Is It Okay To Be Stupid - Page 17 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Is It Okay To Be Stupid

Yes, It is okay to be stupid
18
46%
No, It is not okay to be stupid
13
33%
Other
8
21%
#14867020
So if you look at the four points, you can reach a conclusion:

(1) the world is real (existence)
(2) the world is an illusion (Perception)
(3) the world is both real and an illusion (our brains perception of existence (mind))
(4) the world is neither real nor an illusion (The things we do not understand or ever have the ability to understand because they are not in a format that we can accept exists)

All four of these propositions are true simultaneously. So he was correct.

With respect, I think you are missing the point, B0ycey. The four propositions contradict each other; they cannot, according to the normal rules of logic, all be true simultaneously. And this is the point. The contradictory nature of reality (or rather, of the way we experience reality) is irreducible and, to use John Keats' phrase, it "doth tease us out of thought". It is similar to the 'koans' of Zen Buddhism - the contemplation of paradox can lead to a sudden enlightenment as it forces you to transcend rational, rule-based thinking. Instead, you are busily trying to make these propositions consistent with each other so they can be incorporated into the system of symbolic, rational thought. This is to render them pointless and trivial.
User avatar
By Beren
#14867021
Potemkin wrote:With respect, I think you are missing the point, B0ycey. The four propositions contradict each other; they cannot, according to the normal rules of logic, all be true simultaneously. And this is the point. The contradictory nature of reality (or rather, of the way we experience reality) is irreducible and, to use John Keats' phrase, it "doth tease us out of thought". It is similar to the 'koans' of Zen Buddhism - the contemplation of paradox can lead to a sudden enlightenment as it forces you to transcend rational, rule-based thinking. Instead, you are busily trying to make these propositions consistent with each other so they can be incorporated into the system of symbolic, rational thought. This is to render them pointless and trivial.

That's been philosophy for today comrades, and now let's do some practical duties and execute those bastards! :lol:
#14867022
That's been philosophy for today comrades, and now let's do some practical duties and execute those bastards! :lol:

The philosophy of the deed! :excited:
By B0ycey
#14867025
Potemkin wrote: With respect, I think you are missing the point, B0ycey. The four propositions contradict each other; they cannot, according to the normal rules of logic, all be true simultaneously. And this is the point.


Well you actually stated the same thing. Not that it matters. When do you or I agree when it comes to philosophical thinking? I have taken the Schrodinger approach to this notion, along with what I believe reality is. You have taken your own path. Hasten to say I don't agree with it. But is it really worth arguing over your opinion? After all, a philosophical opinion cannot actually be wrong to the person who believes it. But I suspect you disagree with that too.
#14867029
Well you actually stated the same thing. Not that it matters.

Ah, but I added the weasel words caveat "according to the normal rules of logic". So that's alright then. Lol. ;)
By B0ycey
#14867033
Potemkin wrote:Ah, but I added the weasel words caveat "according to the normal rules of logic". So that's alright then. Lol. ;)


One thing I have understood about reality, is logic is illogical. It was once illogical to consider time not fixed. Today it is logical to do so. As I said, we read the four sentences and have taken different meanings from them. I am natually someone who looks at problems and reaches my own conclusion from them. You look for quotes from people to back your claim to make an official conclusion. I don't necessarily think that is wrong, but to me philosophical thinking required independent thought. And you cannot have independent thought if you are taking someone else's thinking into your conclusion. But as I said, you actually cannot be wrong and should have a platform to address your opinion nonetheless.
#14867035
You look for quotes from people to back your claim to make an official conclusion. I don't necessarily think that is wrong, but to me philosophical thinking required independent thought. And you cannot have independent thought if you are taking someone else's thinking into your conclusion.

