A question of self identity and comprehension
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igorfrankensteen wrote:The problem, of course, is that effectively no-one has a set of simple principles which are also comprehensive, or a set of clear priorities to govern what happens when principles clash, as any even vaguely useful set of principles obviously will.
I do.
igorfrankensteen wrote:Fascinating, though not really pertinent.
tolman wrote:Would you consider people who do drink alcohol but seem quite capable of behaving themselves when they do drink as being at all wrong/immoral/inferior?
tolman wrote:
Compared to just making a choice not to drink and sticking with it, what is added by declaring it a 'principle'?
tolman wrote:
Would the principle extend to never consuming alcohol at all (such as avoiding any sauces made with wine), or does it allow such consumption as long as it would make becoming intoxicated rather difficult?
Cito di Pense wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:Fascinating, though not really pertinent.
Principles are shortcuts so that you don't have to puzzle out your response to a situation in every case. Theories are principles with experimental evidence behind them. Psychobabble is an example of a set of principles with no experimental evidence behind it consisting of exotic interpretations of experimental evidence. Some people might say their single principle is to puzzle out their response from first principles (the kind they think they didn't make up themselves), but we call those folks 'filosofeezers'.
igorfrankensteen wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:Fascinating, though not really pertinent.
Principles are shortcuts so that you don't have to puzzle out your response to a situation in every case. Theories are principles with experimental evidence behind them. Psychobabble is an example of a set of principles with no experimental evidence behind it consisting of exotic interpretations of experimental evidence. Some people might say their single principle is to puzzle out their response from first principles (the kind they think they didn't make up themselves), but we call those folks 'filosofeezers'.
You have mistakes there. It looks to me as though you mixed contexts together, and failed to appropriately adjust word definitions as you shifted from one to the other.
The word 'principle' in particular, has different shades of meaning and different attributes, depending on the context.
igorfrankensteen wrote:It's a bit similar to the way that the word 'theory' is used. If you try to slip from the hard scientific meaning of the word, into the common street meaning, and then back again, you will either be purposely lying, or simply making a fool of yourself.
igorfrankensteen wrote:Same thing with the word 'principle.' Applying the rigorous requirements of the Scientific context to 'principle,' when you aren't talking about a scientific subject area, is dishonest. So is playing things the other way.
igorfrankensteen wrote:The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things.
igorfrankensteen wrote:When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them.
igorfrankensteen wrote:They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
igorfrankensteen wrote:The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things. When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them. They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
igorfrankensteen wrote:
The word 'principle' in particular, has different shades of meaning and different attributes, depending on the context.
It's a bit similar to the way that the word 'theory' is used. If you try to slip from the hard scientific meaning of the word, into the common street meaning, and then back again, you will either be purposely lying, or simply making a fool of yourself.
Same thing with the word 'principle.' Applying the rigorous requirements of the Scientific context to 'principle,' when you aren't talking about a scientific subject area, is dishonest. So is playing things the other way.
The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things. When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them. They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
Wikipedia wrote:….. evolutionary psychology's primary focus is to derive, especially through the deep analysis of hunter-gatherer culture and primate models, what is the most accurate description of general human predispositions (i.e. our innate "hard-wiring"). And as this understanding grows, it will become more and more feasible to redesign culture itself to be more "user friendly" to its human members, according to some standard . After all, in the ultimate sense, culture (like a computer) is a tool to serve its users. Noted primatologist Frans De Waal asserts, "In the words of Edward Wilson, biology holds us "on a leash" and will let us stray only so far from who we are. We can design our life any way we want, but whether we will thrive depends on how well the life fits human predispositions" [9] Thus, the goals of evolutionary psychology overlap with the science of morality.
Cito di Pense wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:Fascinating, though not really pertinent.
