating at different times and aging into different perspectives on 'making the world a better place', you'd stand a better chance of spreading the good news.

Fallible · #5 by **Fallible** » Dec 08, 2017 8:53 am

The Self
An exploration of Identity

jamest · #6 by **jamest** » Dec 08, 2017 4:40 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
jamest wrote:I explained that in the OP - the identifying notion of a 'singular human self' being bullshit. It even makes no sense from the physicalist perspective. However, if that's what you believe then that's going to be the basis motivation for how you interact with 'the world'. The consequence (cause) of 'you'.

You didn't start with the vapidity of individualism. You started with utopianism to argue weakly that individualism is vapid in relation to the goal of utopia. Why don't you start from somewhere else and conclude utopianism? Can't you?

'Utopia' didn't get a mention until the latter part of my OP, and only then as a potential consequence to us all realising the folly of self-identification. Have you moved to the southern hemisphere, such that you're seeing my posts upside-down?

There's nowhere to start when observed X is not the real X, or that the self is illusory, and you present that argument by having individualized conversations about it. If you don't believe the story yourself, then how am I to do so?

You're overcomplicating matters. Does it not suffice to realise that a [rotten] history forged upon human self-identity should not be repeated in the future?

Also, note that it is human individualism I am denouncing here, not per se the metaphysical notion of individualism. Identifying oneself as the individual human, is the problem.

BlackBart · #7 by **BlackBart** » Dec 08, 2017 5:46 pm

Matthew Shute · #8 by **Matthew Shute** » Dec 08, 2017 6:22 pm

jamest wrote:Does it not suffice to realise that a [rotten] history forged upon human self-identity should not be repeated in the future?

At least one of us is waiting for a citation or two, and by that I don't mean you quoting yourself. There's a thing you like to do sometimes - you know, that thing where you assert something to be the case and, when asked about it, you say that you've "explained it". But all you actually mean is that you asserted it.

Egoism and self-identification might lead one person to behave in an obnoxious Scrooge-like way to others, but another person to do nice deeds for people, if only for the bragging rights. On the other hand, not caring about individual selves may lead one person to become a veritable saint, but another to trample all over the various individual human selves he doesn't care about.

You've "explained" neither the utopia you're working towards, nor how the "rot" you talk about is all the fault of self-identification.

I've never read it. You haven't inspired me to do so, above.

Your loss. :coffee:

Cito di Pense · #9 by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 08, 2017 8:01 pm

jamest wrote:Also, note that it is human individualism I am denouncing here, not per se the metaphysical notion of individualism. Identifying oneself as the individual human, is the problem.

Yes, I understand that you are denouncing it. You assert that identifying as the individual human is the problem. Ah, you say, it's a problem because it's blocking the world from becoming a better place. I look at that and ask, "why isn't the problem that the world is not a better place?" That looks like something somebody like you would consider a problem. I don't know what problem making the world a better place would solve other than the problem of the world not being a better place. It seems kind of pointless, if not downright tautological.

I'm sorry if this kind of seems like raining on a one-man parade, but I find overwhelming the vapidity of saying, "The world is a terrible place and I want it to become better; my solution is for us to stop identifying as individual humans."

My version of making the world a better place would be to have fewer people looking out the windows of flats in a tenement tower block across the courtyard to the windows of another flat in another tenement tower block, gazing at somebody looking back at them. Why don't you go there and try spreading your message? I'm tellin' ya, James, Alvin Lee is looking more and more like my guru with every passing hour I listen to your vapid plan to make the world a better place.

surreptitious57 · **#10** by **surreptitious57** » Dec 08, 2017 10:42 pm

There is an obvious flaw with this notion which is what separates human beings is more than the divide between idealism and physicalism. As those divisions are entirely irrelevant. It is the much more serious ones which are in urgent need of attention
And so long as there are such ideologies that are fundamentally different to each other then there can never be Utopia upon Earth. So expecting us to become a totally cooperative species with a single common goal like bees or ants is simply naivety
of the highest order. The best you can do is change yourself. Just dont expect everybody else to do likewise. Because mono zygotes notwithstanding we all like being different even if we are members of ideological tribes too. As our individuality is what ultimately defines us as human beings. And so that is why we can never be like be bees or ants even if we wanted to

jamest · **#11** by **jamest** » Dec 09, 2017 12:26 am

Cito di Pense wrote:
jamest wrote:Also, note that it is human individualism I am denouncing here, not per se the metaphysical notion of individualism. Identifying oneself as the individual human, is the problem.

Yes, I understand that you are denouncing it. You assert that identifying as the individual human is the problem. Ah, you say, it's a problem because it's blocking the world from becoming a better place.