Why ever not? The truth is the truth, no matter who said it. Why refuse to utter a truth just because someone else has uttered it before you? That seems rather perverse to me. And if someone else has already said it, then why not quote them? They probably said it better than I could. Besides, finding that some Chinese guy who lived two millennia ago agrees with me about something is a very satisfying experience. :)
By B0ycey
#14867038
Potemkin wrote:Why ever not? The truth is the truth, no matter who said it. Why refuse to utter a truth just because someone else has uttered it before you? That seems rather perverse to me. And if someone else has already said it, then why not quote them? They probably said it better than I could. Besides, finding that some Chinese guy who lived two millennia ago agrees with me about something is a very satisfying experience. :)


Perhaps, but it is easier to question things and look for meaning if you don't narrow you thoughts to believe in someone elses truths. Perhaps what someone of status believes to be true might not be true at all. Perhaps a lone voice from a million could be speaking the truth. Perhaps that voice could be yours. But how can you air it if all you are doing is quoting someone else? Learning is important. That is your strength. Your weakness is your lack of questioning without foundation. And that is why we disagree alot.
#14867042
Perhaps, but it is easier to question things and look for meaning if you don't narrow you thoughts to believe in someone elses truths. Perhaps what someone of status believes to be true might not be true at all.

You think I trust whatever authority figures tell me? I'm a frickin' Communist, at a time when Communism is about as fashionable as smallpox. Every authority figure is saying that Communism is a busted flush, that it's all utter nonsense. Since when have I ever listened to authority figures? :eh:

Perhaps a lone voice from a million could be speaking the truth. Perhaps that voice could be yours.

Truth is always a social truth. A lone voice speaking the truth, and not being believed or even understood by anyone around him, is not a truth-teller, he's a crank. I am myself a crank, of course.

But how can you air it if all you are doing is quoting someone else? Learning is important. That is your strength. Your weakness is your lack of questioning without foundation. And that is why we disagree alot.

But quoting someone else is not all I do. I question everything. I develop my argument and I marshal my quotations as a general marshals his heavy artillery. It's my way of bombarding the enemy's fortifications, that's all. Lol.
#14867080
Stoned? What has that to do with Buddhism? I think you really don't know fuck all about it if you assume people who practice it are stoned. :lol:
#14867081
Truth is always a social truth. A lone voice speaking the truth, and not being believed or even understood by anyone around him, is not a truth-teller, he's a crank. I am myself a crank, of course.


So who are the truth tellers of PoFo oh wise crank? :?:

I actually really like this thread, it's going in a variety of silly directions. :)
#14867087
So who are the truth tellers of PoFo oh wise crank? :?:

A truth-teller is simply someone who repeats what almost everyone already knows, Mike. Just imagine the most boring and conformist poster on PoFo, and that will be your man (or woman). Only cranks say anything interesting, which may later be accepted by future generations as a 'truth', in which case they will retrospectively be labelled 'truth-tellers'. At the time, of course, they were just cranks. For example, Wegener, who came up with the theory of continental drift about a century ago, was a crank. It was only decades after his death, when his cranky ideas were confirmed by modern science, that he was posthumously labelled a truth-teller. All truth is social truth, Mike. Even scientific 'truth' is based on consensus.
#14867112
A
ll truth is social truth, Mike. Even scientific 'truth' is based on consensus.


Absolutely true. For a great many people truth is what you can get others to believe.

I look at the people who are true believers in what Trump says. In their circles they are the truth tellers. The thing about intelligence is that it makes one harder to fool. It is not OK to be stupid because stupid people are by definition victims.
By B0ycey
#14867150
Potemkin wrote:You think I trust whatever authority figures tell me? I'm a frickin' Communist, at a time when Communism is about as fashionable as smallpox. Every authority figure is saying that Communism is a busted flush, that it's all utter nonsense. Since when have I ever listened to authority figures? :eh:


I'm glad to read you question authority figures. To be honest, I expected nothing less. To question the people who have led us to the era of Brexit and Trump is to at least make them accountable when the shit hits the fan and state back at them 'where is that £350mn a week for the NHS?' But by stating you are a Communist, you are also declaring someone else's ideology and voiding yourself of independent thought. Ultimately Marx will be wrong because of human nature. I have no doubt about that. His ideology was to benefit himself and to use the poverish work-class as pawns to reach his goal by dangling a carrot in front of their faces at a time of 'real' inequality. Had the Russian Revolution occurred in his lifetime, I expect it wouldn't have been just Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin rushing back to Moscow to fulfil their lifelong ambitions. But you can always take one thing from this revolution event nonetheless. Who overall benefited from this so-called Communism? The workers or the elite? Perhaps we should learn from this that any power or hieracrhy given to someone will lead to corruption. Communism sets up the perfect storm for corruption by given the power to the state. I like the concept of Communism because I believe every individual should be equal. But given the choice between liberal democracy or communism, for me it is a no brainer. I might not agree with or like the capitalist model (as it gives great benefit to only a small percentage of people), but you cannot say that it doesn't reward ideas/risk or doesn't promotes growth in terms of social progress. And that has gotten the working class poor in the West out of Victorian age poverty - regardless whether they know it/accept it or not.

Truth is always a social truth. A lone voice speaking the truth, and not being believed or even understood by anyone around him, is not a truth-teller, he's a crank. I am myself a crank, of course.


Then label me a crank.

But quoting someone else is not all I do. I question everything. I develop my argument and I marshal my quotations as a general marshals his heavy artillery. It's my way of bombarding the enemy's fortifications, that's all. Lol.


Quotes give an argument foundation, but it doesn't mean it becomes a truth. You can quote Marx, Engels Stalin, Hitler, Trump, Johnson or anyone from the Tories to back your point. But if you do, I no doubt will question its validity because they believe in truths that benefit themselves - and perhaps are not truths at all.
#14867173
B0ycey wrote: ... Ultimately Marx will be wrong because of human nature. I have no doubt about that. His ideology was to benefit himself and to use the poverish work-class as pawns to reach his goal by dangling a carrot in front of their faces at a time of 'real' inequality. ...

I don't believe that is true. Marx, like his sponsor Engels and many of the early communists, was a true idealist who sincerely wanted to improve society. It is hardly possible to blame him for having a self, like everybody else, that in one way or another wants to assert itself. Revolutionaries today, like in the past, are rarely free of narcissistic self-love that elevates their own being as the sole possessor of the true teaching.

Corruption and material privileges only enter once a communist state has its spoils to distribute.

Anyways, what I tried to explain above holds true: people and movements will invariably deviate from the original intuition of a truth. For example, even if I, as pro-asylum supporter, say something factual but critical about migrants, I risk that my words are being used by xenophobes the moment I have uttered them. That's the scary bit, no matter how careful we chose our words, there is always the risk that they will influence the political discourse in a way opposite to our intention.
#14867175
Godstud wrote:Stoned? What has that to do with Buddhism? I think you really don't know fuck all about it if you assume people who practice it are stoned. :lol:

It is best not to know anything about it. HalleluYah.
#14867181
Absolutely true. For a great many people truth is what you can get others to believe.

Everyone believes they are right about everything. That goes without saying. But that is not what Mike meant by 'truth' - he actually meant a socially accepted truth. After all, one person's 'truth' is another person's 'stupidity' (just read Hindsite's posts if you don't believe me). Anyone who says anything which deviates from the socially accepted consensus of 'the truth' is, by definition, a crank. Of course, cranks are the only people who ever say anything interesting.

I look at the people who are true believers in what Trump says. In their circles they are the truth tellers. The thing about intelligence is that it makes one harder to fool. It is not OK to be stupid because stupid people are by definition victims.

Precisely, DrLee - society is fragmented, to a certain extent, into various factions, each of which has their own socially accepted set of 'truths'. Politics is the process by which these various factions try to impose their various 'truths' on the rest of society.
User avatar
By Wellsy
#14867213
Spoiler: show
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch07.htm
We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world, too, has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed. That in this process there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all other branches of human knowledge, no one will doubt. But we have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life. And now one can gauge Herr Dühring’s presumption in advancing his claim, from the midst of the old class society and on the eve of a social revolution, to impose on the future classless society an eternal morality independent of time and changes in reality. Even assuming — what we do not know up to now — that he understands the structure of the society of the future at least in its main outlines.