Principles are shortcuts so that you don't have to puzzle out your response to a situation in every case. Theories are principles with experimental evidence behind them. Psychobabble is an example of a set of principles with no experimental evidence behind it consisting of exotic interpretations of experimental evidence. Some people might say their single principle is to puzzle out their response from first principles (the kind they think they didn't make up themselves), but we call those folks 'filosofeezers'.
You have mistakes there. It looks to me as though you mixed contexts together, and failed to appropriately adjust word definitions as you shifted from one to the other.
The word 'principle' in particular, has different shades of meaning and different attributes, depending on the context.
In the swamps of 'different shades of meaning', how does one identify 'mistakes' or 'mixing of contexts'? Probably by failing to wibble about the value of 'different shades of meaning' or the 'identification of context'. That still leaves you the problem of explaining how these 'different shades of meaning' are helpful in any way, as opposed to clouding over the fact that people can't talk about these notions coherently in the first place.igorfrankensteen wrote:It's a bit similar to the way that the word 'theory' is used. If you try to slip from the hard scientific meaning of the word, into the common street meaning, and then back again, you will either be purposely lying, or simply making a fool of yourself.
What context are we in, IF? Science or street? I don't think it's either one where you are concerned. So what's it to be?igorfrankensteen wrote:Same thing with the word 'principle.' Applying the rigorous requirements of the Scientific context to 'principle,' when you aren't talking about a scientific subject area, is dishonest. So is playing things the other way.
What context are we in, IF? I already asked you once, nicely. Next time won't be so nice.igorfrankensteen wrote:The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things.
According to whom? Science or Street? Or just the very crudest of dictionary-cribbing? You don't fucking have a clue, do you?igorfrankensteen wrote:When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them.
What is required, then? Anything? No, I don't fucking think so. The word 'principle' is supposed to astonish, all by itself. If your effectiveness hasn't worked out, you can still talk about your 'principles', but it looks better if they've had some effect. Any effect will do, it doesn't have to be science-y. But you have to declare what it is.igorfrankensteen wrote:They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
Rigidity isn't the same thing as foundation. Foundations often have to be rigid, but rigidity doesn't necessarily create a foundation. If you've ever worked in earthquake country, completely rigid foundations are not ideal. Sometimes rigidity just produces dogma. This is hopeless, IF. It looks as if you're trying to simulate academic sophistication using insights that could be gotten in pursuit of a HS Diploma. Your serious tone is phony from the get-go.
Principles are shortcuts so that you don't have to puzzle out your response to a situation in every case. Theories are principles with experimental evidence behind them.
Psychobabble is an example of a set of principles with no experimental evidence behind it consisting of exotic interpretations of experimental evidence.
What context are we in, IF? Science or street? I don't think it's either one where you are concerned. So what's it to be?
According to whom? Science or Street? Or just the very crudest of dictionary-cribbing? You don't fucking have a clue, do you?
tolman wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things. When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them. They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
Could anyone 'establishing a personal philosophy' do so in the absence of prior experience?
Could any sane person decide to select and stand behind a particular principle without considering the implications of the principle for real-life decision making, with respect to actual past situations or potential future ones
Who would dig a foundation without some idea of what was going to be built upon it, and without knowledge of how foundations worked in general?
Who would dig multiple foundations for parts of some overarching structure without a very good idea of how the various different foundations were going to work together?
You claim to have a set of simple and comprehensive principles and/or some clear set of priority orders for your various principles, yet you seem reluctant to try and give us a meaningful flavour of what they are.
Why is that?
igorfrankensteen wrote:tolman wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:The overall concept of 'principle,' is the idea of starting point; or foundation, or first requirement, or source of other derived things. When establishing a personal philosophy, it is not required that 'principles' have "experimental evidence" to back them up or "prove" them. They only have to be the philosophers' STARTING POINT and FOUNDATION, such that they do not shift or change for him/her depending on the circumstances.
Could anyone 'establishing a personal philosophy' do so in the absence of prior experience?