Correction: it's a problem first and foremost because it's an erroneous/irrational belief. Any rational theist or physicalist would/should acknowledge this for reasons we shouldn't even have to discuss here unless there are dummies in the room. You're no dummy, pal. A muppet, maybe, but no dummy. Ironically, it's many of the religious people who would mostly object to my OP as they view themselves as distinct small-fry islands relative to their God.

The fact that this is "blocking the world from becoming a better place" is a mere consequence of realising this. Not the reason to accept it as true. You seem stubbornly intent in describing my horse as my cart and my cart as my horse, but you are evidently barking for barking's sake, like a dog who doesn't like the sound of his new dog-food.

I look at that and ask, "why isn't the problem that the world is not a better place?" That looks like something somebody like you would consider a problem. I don't know what problem making the world a better place would solve other than the problem of the world not being a better place. It seems kind of pointless, if not downright tautological.

The foremost problem is to rid ourselves of this fathead flat earth mentality which identifies us incorrectly. After that, we are free to stop repeating the horrors apparent within our history as a consequence of having done just that in the past.

What's there to object to here? The fact that we're identifying ourselves incorrectly, or the fact that our history is abhorrent and was forged by dummies who identified themselves incorrectly?

What you're really objecting to, I suspect, is the fact that you quite like being Cito and don't want to surrender that crown. But, erm, I'm not asking you to surrender anything other than a false identity-belief which might/should provide you with a renewed and positive outlook for 'humanity' as a whole. I'm not asking you to give up anything other than that. You can even keep your possessions and titles as memorabilia. Political change doesn't have to be instantaneous as a consequence. I'm not Donald Trump in disguise. Changing your mind significantly about who/what you are is a significant social event, one for social media to settle before any politician dare start tinkering with 'laws of the land'. Remember, the OP was devoid of any metaphysical pressures from either camp.

I'm sorry if this kind of seems like raining on a one-man parade, but I find overwhelming the vapidity of saying, "The world is a terrible place and I want it to become better; my solution is for us to stop identifying as individual humans."

What I find overwhelming is the vapidity of the personal politics which might prevent one from stepping out of their own personal diarrhea and taking one step to the shower.

My version of making the world a better place would be to have fewer people looking out the windows of flats in a tenement tower block across the courtyard to the windows of another flat in another tenement tower block, gazing at somebody looking back at them. Why don't you go there and try spreading your message? I'm tellin' ya, James, Alvin Lee is looking more and more like my guru with every passing hour I listen to your vapid plan to make the world a better place.

Alvin Lee was a prominent musician. I suspect that if I were such a prominent musician that you'd take me more seriously. I also suspect that if Alvin Lee had been a prominent philosopher, you'd have taken his music less seriously.

jamest · **#12** by **jamest** » Dec 09, 2017 12:31 am

surreptitious57 wrote:There is an obvious flaw with this notion which is what separates human beings is more than the divide between idealism and physicalism. As those divisions are entirely irrelevant. It is the much more serious ones which are in urgent need of attention
And so long as there are such ideologies that are fundamentally different to each other then there can never be Utopia upon Earth. So expecting us to become a totally cooperative species with a single common goal like bees or ants is simply naivety
of the highest order. The best you can do is change yourself. Just dont expect everybody else to do likewise. Because mono zygotes notwithstanding we all like being different even if we are members of ideological tribes too. As our individuality is what ultimately defines us as human beings. And so that is why we can never be like be bees or ants even if we wanted to

I'm sorry, but your response here is utterly inappropriate as a response to the OP. For the dummies in the room, the OP included a line, bolded in red, which subsequently stated:

So, now, this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and create 'World Peace' without any mention of God or physicalism.

Go away and have a fuckin' word with yourself.

jamest · **#13** by **jamest** » Dec 09, 2017 12:41 am

Matthew Shute wrote:
jamest wrote:Does it not suffice to realise that a [rotten] history forged upon human self-identity should not be repeated in the future?

At least one of us is waiting for a citation or two, and by that I don't mean you quoting yourself.

I thought that you knew me better than that, such that you now know that I'm the author of my own philosophies. I don't do citations, for that reason.

I've never read it. You haven't inspired me to do so, above.

Your loss.

I suspect that you're correct. I'm not a big reader though would love to be motivated so. My main concern here though was of the relevance of your recommendation.

Cito di Pense · **#14** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 09, 2017 5:34 am

jamest wrote:Correction: it's a problem first and foremost because it's an erroneous/irrational belief.

Glad we cleared that up so easily! See the end of this post for suggested reasons why someone really stupid might conclude that you've come up with a diamond, here, all on your own.

jamest wrote:The fact that this is "blocking the world from becoming a better place" is a mere consequence of realising this. Not the reason to accept it as true.

Ditto.