Don't often see anyone engage specifically with Marx's conception of human nature except in a vague implicit sense of asserting it somehow incompatiable.
One which can criticize things on their ill fit with the social nature of human beings but can also express how they can express themselves in historically particular ways which are still alienated from the human essence.
[url]https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/marx’s-human-nature-distinguishing-essence-from-essentialism.html[/url]
For Marx, essence and essentialism are distinct but united. Essentialism, however, must fundamentally play a role in how we are to view man’s essence at a given time. Essence is also to be expressed by man’s adaptation to his material circumstances, which are regionally unique and historically changing. Thus, we must blend the rigidness of essentialism and its expression against the backdrop of the socio-political society man finds himself in. In so doing, these constant phrases of man “developing” and “transforming” his “human nature” and/or “human essence,” reach a synthesis. Man’s essentialism is developed and most importantly expressed differently, not because it itself is different, but because circumstances, social relations, material factors, etc., are different.

Thus, the missing link between a constant Marxian human nature and this contrary view held by the previously mentioned authors is expression. How human nature is expressed in a particular socio-economic environment is going to be a part of the total essence of man. No matter what mode of production we view man in, his human nature remains an essential component of his capabilities and needs, but its expression can be alienated, mitigated, or flourishing. The essence of man must consider the expression of human nature in conjunction with other socio-economic particulars of a given historical moment (i.e., dialectically).

If his conception of human nature isn't understood then one can't understand his theory of alienation and how it is given a concrete form in his later works when he no longer uses the term alienation but remains the lynchpin of his theorizing.


The act of quoting someone is distinct from whether or not someone aptly understands the quote.
There is an implicit and common point taught in academia that one should use one's own words to express the ideas of others but cite the source as it illustrate more clearly that one understands.
But the idea of independent thought if it's to be considered as thinking up something on your own doesn't register as an improvement upon reading the thoughts of those who are often smarter than us and have devoted a life time to understanding certain issues/topics.
The idea being why re-invent the wheel when you can simply learn how to make it. Similarly, it's faster to learn from those as opposed to try and come up with such wisdom ourselves.
To which the reason we find such quotes compelling is not that they simply illustrate points we wish to make, but that in some way, their words resonate with us. One is disproportionately bound to find the truths that correspond to their felt sense of reality generally.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/positive/positi.htm
Of course, the thinking of people is formed first of all not by teachers and philosophers, but by the real conditions of their lives.

As Fichte said, the kind of philosophy you choose depends upon the type of person you are. Everyone is attracted to a philosophy which corresponds to the already formed image of his own thinking. He finds in it a mirror which fully presents everything that earlier existed in the form of a vague tendency, an indistinctly expressed allusion. A philosophical system arms the thinking (consciousness) of the individual with self-consciousness, i.e. with a critical look at oneself as if it were from the side, or from the point of view of the experience common to all mankind, of the experience of the history of thinking.

http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/fichte.htm
Fichte insisted that it was necessary to found science on a single principle, but held that such a first principle cannot be derived by philosophical means. Whether you choose a given principle to be the founding principle of your theory of knowledge or not “depends on what sort of person you are” he said. The choice of a theory of knowledge is therefore also an ethical act.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/johann-fichte/#3
It must be granted that the truth of the Wissenschaftslehre's starting point cannot be established by any philosophical means, including its utility as a philosophical first principle. On the contrary—and this is one of Fichte's most characteristic and controversial claims—one already has to be convinced, on wholly extra-philosophical grounds, of the reality of one's own freedom before one can enter into the chain of deductions and arguments that constitute the Wissenschaftslehre. This is the meaning of Fichte's oft-cited assertion that “the kind of philosophy one chooses depends upon the kind of person one is.”

Which is why it's difficult to engage in certain lines of thought and topics because of reflexive dislikes as opposed to curiosity.
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