Could any sane person decide to select and stand behind a particular principle without considering the implications of the principle for real-life decision making, with respect to actual past situations or potential future ones
Who would dig a foundation without some idea of what was going to be built upon it, and without knowledge of how foundations worked in general?
Who would dig multiple foundations for parts of some overarching structure without a very good idea of how the various different foundations were going to work together?
This is EXACTLY what I am trying to get at with this thread. In my experience and observation, MOST people do as you describe, though it's also true that most people don't realize they are "dig[ging] multiple foundations for parts of some overarching structure without a very good idea of how the various different foundations were going to work together." That is what this thread is about.
igorfrankensteen wrote:You claim to have a set of simple and comprehensive principles and/or some clear set of priority orders for your various principles, yet you seem reluctant to try and give us a meaningful flavour of what they are.
Why is that?
I mentioned in passing that I do. Someone asked me to describe my entire personal philosophy and all of my principles, and I ignored them, because (AGAIN) that's not pertinent to the thread subject, and because it would take weeks of writing I would require payment for, and none has been offered.
igorfrankensteen wrote: But I will try to give you an example of how I arrive at what I have, as opposed to what most people have rattling around on a virtual shelf, just behind their equally virtual mind.
I did NOT, by the way, say anything at all about this being "simple." The reason why most people DON'T coordinate the various "principles" they think they have or claim to have, is because it's real work to do so.
Here's an example of an often cited principle that many people claim to hold, but which I thought about for a very long time, before carefully rejecting it:
" The simplest and most direct solutions are usually the best."
igorfrankensteen wrote:
Lots of corporate types especially, like to quote this one, usually right before rolling out a "solution" which consists primarily of saying "everyone shut the fuck up and do what I want, because I'm in charge."
After a GREAT many years of struggle and work, I finally concluded (now some time ago) that the best solutions always require a lot of effort to completely understand the entirety of whatever system one is working within, and that means that the simplest responses are only very very rarely the best, because the world is a very complicated place.
So rather than declaring as my principle, that the SIMPLEST solution is what I want, I would say something more along the lines that the best solution, is an ACTUAL solution, and that means that it has to address all the essential concerns involved, regardless of cost. An associated mini-principle worth mentioning with this, is that "one must accept the cost of doing what one believes is the best or most correct thing to do, OR, accept that one really DOESN'T want to do the best or most correct thing."
There's more to it than that as well, but since this is just an illustration, I'll stop there.
igorfrankensteen wrote:Also, they have nothing at all to do with personal principles, which, AGAIN, is the subject of this thread.
Cito di Pense wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:Also, they have nothing at all to do with personal principles, which, AGAIN, is the subject of this thread.
So far, your rendition of 'principles' is completely abstract, as tolman is pointing out to you. Asking a question "why do you have principles" assumes your conclusion that personal principles are anything but abstractions and generalizations. You can't get away with asking an idiotic question like "Why do you have abstractions and generalizations?" so maybe it's time for you to get to some specifics. Of course, that's your cue to bloviate further about "shades of meaning".
Even if you get people to tell you what their 'personal principles' are, you'll be hearing nothing but anecdotes. If you don't have anything you yourself can call 'personal principles', then it's no wonder you're fishing for examples on the anonymous internet. It's a staple here to ask somebody else to defend a thesis in order for the challenger, from some position of assumed authority, to do the old Socratic dance on it.
The reality seems to be that people referring to 'principles' are typically talking about post-hoc foundations they use to explain a building that's already there.
igorfrankensteen wrote:So rather than declaring as my principle, that the SIMPLEST solution is what I want, I would say something more along the lines that the best solution, is an ACTUAL solution, and that means that it has to address all the essential concerns involved, regardless of cost. An associated mini-principle worth mentioning with this, is that "one must accept the cost of doing what one believes is the best or most correct thing to do, OR, accept that one really DOESN'T want to do the best or most correct thing."
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