Here's the thing, James: Even if it's not the sleazy plagiarism I think it is, this is all down at some reflexive tit-for-tat level of wooheads vs. rationalists, dummies vs. smarties, whatever. I don't blame you at all for choosing to portray yourself as the wise one pointing out errors to the uninformed or irrational, because that's the way (not entirely incorrectly) you view what is going on here. It's a real boost for the ego. People are mean to each other, not least on the internet. That's only one thing that's keeping the world from being a better place. It looks to me as if people don't really want the world to be a better place. It pains me to say this on a rational-skeptical forum where so many members seem to be arguing that making the world a better place begins by arguing with woo, otherwise attacking it, making fun of it, and all the other approaches, including the pipe dream of eliminating it. If you listen to me carefully, I wouldn't dream of (or should I say 'hope for') eliminating it. But its reactionary and reflexive arguments and apologetics are elements that I reject, and you have yet to start talking me out of that attitude.

Your approach in this comic strip is to adopt the position that 'evidence based' approaches miss the point, and that's the tit-for-tat payback for how skeptics point out to religionists they have no evidence that their favorite fairy tales are true. I mean, dammit, why didn't I think of this approach? Probably because it's obviously reactionary and reflexive, instead of serving as a fully-developed argument. You make exactly the same argument describing the critique of religion as a 'mantra'. You haven't developed the argument at all. It's just your tit-for-tat payback, dressed up in your dream that you're some kind of philosopher because you've been to college.

jamest wrote:I thought that you knew me better than that, such that you now know that I'm the author of my own philosophies.

Plagiarism or not, you are the author of what you write here, James, and though that is a tautology, it's as much as I'm willing to grant about what you write.

jamest wrote:What's there to object to here?

Bingo, James. Just assume your case is made, and everyone will fall in line, even though you've been informed for something passing ten years that asserting shit does not make shit the case. Your Big Assertion is that observation (and hence, evidence) is not the way to conduct an argument. That's exactly the way you should proceed if you adopt a position for which no evidence can be brought, and this is the case with all theists. And then there's you, James, trying to be different. We'd call that sort of invitation to objection as 'disingenuous'. You've read armloads of objections, and you laugh or shrug them off in the same style I use when confronting apologetics. Don't purport full-fledged argument when it is just infantile tit-for-tat.

jamest wrote:What you're really objecting to, I suspect, is the fact that you quite like being Cito and don't want to surrender that crown.

Wrong, James. What I quite like is identifying the reactionary and reflexive arguments in favor of the change some folks insist is so necessary for making the world a better place. It's irrelevant whether or not I 'like being Cito'. How would you even know I was surrendering anything? You'd not know it if I accepted your argument just to shut you the fuck up, and I could go about my business off this forum in exactly the way you are used to seeing me conduct it here. I think your weird and somewhat old-fashioned beliefs in platitudes such as "a man's word is his bond" might have something to do with your naive conception of what winning an argument is all about.

jamest wrote:What I find overwhelming is the vapidity of the personal politics which might prevent one from stepping out of their own personal diarrhea and taking one step to the shower.

Well, flattery will get you nowhere with me, James. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. You may have noticed that I'm not really trying to talk you into dropping your idiotic beliefs about making the world a better place. I'm just doing my best to explain to you why your strings of assertions don't move me.

jamest wrote:Alvin Lee was a prominent musician. I suspect that if I were such a prominent musician that you'd take me more seriously. I also suspect that if Alvin Lee had been a prominent philosopher, you'd have taken his music less seriously.

Alvin Lee had me with "I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do". That's my basis for remembering him and I'm not a huge fan otherwise, although he is recognized as having been a fantastic musician. "Having been" is something we are all going to get to, eventually. It would be stupid of me to admit in these conversations to anything I really cared about, because I don't believe online arguments are a superior substitute for having a pint and a chat down the pub. This is a tough one for me because I live someplace where I hear four or five languages regularly being spoken on the street, in only one of which I am fluent, and English is way down the list.

As for philosophy, you should have concluded by now that my soul is much more poetic than it is philosophical. I'm on record as regarding the human condition as absurd, and for that, music, poetry and other gustatory pleasures are the only dependable palliatives. There are no solutions, James, only palliatives. If you insist on taking my use of 'soul' literally, that is going to be entirely your problem.

The blurb at amazon.com:

In The Book, Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta.

At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the “outside” world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. To help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe, Watts has crafted a revelatory primer on what it means to be human—and a mind-opening manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence.

If you don't want to credit your sources, and want to continue to claim that you're not 'a reader', that's fine with me. You can't claim to have come up with this 'philosophy' on your own, James, and that is the seediest thing about your conduct here. The reason to become a better reader is so that you won't write shit that has people saying you're reinventing someone else's wheel.

Taking something like that, judiciously changing a few words and concepts and claiming it as your own work doesn't get by anyone who understands how plagiarism works. That plagiarism is exactly the turd you've been polishing for over a decade.

jamest wrote:I don't do citations, for that reason.

Yeah, right. This is not a judgement of your character, James, although there are implications. You simply cannot claim even this bit of fluffy, pre-digested Vedanta as your own work: It's been all over the fucking internet for a couple of decades, and in bookstores for twice that or more. Your sleazy approach to argument, including avoiding citations, is why your contention of other people's faulty arguments (even if valid) is completely vacuous. You know what the vacuous does, James: It sucks.

felltoearth · **#15** by **felltoearth** » Dec 09, 2017 3:14 pm

Well.

There's that.

Pebble · **#16** by **Pebble** » Dec 09, 2017 5:23 pm

I struggle to see why recognising that the 'self' is a virtual entity and that experience of the world is indirect should lead to tolerating magical thinking as required by idealism.
The issue with idealism is that one has to invent unnecessary steps to explain why there appears to be a world out there.

SpeedOfSound · **#17** by **SpeedOfSound** » Dec 10, 2017 12:16 am

jamest wrote:...
SoS gets a bit of stick here, especially for his notion of 'Physicalist Buddhism', but upon this realisation that a physicalist understands that their self-identity IS bollocks, I for one should apologise to him personally as I am guilty of having given him shit about it over the years. You were right, squire, it's not an entirely nonsensical notion. I apologise about that, sincerely.
...

Congrats on reaching an understanding about differing models not conflicting with the selfless stance. Next I am hoping you realize that the propositional physicalism I am obsessed with, takes no deep ontological position and hence is quite compatible with an infinite variety of ontological demands.

On bettering humanity, now that would be nice. We have a ways to go in our education about what we are and how we work before I see any hope of that on the horizon. I very much doubt it will ever happen.

You get a lot of shit here and sometimes our fellows don't notice when you have come up with something worthy.

surreptitious57 · **#18** by **surreptitious57** » Dec 10, 2017 5:28 am

james wrote:
I am sorry but your response here is utterly inappropriate as a response to the OP
For the dummies in the room the OP included a line bolded in red which subsequently stated

So now this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and
create World Peace without any mention of God or physicalism

You propose a ridiculous reason as to why there is no world peace yet my response is deemed utterly inappropriate
World peace has never existed for as long as civilisation has existed but you think you have discovered the answer
Any chance of it being tested in the real world to see how effective it might be otherwise it is just empty rhetoric

Cito di Pense · **#19** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 10, 2017 5:49 am

surreptitious57 wrote:
james wrote:
I am sorry but your response here is utterly inappropriate as a response to the OP
For the dummies in the room the OP included a line bolded in red which subsequently stated

So now this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and
create World Peace without any mention of God or physicalism

You propose a ridiculous reason as to why there is no world peace yet my response is deemed utterly inappropriate
World peace has never existed for as long as civilisation has existed but you think you have discovered the answer
Any chance of it being tested in the real world to see how effective it might be otherwise it is just empty rhetoric

James doesn't start from 'the real world'. That in itself doesn't blunt your criticism of his proposal, but it does point to why you and he might end up talking past each other. We will always be talking past anyone else in conversation when we have little or no interest in what somebody else is saying, and stick to reiterating our own views without incorporating any sense of why we might be disagreeing with somebody else. I just want to offer you a sense that you're not alone with the problem of making inappropriate responses to what someone else has said.

That said, "world peace" is a curious concept, when you think about it. You would be wise to ask where we even got the idea in the first place.

SpeedOfSound · **#20** by **SpeedOfSound** » Dec 10, 2017 12:18 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:
james wrote:
I am sorry but your response here is utterly inappropriate as a response to the OP
For the dummies in the room the OP included a line bolded in red which subsequently stated

So now this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and
create World Peace without any mention of God or physicalism

You propose a ridiculous reason as to why there is no world peace yet my response is deemed utterly inappropriate
World peace has never existed for as long as civilisation has existed but you think you have discovered the answer
Any chance of it being tested in the real world to see how effective it might be otherwise it is just empty rhetoric

James doesn't start from 'the real world'. That in itself doesn't blunt your criticism of his proposal, but it does point to why you and he might end up talking past each other. We will always be talking past anyone else in conversation when we have little or no interest in what somebody else is saying, and stick to reiterating our own views without incorporating any sense of why we might be disagreeing with somebody else. I just want to offer you a sense that you're not alone with the problem of making inappropriate responses to what someone else has said.

That said, "world peace" is a curious concept, when you think about it. You would be wise to ask where we even got the idea in the first place.

Your neighbor may be pissed that the leaves from your tree always end up in his lawn. You have a choice here. Kill him or clean up your leaves. Talking to him turns out to be a good solution if it is followed up by you taking some agreed upon action. It's not rocket science Cito. We get this world peace idea from our interactions with our neighbors.

The Self

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Re: The Self

Re: The Self

Re: The Self

Re: The Self

Re: The Self

Re: The Self

Re: The Self

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